Global Village - Storytelling Brings us Together

Edited BY G P Kennedy Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan  A lot has happened since my last post. On the surface, Pakistan`s vaccination effort seems to have had a flying start.   After vaccinating health workers at the beginning of March, they began to open up the registration process for over-Seventies, followed soon by over-Sixties.   Yesterday a news report said that the over-Fifties age group could start registering their names from 30th March (Yay for me!). From my social circle and extended family, everyone I know over the age of 60 has now had their first jab.   They have all also been notified of dates for their second shots in three weeks' time. The process has been smooth and efficient from what I have heard. As I said, all looks good on the surface but the issue we are facing multiple barriers.  A large portion of health workers refused to take the jabs; only a tiny percentage of the over-Sixties have actually registered; with 90% of the popula...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul - Aegean Coast, Turkey COVID-19 PANDEMIC ANNIVERSARY  This time last year, we locked ourselves in our flat in Istanbul. Looking back is making me melancholic.   I knew things were going to be different at the beginning of March 2020. I was following the news about the virus very closely but life was continuing on the one hand.   Our daughter was going to visit us on March 11, then my mother-in-law. Right after, another friend of mine. Our life was so full that I had to check my agenda to avoid missing anything.   The last ‘normal’ moment was a friend’s birthday gathering on the 8 th  of March. Then everything is on hold, as we all know.   One year on, I fear that things will never be quite like they were. The lockdown has affected me very much.   I don’t miss crowds at all, and I certainly don’t miss traffic and pollution but I miss hugs, eating indoors, just walking through shops touching everything ...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy    Spring is already here. It has been here for a few weeks, actually. And its lessons, delivered by nature around me, made me think of how to read and then apply their wisdom to life.     So I decided to try to find out what advice they have for me; what life mottos and messages I need to accept.   Pain behind Beauty  People gasp with admiration for these plants. They are succulents that survive low temperatures. But they do that at the price of getting this red flaming color.     I have a bunch of them in the yard and a pot of them under a balcony. So, interesting enough, only the exposed bunch that withstood winter in the open got their red. Their color is a reaction to suffering.     And yes, this is the word that is used in Italian - plants suffer. When one admires a beautiful one it's worth asking if that beauty was caused by pain.   Patience  Last summer, I ...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, WA  I suppose my earliest food-related memory IS cake and biscuits at birthday parties. Then, would be walking in the house after coming back from primary school and hoping that some wonderful smell would be coming from the kitchen. My Mum was a great cook, and a few times a week, we would have something really nice in mid-week. like chili or even spare ribs. I got pretty good at guessing what it was from one or two sniffs.  After a while, I sometimes got involved in helping out, stirring a pan, or sometimes chopping things up. At around the age of 12 or 13, I loved spending some time in the kitchen with Mum and helping to prepare family meals. We had a sort of unofficial roster of about 15 or 20 dishes that used to make appearances about 4 times a week. Friday was quite often take-away, Saturday was get-it-yourself day, and Sunday was a roast.  Before I knew it, I could basically cook all of these dishes pretty much by myself just...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Chris - Fort Worth, Texas  My first job at the age of 16 was in the food industry. Although it was as a busboy, I was constantly around the kitchen watching the chefs/cooks do their thing. I was fascinated by the skill and precision they executed dished with.   Later on, I became a cook myself, but for a pizza restaurant. Not quite the level of cook that I had witnessed at 16 years old, but a cook nonetheless. It taught me important skills such as prepping food, measuring correctly, timing, and plating foods.   I worked my tail off in the restaurant industry for 5 years while going to school, vowing that I would get an education and never have to sweat so hard in a kitchen again.   I got that education in the form of an electronics and computer engineering degree and bounced around a few jobs until I landed in the Audio Visual field. I still busted my butt starting out as a technician and eventually working my way up to a ...