Skip to main content

My Journey to a Ceremony

Just the other day I was invited to take part to a ceremony celebrating the Asian Food Heritage (do you think I could have missed that?). The food was great, the speakers were amazing chefs, each one sharing his (or her) journey, and at the same time presenting a special dish they had prepared for us. It is was a great event.

It was also an opportunity to launch a couple of promotional videos for the organization that had put together the event, and I happened to be in one of them. I was a star for one evening.

Towards the end of the ceremony, one of the producers of the video came to me and just said: "what a coincidence that you talked about your country Burundi in the video, and now Burundi is all over the news!"

He was right. About thirteen years ago, when I first came to Canada, I had hard time explaining to people where my country was located. Very few people had heard of Burundi. I had to tell them that Burundi is South of Rwanda in Africa.

Fast forward, now I can even see pictures of Burundi in the Toronto local newspapers. They are not nice pictures to see as what is happening down there is not something to be proud of.

As I am writing this blog, I am at the same time communicating with somebody who just crossed the border with his young family looking for a place to stay in Rwanda. This is so sad.

Just a few hours ago, I received a phone call from someone asking me if I could convince my mother to leave the country as well.

Please let's all keep Burundi in our prayers.

Always a pleasure

Patrick
The Journeyman.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Journey to my wedding

Where do I start? I don't really know. As I am waiting for my flight at Kigali airport, with tears in my eyes, I am thinking about the last few days. There are no words that can explain what I have experienced in this month of December 2010. As Phil Collins said, it's another day in paradise. The person who said that words are powerful was so right. It took a few words from my then girlfriend, now wife (are you kidding me!!!!), to start a series of events that led me to this moment. She just said: “Honey, this long distance thing is killing me”. Having been in a couple of long distance relationships, I knew what she meant. This time, it was different. I had to do something, otherwise, this relationship would end up like the other ones. I had promised myself to do whatever it took to make this one work. As I hung up the phone, I thought I had to move mountains. I had to find a way to meet her. Originally, my intention was to visit her in July 2011, however, this felt like a cent

My Journey to my meeting with Bob Proctor

He is a hero of mine, I have studied his material for years, I had met him once and at that time he even signed one of the books he gave to me. But, spending three hours in an intimate setting, hearing him calling my name, him talking to me from a few feet away was just a dream come true. Bob Proctor is simply a genius. He has been studying the laws of success for over fifty years, but he has a simple way of explaining things that I found myself saying “wow” all the time. I have listened to his audios, read his book and saw hundreds of his videos. It has come to the point where I can finish his sentences before he finishes them. But seeing him live telling his story is another thing. Call me crazy, but I just believe that I will end up working with him. I don't know how or when this is going to happen, but I know I will. It is with the same belief that I know I will one day meet Michael Jordan and Nelson Mandela (being with Pathe'O few weeks ago made me feel I am not that far

My Journey to a meeting with Gandhi

You must be thinking that I lost my mind when I say that I met Gandhi. Don't worry. I am doing fine. I met him only in a story that I heard. Do you want to hear it? I know you do. So I will tell the story Long time ago, there was a lady in India whose son was eating too much sugar. She tried so many times in vain to ask him to stop eating sugar. After a while, she thought that Gandhi could help. She took her son to Gandhi and begged him to tell him to stop eating sugar. He carefully listen to the lady, and then went: “Please come back in two weeks, I will be able to help you” Two weeks later, the lady came back to see Gandhi. The Mahatma looked in the young boy's eyes and told him: “Please stop eating too much sugar”. That was it. The lady could not believe it. “Do you mean I had to wait two weeks for you to ask my son to stop eating sugar” she said. “Why couldn't tell him in the first place?” Then, Gandhi simply said: “You see madam. Two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar