2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 2000 - Chapter 11 | Panama was my second project with the bizarre company I had just joined but it felt like the first where I truly immersed myself into the ‘not just a job, a lifestyle’ catchy slogan they hooked me with (funnily enough, bullshit peddlers are quite good at tacky catchphrases - who knew?). Of course, it had to do with being in a place much further, much more exotic and much less familiar than
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 2000 - Chapter 10 | This chapter and the next twelve, will follow each other in very rapid succession, like travel machine gun bursts. At the beginning of 2000, following a chance encounter with an old friend, I applied to a bizarre company, based in Madrid. It produced country advertorials for leading newspapers and magazines. In teams of two or three people, all young and eager – average age: mid-twenties –,
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1999 Chapter 9 | The next one is an itinerant chapter. Towards the end of my stay in Chile, I felt serious job fatigue. I had been working on the same project for three years and it was reaching a natural end. I started dreaming of a long trip through South America. One afternoon, while bored at the office, I sent my cousin an e-mail. Just a few lines with a rough itinerary laid out and a question: “are you do
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1996-2000 - Chapter 8 | Chile is a very, very dear chapter. I left intending to spend only 6 months in Santiago, for an internship that was part of my master’s degree. I ended up staying almost 4 years. These were my first steps as an adult (though, at 46, I still struggle to use the word ‘adult’ without having my inner child chuckle insolently). The first time living under a roof other than parental. My first
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1990-1995 - Chapter 7 | I am at the height of adolescence when we move back to Belgium from Washington. I only have the last year of high school to complete. We left the US too soon, too unexpectedly. I am back in my hometown but I feel like a total stranger, suspended in mid-air. Academically too, everything is different. From classrooms where no one shares the same nationality and most kids have mixed parent
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1987-1990 - Chapter 6 | I spent my teenage years in the United States of America's grand ol' capital, Washington DC. The only taste I had had of the US so far was a trip to Florida five years previously. You will forgive me for thinking I was moving to Disney World. After all, it was the land of multi-color cereal, giant ice-cream sundaes, entertainment sports, lunar landings and cartoons. To me, as it probabl
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1983-1987 - Chapter 5 | Aged nine, after 4 years in Spain, I moved back to Belgium. In this period, I nurtured the first real memories of my home country, still in the small village of Tervuren. Although part of the greater (bilingual) Brussels suburbia, it is, politically, in Flanders. The reality of our plural, diverse, nation, so small in size and population but split across such hard linguistic lines, hit
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1978-1982 - Chapter 4 | At the age of 5, I moved to Madrid with my family. Spain had just readopted democracy, after decades of isolation under Franco’s dictatorship. It was busy trying to join the European Community and bursting with quiet, fragile optimism. Of course, all this flew miles over my primary-school-kid head, though I do vividly remember the failed coup Antonio Tejero attempted in Parliament in 19
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1976-1978 - Chapter 3 | Back from Congo. We spend a 2-year stint in Belgium. We lived in a tiny house off the main square in the village of Tervuren, in the outskirts of Brussels' greater suburbia. Coincidentally, just a few hundred meters away, lay Leopold II's gigantic ex-palace, by then already a museum and research institute dedicated to Central Africa. Leopold II was a megalomaniac king, very frustrated w
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1973-1976 - Chapter 2 | I spent the first few years of my life in the D.R. Congo. My father was a young stagiaire-diplomat in the Belgian consulate in Lubumbashi, the 2nd biggest city of what was still known as Zaire back then. I am told that because I was looked after by a Lingala-speaking nanny, the first words I pronounced were in that language. My parents affectionately called my older brother and I the "S
2020, the world is in confinement because of a corona virus. I have used this time to reminisce on my past through a musical blog series. They will take you through my peregrinations on this tiny, unique earth, in chronological order. Click on the song, use it as soundtrack, and enjoy! 1973 - Chapter 1 | This is where it all began... My beloved Belgium, whose soul Jacques Brel stripped bare with a few poetic verses, is my harbor, the place whose mere existence allows me to sail endlessly... It's all well and good to bob on the waves of existence like a cork surrendered to destiny. However, without a recognizable home to anchor you, it's too easy to get lost.
