To Give or Not to Give

Some of us give and some of us don’t give. Some of us have time and some of us don’t have time. Some of us have money and some of us don’t have money. Some of us are kind and some of us are unkind. Some of us are hopeful some of us are unhopeful. There is no need for anybody to find an excuse for not doing or being what the others do.

I decided to become a volunteer long time ago. I was a volunteer in Argentina in the Mother Theresa’s home already when I was 12 and 13. It was related to school but we would collect clothing for the homes, build games for the kids and go visit the homes. It was a first experience to giving and receiving. It then continued with various small activities in Prague, and then the major cleaning up in Prague after the Prague floods in 2002. You have a house far away from the river, which doesn’t get flooded. You go to the center of the city every week to enjoy of its tranquility and beauty and magic and then one day you arrive from holidays and its all flooded destroyed and business unable to run. How can you just sit at your house on top of the hill and stay there? I also helped out for a few weeks in an office of an NGO in Sydney and now it has gotten all more stable and real in Paris in the Red Cross.

For me it is time that I can and like to give. I like to work with people and help a little bit out, you can never revolutionize the world, but you can always bring a small smile to at least one person. It is frustrating at times to see that some situations don’t improve but its always good to hear that somebody was waiting for your arrival and is happy to see you. I do not judge the people that don’t give time, everybody can donate or not donate. I do think that things would work much better if everybody donated at least 15 minutes a week to help someone who is in problems, but after all people are consumed in their own world and many times unable and/or unwilling to give.

As I say, I respect everybody and their decisions to donate or not donate be it time or money. Nevertheless, I can not stand those hypocrites that do not allow volunteers do their work. Some people cut off your resources so that you won’t be able to help out. This refers to a particular problem that arrived last week. Live and let live, and don’t get in the middle of the actions of someone who is trying to help someone else. Some people are simply extremely disrespectful. The same goes for the governments that do not allow the NGOs to access to their countries to save the lives of those that are at risk, in particular at moments when a second might mean the difference between life and death.

Also, why are people always looking for excuses? If I say I volunteer why do people reply with “oh I don’t have time, oh my life is too busy? Oh I cant deal with homeless people”. Did I ask you why you don’t do it? Did I ask you to donate money or time? I don’t see why people look for excuses when they are not even forced to do something. I don’t do it because I’m forced but because I enjoy it. In fact, after all we all face and will face big problems at some point in our lives, even the most unforecastable of problems. Some of us might end up homeless in the streets, others might end up in the hospital being extremely sick with no medication to cure ourselves- lets be realistic, shit happens. Why not help someone while you can?

Why do people come to me to tell me that they could never travel to “such poor and dirty countries” or that they could never work in humanitarian jobs as “they are not well remunerated”. Did I ever ask anybody to volunteer or to travel to poor countries? I do not do these activities because I feel that I am forced to do it, if I felt forced I could not even enjoy it. I don’t believe I own anything to the community nor that I must do good for the community. It is simply something I like to do and I wish that if I ever really need help somebody will help me out. In the mean time everybody can choose their style of life without needing to give me excuses on why they don’t give time or money.

Live and Give or Live and Let Give. They are both good so stop giving me excuses.

Paris et les Parisiens

Once again I will admit that I forgot I had a blog for a while. Once my memory came back to me I then was either too busy or a bit lazy to write a proper entry, and what is a proper entry? I don’t know. However, I’m back and ready to entertain you, or not so much, with a small entry on the Parisians and French Life. One year ago the entries were about trips trips and more trips I was in the middle of my around the world trip and about to embark on a plane direction Bangkok to start the Asia part of my trip.

Now, I’m in Paris but that in itself is a daily adventure with millions of places to discover and see. After all as many people say Paris is magical, for me it still remains as a mix of small cozy Prague and southern European Barcelona. I still don’t find that “romanticism” in the city that tourists and Parisian lovers keep giving to it, but I like to walk through the small alleys and corners of the city. In fact it is these hidden corners that bring the magic to this city rather than the big famous places. I do not like the Eiffel Tower, and I don’t particularly like to walk in the Champs Elyesses. As a tourist it is a Must, but once the must is done I am unable to find the beauty in the metal structure who welcomed its first visitors in 1898 for the universal exposition…. Sure the lighting at night of the tower is nice but. . . .

