(6) For different reasons, the bitter taste still persists, but Pakistan remains for me “the people” I met and I continue to care about today. And all that in a sunny calm autumn day…”

(5) …and the helpless feeling of seeing good projections going wrong at times put us down.
But when there, all the troubles of the days vanished at the same-always dinner table when laughter was made to apologise for all the hurt of the day.

(4) That night, an old sad woman’s woody hand above me caressed my hair in a dialect I did not understand… and I stood up.
All those years, I and people around me spent a lot of talks and fights and going up and down the sliding mountains to “build back better”….

(3) I saw people scared and angry and their pain grew on me. And I listened to their anger over thick sweet milky black tea...
I lost my dear friend, Ender, to a bomb blast one night; and I dropped lost in tears on the corridors of a hospital.

(2) Pakistan turned out to be one of the most complex experiences of my life up to now. Not only the good times, but also the intensity of pain that linked me to that place I thought I would never remember dearly.

The second picture is Petruta (in my arms) when she was a baby. Her older sister was carrying her everywhere during summer holidays when she attended the programme of the association in the container classroom near the community.

The first picture with Petruta today in pink is from the pottery class she attended with her classmates. She is supported to go and keep in school by the Pirita Children Association in Baia Mare / Romania