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WINDS OF CHANGE

2/19/2011

3 Comments

 


Yesterday, one of my FB friends, Josh Bartlett, posted the account of a young couple’s – and their children - harrowing experience during this months’ people uprising in Cairo, Egypt. Their story really touched me. It’s called The Lotus Revolution – How We Survived the Egypt Riots, and is a detailed written and photographic narrative of the actual events unfolding before their very eyes.  Jon Butcher and his wife Missy (Jon is the author of the post) were in a “unique” position to see it all happen and he shared this incredible tale with us, asking at the same time some rather deep questions regarding how our own personal relationship with our own “ego” – our own “self” is shaped or affected by momentous events in our lives, not in the sense of a selfish approach, but rather pointing at the core of our very being and questioning it.I quote the actual questions here: this is a direct copy/paste from his notes. Please visit http://mylifebook.com/blog/?author=5 to read all about Jon and his family’s exceptional  life-changing experience.

Quote++
What are the most important situations and events you’ve experienced that have shaped you as a human being? Have you ever experienced an event that was so deeply intense, or powerful, or scary or or moving that it changed you to the core?
Unquote++

Do YOU ever stand still and reflect upon how you have evolved over the years, and what it was that made you become what you are today? How it affected you in your relationship with those around you?
If not... perhaps worth considering..?


And with this I leave you to ponder these questions and maybe you will be surprised at the YOU that you will discover deep inside you...

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend – Take care and remember that we are all part of a much larger picture!

Smiles,
Emm xx

(PS: The picture below was taken in Ano Kerdilia – a village just a few kilometres from where we live.  I decided to add it here, because when I read Jon’s story I could not help but build a mental bridge to what my husband and I had learned when we visited the Kerdilia memorial site that has been erected in honour of the men and boys who were slaughtered  in Ano and Kato Kerdilia at the hands of the German SS during the Second World War. These brutal events had lain shrouded in silence for so long because there is a great stigma attached to them.  The two villages were completely burnt down... I remember standing there, up high, wondering how the women-folk and children who were made to witness these killings had managed their lives subsequently... Doesn't bear thinking about...  I have documented this story and will post it in Emma’s Chronicles immediately following the Olive Pickers Saga.)


Picture
The Kerdilia Memorial - Serron Prefecture, Northern Greece (photo emmakay) Dec 2010
3 Comments

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! ... and a BIG surprise!

2/14/2011

2 Comments

 
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Roses are NOT always red, my love!
To all of you - Happy Valentine's Day...!
And what a day it has been!
It was just wonderful, although it did not really start off that well.
Hubs has been "under the weather"  today, well, at least this morning. We'd been up working till nearly 3:00 am - you know how it is with the internet!  So, when we finally decided to tackle the day mid-morning, I suggested that since today was a special day, a day for lovers and love, and all that, perhaps we should just pack our laptops and go sit by the sea, maybe even splash out and have a spot of lunch, thinking that it always makes him feel better to be outside in the fresh air and under the sun, although, to be truthful, there was little sun to be seen at that moment.
I received one of his very typical replies to my suggestion:
"Oh, and here's me thinking we have Valentine's Day every day of the year!!
Grin! 
"Except for Christmas Day, of course - Christmas Day is Christmas Day, can't change that..."
Another, bigger grin...!
<Sigh>... that British sense of humour!
Anyways, that was settled then. We'd go out.

I then made the "mistake" of getting online, slipping through the backdoor to take a peep inside Facebook, wanting to leave a message of Valentine's Day wishes on my wall...
Mistake... BIG mistake...! Well, not really a mistake but we didn't leave until about 2 pm!

What happened, I hear you ask?
Let me tell you.
When hubs enquired as to what I was doing, I explained that I had posted one of my favourite Greek love songs, S'Agapo, on my wall at FB, whereupon he suggested I could also put OUR song on, in other words, the German song I introduced him to more than 30 years ago, called DU, by Peter Maffay. What a brilliant idea I thought and did a YouTube search for a version we had discovered sometime last year, which we both loved very much. The "live" versions of the olden days can be a bit lacking in audio quality, but that particular one I had in mind was pretty good. Couldn't find it, though, so I went in search of an acceptable alternative and stumbled upon a young Romanian by the name of Aldo Blaga who had posted his own rendition of that famous song. Normally, I immediately switch off - or don't even open up- songs that aren't sung by performers I know, but my eye had caught a couple of comments below the YouTube screen and I gave it a go.
Guess what happened next?
We were hooked, and we went through several online performances of songs this young man had posted. It was really awesome, to borrow an American expression which is quite befitting here!
At some point, hubs and I literally dragged ourselves away from the laptop and got ready - there would be little point in going out if we procrastinated any longer...

