Skip to main content

My Journey Back to Montreal


I recently returned from a three day trip to Montreal where I hosted an event organized by "Ishaka", a Burundian traditional dance group from Ottawa. This is the second time that these ladies have asked me to be the MC of their event.

The trip was also an opportunity to get away from the usual and get a little bit of rest.  The event was phenomenal. It was close to perfection. The group's preparedness, their professionalism and their excellence made me feel proud to be Burundian. I have hosted many events over the past years, but I have never experienced anything like this. I had the opportunity to work with backstage producers, sound engineers and stage managers...It was a blast!

The beautiful Theatre Outremont was full to capacity and the crowd was really into it. The music and the dances were well performed by the young ladies with their beautiful smiles. I could tell they were having fun.

As I arrived early to the venue for the rehearsals, I was moved to tears while watching them perform a Burundian traditional dance over Bob Marley's song "One love". Wow! It was something.  When the real show was about to wrap up, my good friends Nicolas and Kijanya performed a song accompanied by the famous Burundian drummers. Man, I can't stop thinking about it. It was a great moment.

From what I could see, these ladies took their passion very seriously. They worked long and hard and asked for help when needed. Most of all, they worked perfectly as a team with no ego involved; and if I am not mistaken, this is the recipe for success. Find a passion, work hard, have fun while doing it, be humble to ask for help when needed and shoot for excellence. Ishaka does it, and they do it so well. 

Thanks a lot ladies for your inspiration. You made my day on Saturday!

Moral of the story? How about you tell me?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Journey to two stories

I participated in a communication's course last week-end. Talk about being at the right place at the right time. It was unbelievable! Do you know what was the emphasis in the course? Guess! It was communication in relationships! No comment! Lol During the course, I reflected on two stories that I would like to share with you (free of charge of course). Here they are: There was an old guy who was sleeping in his couch. His grandkids came over while he was sleeping and placed a piece of cheese under his nose. Soon after, the guy woke up and exclaimed: “this room stinks!” He went into the kitchen and said again: “This kitchen stinks as well, maybe I should go outside”. He went outside, but still the same smell was around. Finally, in disgust he shouted: “The whole world stinks”. Little did he realize that the scent came from the cheese that was under his nose. Did you like that story? If not, I won’t share the next one. ..........Okay, okay, seeing that you insist, I wi...

My Journey to Orillia

We drove a little bit late at night. I had been to this place called Orillia before, but it was about ten years ago. I didn’t remember much about it, other than it was beautiful. Here we were on the road, and there was not much we could see, except a signal on the highway that said “beware of cattle”. We thought it was funny.   By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was almost midnight. I went straight to bed. We had to wake up early in the morning as breakfast was scheduled to be served a six O’clock. There was no way I was going to miss out.‎ You may be wondering what was happening in Orillia. I am glad you asked. A number of months ago, Paul, my business partner, got this brilliant idea, and once he shared it with me I was totally on board. He realized that for us to do what we wanted to do, we must work with partners. These may be service providers, or simply other business owners with goals similar to ours. Paul decided to go out and attend different netwo...

My Journey to a New Passion

I  really don’t know how I am standing now and not sleeping. Last night I slept only a couple of hours. Do you know what I was doing? I was watching documentaries. It is my new passion now. I remember one of my coaches saying how Netflix could be a dangerous thing when you don’t pay attention. How true were his words! After a movie or a documentary, Netflix always suggests one or two more documentaries similar to what you just watched; and I found myself saying yes to all of them. Before I knew, it was five o’clock in the morning. It is crazy. However, I learned so much from those documentaries. I went from politics to business, from fashion to music. And from Basketball to…I don’t even remember. I think the last one I watched was on Tony Robbins. It was fascinating. While browsing the Internet, I bumped into a short video. It was so amazing that I watched it several times, and even sent it to a number of friends. My friend Roger wrote me back to say that it felt like the ...