Thursday, 19 September 2019

MSF .... 30 years later

Tonight I helped out the MSF Canada fundraising team during an event for regular and larger donors to the organization. It is now 31 years ago that I started working for them in November 1988.... The world in which the current staff members - some 42,000 around the world - work in is more complex.


One of the auditoriums at the University of Toronto was well filled with interested donors who came to listen to several current experts of MSF on the topic of how global warming is already impacting global security and health. One of the speakers talked about water and sanitation. After field work he now is a researcher at York University in the team led by our friend James Orbinski, who was one of the former International Presidents of the MSF movement (he gave the acceptance speech on behalf of MSF in Norway when we were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999).


Saturday, 14 September 2019

Amsterdam........again

Our friend Age in Amsterdam became "Opa" (grandfather) a year and half ago. His son Marnix (who grew up and was educated in the US) and his wife and son live & work in Amsterdam at the moment. That means Age & Lea get to take care of the little Hank every now and then. Today was one of those days. In fact the first two days in a row including a night sleep over. Little Hank is a spitting image of his Dad Marnix who I saw several times during his first 5-6 years....



Of course :Oma" Lea keeps a close eye on all of the "taking care off".... Once Hank left again with his parents, Age & Lea took me out for a few hours on their boat along the beautiful canals of the city of Amsterdam. One can never get enough of that....



We pulled for a while a stranded little boat full of students. Oh to be young......


We passed on one of the canals the house where I lived from 1984 to 1988....


Another short but good fun 22 hours in my dear old Amsterdam....

Friday, 13 September 2019

Chernobyl 30 years after

Today we had the opportunity to visit the "Zone" around the Chernobyl nuclear plant which caused a world shocking disaster 30 years ago. We were two of more than 600 visitors today. Probably close to 100,000 visitors will go there this year and they come from all over the world. The monument above was put together by local folks to honor the firefighters who came right after the explosion to do what they could (which was not much, but their call to duty made their life afterwards very short). It also offers the clean-up folks (thousands of them) who did the initial recovery and clean-up work as well as the medical staff who assisted them. Most of them did not live long to tell their stories....

The initial metal & cement hull the soviets erected around the exploded plant #3 was a rush job and would only last 30-40 years. Afterwards the world stepped in and engineers from all over the world did an incredible job constructing a huge hull around the disaster site. It was finished in 2017 and inside robot cranes and tools have now begun to dismantle the damaged reactor (because otherwise it would pose a danger during another 2,000 years or so). I can recommend a recent HBO documentary on this work; the engineering done was amazing.

While the radiation nowadays is very low, the initial radiation during the days and weeks after the reactor explosion made living in a radius of about 30 kilometers impossible. We walked through the city which was built by the soviets as a "city of the future". It turned out quite different and the buildings are starting to be taken over by nature again. The disaster happened on April 26, 1989, just a few days before the annual May 1 Labor Day celebrations. The amusement park was going to be officially opened that day. It never opened....such a sad sight.

The building with the Olympic pool is another sad reminder of how terribly wrong things went in the community erected around an ambitious nuclear power project which was not well designed and poorly managed. The world was shocked but also learned valuable lessons for future nuclear power generation plants. Most of the engineers and technicians who worked in the plant had young families with children. The two photos below of a deserted child care center are a reminder of that.

What a humbling day this was. So much food for thought. Also so much learning on what was done afterwards by tens of thousands of people to contain the disaster. The good, bad and ugly all in one day at a distance of just two hours driving from the 7 million city of Kiev....

Thursday, 12 September 2019

Working with agencies

Good session today with representatives of about 15 agencies here in Ukraine. The Ambassador had to send his last-moment regrets but his Senior Trade Commissioner did a good job on his behalf.



Wednesday, 11 September 2019

Kiev, Ukraine

A few days in Kiev, Ukraine, for a promotional event about "Study at Seneca" attended by the Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine. Arrived yesterday and went for a walk through the "older" part of this city with about 7 million people. Good coffee available as nowadays pretty much everywhere in this very globalized world.....


In June 2014 around this square were protests during a few months to keep the democratization of the country going which resulted in a change of government (making sure that reforms started after the "orange revolution" of 2004 were being continued). Fascinating political developments....
And of course the North American hamburger made its way here as well. Lots of amazing traditional dishes remain though. Also beautiful parks and views + traditional orthodox churches....




Also many street musicians. These two fellows play traditional guitar/harps (forgive me for forgetting the correct names of the instruments - blame the jet lag....)

Thursday, 5 September 2019

Few days Panama City


On the way back from Medellin, a few days in Panama City. I was here for some business development two years ago. This time it is super hot & humid.... After a few meetings, we attended an opening event for a student fair hosted by the Canadian Ambassador in Panama....


Monday, 2 September 2019

Weekend Medellin

I caught a cold during my travel here on Tuesday/Wednesday. After a long day on Thursday at SENA (see previous post), I ended up doing a lot of sleeping during the weekend. But with a nice view from my hotel room over this lively city. Plus some time to read a good book at the roof terrace of the hotel (The President is missing by Bill Clinton & James Patterson)...
Made a few good walks (lots of it uphill!) and had some good coffees here and there. On the Monday we attended a meeting at the "Assamblea" of the provincial government of Antioquia. Tomorrow back to Panama City for a few days of business development meetings.