Archives (30th December 2017): Last weekend of 2017

01/12/18 02:40

Last few days of 2017 took a rather unexpected turn for me. I actually hoped that I was going to have some quiet moments here in Bangkok, but then a devastating cyclone hit the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, and that meant that we needed to travel there in emergency so that we could assess the situation and decide on the adequate humanitarian response from our side. So I flew to Manila on Christmas day, and then further to the south soon after. It was a tough mission. Destruction and amount of suffering that I saw was uncomfortable… In all honesty, I did not want to deal with all what I saw, I wanted to be egoistic and work on figuring out my own balance after the happenings of 2017, but here we go… Life is unexpected and although sometimes quite brutal, it is also beautiful. Now after having accomplished the mission to Mindanao, I actually think that it was the best way I could have spend my Christmas, probably better than ‘celebrating’ by eating too much… I am especially pleased, as it seems that the mission has actually managed to mobilise quite some financial resources that will be spent on the relief.

2017 was full special. It was not easy, but it was special. I am not sorry that it finishing, and I hope that 2018 will be much better to all of us! Happy New Year!

P.S.: The map shows my travel interactions in 2017 (at least the ones that I undertook by plane).

P.S. 2: Very excited that my Icelandic friends and Mum are coming here to Thailand next week!

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Archives (30th December 2017): Last weekend of 2017