As far as Aldo is concerned: he's got two new fans here now!

Back to the Special Day...
We'd left things so long that we decided to go straight for a bite to eat at one of our favourite places in Asprovalta. One of the Chefs there has become a good friend over the years and he greeted us with a big smile as soon as we came in, wishing us Xronia Polla - a phrase used in Greece for any celebration, meaning "many happy returns of the day" or something similar and precludes the wish relevant to the particular day. So today it was Xronia Polla for all the Valentines and Valentinas...

We had a delicious vegan lunch of "home-made" veggie dishes, all freshly cooked - my mouth is watering as I write this! Hubs had by then picked up considerably and was enjoying a little carafe of a highly palatable red table wine, of which I drank a couple of swigs, very much diluted with water, so that I could have a "Yamas!" - Cheers! - with our friends. You just CAN'T drink to anyone's health with a glass of water here...! (I don't normally take much notice of that, since I am a devout water drinker, but allowed myself a mouthful under the circumstances!)

At the end of the meal when I went over to settle the bill, I had a chat with the owner who was sitting at the counter, behind a computer screen, and somehow we got talking about internet, Facebook, websites etc. He was looking into setting up a site about the restaurant and I told him about my site, how I had managed to weave my way through all the bits and bobs that make instant website creation a pleasure to deal with and asked him if he wanted to see what I had managed to do so far. He did want to see. And that's when I had the SURPRISE of my life!

I'm definitely not one to re-hash old blog posts, but perhaps you can remember the one I posted about LOVE IS a little while ago - should have kept it for today, come to think of it! - where at the end of my post I add a picture taken in Asprovalta on a sunny day sometime in autumn last year. A little boy kissing a little girl on the cheek... I'd seen a group of kids with adults on the promenade and had asked if anyone objected me taking some photographs.

Now imagine this: here I am standing next to our friend the restaurant owner showing him how easy it is to include pictures in blogs, or anywhere really, and I scroll down to show him that particular picture... he looks at it and I see his mouth drop, literally, and he exclaims in utter surprise: That's my son! That's our Alex...!!!! He looked at me totally perplexed; I in turn must have had a really dumb look on my face. I didn't know his youngest son, I'd seen the elder kids but had no idea AT ALL that the shot I took that particular afternoon was of his youngest kissing the girl! He was thrilled to bits, absolutely over the moon and called the staff over to have a look. The place was relatively empty at that time, we had been rather late, so the customers were not really neglected, but with waiters and kitchen staff alike milling around the two of us at the PC, the poor clients were the last thing on our minds! :-)  We all had a good laugh about it - what a coincidence! Life can be strange at time, can't it just!

In hindsight, I reflected, I'm really, really happy that it is my policy to ALWAYS, without exception, ask if I can take a shot if children are in the picture, in fact, if anyone recognizable is in the picture. I'd hate to find out that some irate parent would accidentally stumble across my display and take offence. It goes to show how easily one can find oneself in troubled waters!
This time round, though, seeing the picture of his son like that made the father so happy that he wanted to share it with the world... In fact, we downloaded it onto his desktop and I promised I'd send him the other shots I had...
Fancy that happening!

And that's it for today... I'm now happily tired; hubs has sufficiently recovered from I'd say being overworked, that he's enjoying... guess what? ... yes... some more Aldo Blaga!

And since neither of us is a selfish person, let me share with you the song he's listening to at this very moment - a fitting end of what we call a really "Smashing" Day...!

"Lady in Red" - Aldo's take on Chris de Burgh's cover.
Hubs has played it five times this evening, to my knowledge!
All I can say before signing off is: ENJOY!

Smiles,
Emm xx

2 Comments

Human nature - good or bad... or perhaps indifferent ??

