Archvies (23rd December 2016): Merry Christmas!

01/12/18 01:10

I have just arrived to the waiting lounge of the Bangkok airport, and waiting for my plane to take me to Krakow via Helsinki and Warsaw. Excited to be going home to see parents, family and friends.

Here comes my short Christmas/end of the year message:

Dearest Friends,

It has been a very hectic year for me, but I am sure that most of you could claim the same! Lots of depressing stuff happened, but then lots of amazing and wonderful things too. 2016 has definitely not been boring! It is easy to keep moaning and complaining about things, so I will not do it, instead I would like to focus on a few things that really worked for me well!

Progress with Tahir’s case – though not success yet
The fantastic news is that Tahir has officially been awarded with the UNHCR refugee status. While this is not the end of his struggle to start a new and fruitful life yet, it is an important step forward. Being recognised as the refugee by UNHCR opens some opportunities for regularising his life. Together with countless amount of friends, we are looking at available options in various places. As we do not have guarantees of any positive outcomes yet, I will refrain from giving you more details at this stage. I would however like to thank all of you, who have supported us in the ways you only could – by helping with writing applications, by supporting Tahir financially, by giving us your encouragement and strength not to give up! I consider your support to help Tahir the most important and wonderful happening of this passing year, and we will always be grateful to all of you for what you are doing! Big, big thank you! Finally in this matter, in case any of you had more ideas on how we could help Tahir – either with regard to his resettlement, getting more qualifications (like online schooling/courses), we will be the most obliged to hear from you.

Spanish
The year of 2016 has definitely been marked by my efforts of learning Spanish. Carlos – my teacher from Mexico took a challenge to make me learn another language, which at the age of 44 becomes more difficult. Good news is that a few months ago, I managed to pass my official language exam at the level of B2, which suggests that I can communicate in the language in the level that allows me work in it relatively easily. Thank you Carlos for doing it with me! Really appreciate it!

Travels for work
2016 has been filled with many travels around Asia and Europe for work. I promised that my email would not be too negative, so I will only mention that some of these trips made me extremely sad, given amount of senseless injustice and suffering of the communities that I visited around Asia. On the positive side, I should mention however that some of these trips brought interesting new projects that are helping the most disadvantaged victims of humanitarian crises in a few places around South East Asia.

Sri Lanka and Portugal
I also managed to explore new places that I have not seen before in my life. Finally after years of trying to get there, I managed to visit Sri Lanka. I spent there a great week, learning about the history of this amazing place, and visiting sites all over the central and southern part of the island. I should definitely recommend to anyone visiting this gem. Wonderful people and beautiful place to visit.

Then in the beginning of 2016, I officially became a resident of Portugal! It is a very exciting project for me. Portugal is a beautiful place, and I am so much looking forward to making it a permanent home for me. I have officially managed to get most of my paperwork done, and I already hold my Portuguese social security/tax number, an EU residence permit, I have my bank account there, and a place to stay. Now, the next step is to buy a small property there, which I would then start making as my home. I hope that this will become a reality in 2017. While open to all parts of the country, so far, it appears that I may be looking at getting settled in the historic town of Obidos. Look it up on the internet. It really is beautiful.

Plans
Finally, tomorrow I am about to fly out to Poland to visit my parents, family and friends for Christmas. I have not been home for Christmas for many years, and I look forward to spend time with the loved ones soon!

***

At last, but not least, I would like to wish you all, the most wonderful and amazing holiday season. If you celebrate Christmas, may it be the magical time for you, your families and your loved ones: Merry Christmas. If you do not happen to celebrate for whatever reason, I would like to wish you a very nice and peaceful time – hopefully with some days off, so that you can recharge your batteries.

For 2017, I would like to wish us all that it is less troublesome and more peaceful time for all of us. May we all find strength and courage to understand each other, and to reach out to people that we may differ with… I think that we all need it in 2017. I wish you all that 2017 is full of love, happiness, personal and professional advancement to you and your loved ones. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Updates and news

Archvies (23rd December 2016): Merry Christmas!