After nearly 30 years, I returned to my hometown to undergo rehabilitation from a longer illness.
Not out of choice, but because that was where my insurance sent me.

( Read more... )

Growing up in Germany, it does not take you long to learn that being up early in the morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, is not simply a virtue, but your sacred Teutonic duty.

( Read more... )

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And voila, here we go again, after 4 months of absence! I am not good with the new app yet, the quality isn't great, but at least I managed to remember to take pictures and videos this month!

To this day, only two people know that I have lived two months of my life as a homeless person.

One is my husband, who met me much later.
The other one is Karim.( Read more... )

"Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ’em all over everything you do."  (Elvis Presley)

There is an important difference between fingerprints and values though.

Prints - except in crimes - leave no lasting impression. Values, on the other side, can change the course of a life.

I am who I am also because of people ( Read more... )

45 years ago, just around the summer solstice like now, I became an unintentional voyeur.

( Read more... )

For many years now, from time to time, I have been helping out at a women’s shelter not far from where I live.

These are places not known to many people. A few social workers, police, a doctor, and very few volunteers, all of them female.

( Read more... )

Remember that barn my great-aunt Klara helped to raise a hundred years ago?

( Family history again. )

As an independent contractor for projects that involve public money, you always have to keep your nose finely honed to detect the stink of corruption and potential criminal consequences to yourself and your firm before accepting any assignment.

Alas, sometimes even the best research and inquiry can’t save you. Sometimes you manage to extricate ( Read more... )

1994 had seemed off to a good start.
I had just moved in with new boyfriend F., the small firm I had co-founded to work on international projects in sustainable tourism was going well and I was brimming with energy and plans.

Towards the end of January however, I suddenly fell ill. I never knew where the bug came from, nobody around me even had a ( Read more... )