05/07/2024
If you had to choose three things to bring with you from all your possessions, what would it be?
I played this game as a child and teenager. Even as an adult. Lol
But last year it got real. We had to choose. We left the school in Sudan as bullets and explosions went off around us, with death in the air and on the ground, with a niggling feeling between my shoulder blades where the next shot might hit. We had three bags. By the time we arrived in Ireland, over ten days later, it had been whittled down to one.
What did we choose, other than clothes?
1. We brought enough dried food (rice and lentils) for a week. We had reduced to two meals a day in the school. We couldn’t carry all our supplies but we carried what we could. In the French embassy, where we waited for hours, there was no food. At least 50 children, a number of diabetic adults and no food. Thank goodness for the supplies. We fed the children and diabetic adults painstakingly using cups in a microwave. We were just about to start feeding the regular adults when the call for the buses came.
2. A cuddly toy for each of the boys. They are both still with us now. Much loved. I also grabbed a handful of some books I had brought from Blank Walls. As most schools in Ireland seem to have predictive texts rather than decodable texts, they have been very useful as additional homework activities for the boys after school.
3. Tech. My Mac, Rami’s work laptop. The iPad. With these devices, Rami was able to continue working remotely until recently and I was able to support Unity families around the world, write references for our much loved and displaced staff and of course job hunt as I restarted my career in Ireland.
I wonder what three things you would/could or did bring? What do you wish you had but you forgot?
