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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.

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