2/10/2011

4 Comments

 
Recently, there have been several occasions where I have been confronted with the notion of good vs bad in its various forms, and it is a subject that holds my attention and to which I try to find answers that satisfy me. One of the things that really made me go "WOW" in more than one way was the following  real-life "story" sent to me by a friend. Apparently the actual happening made headlines in the US sometime early January. I confess not to have seen the message before.Personally, it made me swallow several times - I had a hard time holding my tears back, but failed miserably, I admit without shame.

There's an awful lot of BAD out there in the world - I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new here.
But once in a while we find that there are still people capable of showing what it means to be human, and in fact are prepared to bend, indeed go against the house rules, even if their job is on the line.
Don't let me hold you any longer - judge for yourself ... remember, it's quite an emotional story, so keep the tissues handy!


Quote++
Last night, my husband and I got the tragic news that our three-year-old grandson in Denver had been murdered by our daughter’s live-in boyfriend.
He is being taken off life support tonight at 9 o’clock and his parents have opted for organ donation, which will take place immediately.
Over 25 people will receive his gift tonight and many lives will be saved.
This morning, after only a couple hours sleep, my husband and I began to make all arrangements to get him to Denver to be with our daughter.
He is currently on business in LA and is flying Southwest.
While his employer, Northrop Grumman, made arrangements to get his ticket changed so he could get to Tucson today (which he had to do in order to not spend any extra money) I called Southwest to arrange his flight from Tucson to Denver so he would be stepping off one plane and getting on another.
He has several free flights with them so I couldn’t really do it on the website.
The ticketing agent was holding back tears throughout the call.
I’m actually her step mother and it’s much more important for my husband to be there than for me to be there.
In LAX, the lines to both check a bag and get through security were exceptional.
He got to the airport two hours early and was still late getting to his plane.
Every step of the way, he’s on the verge of tears and trying to get assistance from both TSA and Southwest employees to get to his plane on time. 
According to him, everyone he talked to couldn’t have cared less.
When he was done with security, he grabbed his computer bag, shoes and belt and ran to his terminal in his stocking feet.
When he got there, the pilot of his plane and the ticketing agent both said, “Are you Mark? We held the plane for you and we’re so sorry about the loss of your grandson.”
The pilot held the plane that was supposed to take off at 11:50 until 12:02 when my husband got there.
As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”
The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”
My husband was able to take his first deep breath of the day.
I don’t know any other airline that would have done this.
Unquote++

... I'm sure you're touched...

Undoubtedly, there will have been many grumbling and unhappy passengers on that plane, wondering "what-the-hell-is-happening-now" or words to that effect, while they sat and waited to be airborne,  and many among them would have had valid grounds to protest against the delay - late or even missed appointments, missing connections...to name but a few.
Yet the airline pilot made a very conscious decision to hold that plane... he knew that the most important person on that plane was not some VIP or company CEO on a business flight, but a bereaved father who desperately needed to be with his daughter in her hour of need to help her through the pain of losing her child.
I cannot possibly venture a guess at how many pilots would have made the same decision... all I can say is that this man deserves my absolute respect for refuting the rules and showing what it means to be "human".

The world could do with more of these "human" pilots that steer us safely through all sorts of difficult moments ...
At the same time I also wonder about the other people at the airport who were in a position to show "human kindness" and miserably failed to do so...  I'm not implying these people were bad or doing someting bad. It's more a case of being "indifferent"... It makes me wonder though how they slept that night...

As Einstein said: "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

I hope I have given you something to reflect on...

As always,

Smiles,

Emm

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~ The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul. ~ Walter Raleigh
4 Comments

    Author

    Greetings,
    I'm Emma, better known as Emm among those who know me well enough. I am a Daughter of Mother Earth, and in my little family we are all blessed with what I call "The Globetrotter Gene". We have spent more than three decades roaming the planet until a few years ago we decided to set up camp in the Balkans, and since then we call home where we put our feet under a table in either Greece or her northern neighbour, Bulgaria. 
    I welcome you to Emma's Blog - it was created with a view to sharing happenings and thoughts related to our journey through life. I thank you for stopping by and hope you are enjoying the ride ... Feel free to share the experience!...
    Emm

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