It is the parks that I like about this city. Only and only if my computer had wifi and would not need to be plugged every minute in order to remain alive would I be able to write this from a park. There are so many parks everywhere and now that the summer has arrived the French love to do their little picnics in the parks and in the bridges, in particular “pont des arts” infront of the Louvre….as they say it “on va picniquer?” (however that is spelled it means “ are we going to do our picnic?”). Their wine, cheese, and of course a little thing to put under their ass not to get too dirty while they drink their wine. The summer and the heat have arrived and the French bring all their class and elegance to their picnics…very cute and nice to see and a great experience to join one of these French picnics. Brining candles, wine ,cheese and foie to the middle of a bridge with a beautiful mantel just makes the Parisians a bit more Parisian. Must be seen with your own eyes.

When I first read the book a Year in the Merde or Talk to the Snail by Stephen Clarke I thought that he was nothing more than a foreigner living in France unable to adapt to the country. He described the French and how hard it was to live here, how shitty it was and in his second book he wrote about how to understand the French. I do have to say that after a 5 month immersion in the French culture I start believing the book had quite a bit of truth in it. I like life here and I don’t seem to find it as hard as Stephen did, but if you want to become a Parisian citizen you definitively have to undergo quite a lot of mental and physical tests. In these 5 months I have wasted a lot of precious time trying to deal with people that work slow, or don’t work and make you pick up a form here and there. Im not even counting my 7 months at HEC as that was an immersion in the world of foreigners in the middle of a forest. However since my arrival in the capital on the 1st of March 2008 I have undergone the pleasant and not so pleasant experience of French burocary. Papers and more papers and another paper in order to get a signature for the first paper. A small anecdote: Changing the address in a French bank in particular in mine took me 5 weeks. I wanted to go on Monday but the agency didn’t open till 9 o clock, making me wait till the next saturday. Next Saturday, I headed to the office early in the morning I was told to return the following Monday as the bank woman was unable to understand that I can not go to the bank from Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 as I also work. So since they couldn’t change my address, I got an appointment to change my address, this appointment was given to me for 3 weeks afterwards. Once I went there 3 weeks afterwards they took 2 seconds to click on a computer screen. Amazingly they were unable to spend these 2 seconds 3 weeks before. I then said “so the transfer of address is done? I’m finally a member of this agency? Can you check if my rent has been payed?” The response-in a blunt tone- was that unfortunately only the electronical transfer had been done, I now needed to wait one more week in order for the official transfer of my “dossier” to this agency and that only then would they be able to help me.

All the respect for the French, I have met some amazing French people, friendly nice and open, but for the rest with their “honnêtement” “donc” “franchement” “ la vérité” “ c est pas évident” it seems like they are constantly complaining. It might just be an issue of language difference, but I have never seen a society complain as much as the French do, or maybe I should say the Parisians? Lord! It’s a matter of sitting in the metro and listening to them… But once again, respect for those people I have met at work and in my other activities which have been relaxed and willing to accept my unfrench accent without looking at me like an idiot cuz I used the wrong article infront of the noun.

Getting to these kind people, I am starting to be taught day after day a lot of words by everybody “avoir la peche” “etre a la deche” “ perdre le froc” “ etre a cote de la plaque” “faire chier” “ etre a la bourre” and many more …I like it, eventually ill move into speaking a more proper street French!! For now I’m writing them all down!! Lets face it after 5 months of being on my own and living on my own in Paris I have started to get used to its routines, my routines and I have started to liked it. My weekly volunteering with the French, working in French with the French and talking in French with my neighbors. It seems that finally I don’t only move around the expat communities, although most of my friends are foreigners, its good to know that at least I have a small foot into the French community. When I stop to think about it, last year I couldn’t really speak proper French while now I can clearly say that “ je me fais chier pour le gogole qui m a dans son colimateur”. . . . With the bad and the good I’m finally starting to “role” in the French society. So the question is, which language to learn next?? I keep my list with Portuguese, Russian, Hindi and the relearning of Japanese. . . Which one to choose???