(Why we blog) Roots : My sister in her own words

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Welcome home, Kivouzeme: my brother's idea of a blog gave me a shelter.

Tunis, African Development Bank, 19.00.
This has been of those weeks filled with anxiety and feelings of helplessness. Am I doing the right thing? Am I contributing? Have I been available to my friends? Did I tell my family members I loved them? If Cote d'Ivoire wins the CAN, will this mend, even for a little while the wounds of hatred? ...Brrr...these are moments when you wish life would be simpler and warmer. You wish you could go home and laugh with your brother. Kiss your father. Tell your mother about your whole life. Listen. Share. Stop thinking. Just be.
One would expect a grown-up, with an international job, a cheerful perspective on the future, a tenacious optimism and sacred fire burning inside would have found a home.
Well, I must say I am still looking for it.
Looking back, I realised my brother and I have kept chasing each other. Permanently. In many countries, in a lot of towns. Paris,Toulouse, London, D.C, New Orleans, West Lafayette, Tunis. We chased each other to bring back those wonderful days of togetherness in Tana, where happiness was the only thing we ever took for granted. In 1988, when like any privilidged child of poor countries, I could go and study in Paris, it was time to part, to leave the beloved home, friends, the adored parents and the brother...the soulmate.
I was 15.5 years-old, I thought I would make it, I thought I was brave.
Then Parisian loneliness and adversity stroke. I had to admit it, I was not brave enough, and the strength I had felt in my Madagascar days vanished.
I went back and forth on Air Madagascar GP uneasy seats on Paris Tana 6 times in 1989.
I was searching for someone who could understand, who could share the pain of being away, who could laugh with me, someone who would know by a look in the eyes that I was riding hard through hardship, but playing it tough. I needed someone who could take away the emotional pain of listening to the soft and distant voice of my father calls, someone who could explain my mother's instructions for succes.
I wanted to take my brother on those flights back to Paris, to London, to Montevideo.

Of course, with a little more than 6 years between us, there was no way we could venture in our life journey hands in hands.
But we were forced to live the rest of our lives apart too soon. Academia and professional well being cost me a lot. As Tonton Coco once said, "if there is one thing I will ever hold Madagascar authorities responsible for, is their inability to keep their children home".
So I lost home at the age of 16. 19 years later, after numerous trips, appointments in airports, nights in hotels, rent deposits, I was finally finding inner peace by accepting structural loneliness, when my brother went on blogging.
It was all written there: deep and respectful tribute to our parents, little stories about us, love declaration to "the lady in his life", holiday pictures but also comments on world headlines, racism, poverty, readings, all matters we could not share during our all-too-short yearly encounters in some corner of the world.
Somehow, in my gipsy life, I feel I have a shelter, a permanent one, where I can see, almost feel my soulmate living: my brother's blog was a warm welcome home. Randiana

Well, What can I say ? I was about to write an angry post on how my week was subpar and then my sister wrote.... I am honored to provide a "virtual home" for her thoughts and sentiments and I am always thrilled when she drops a few words. For easier browsing, I will also archive all the family related posts into the blog: famille du monde so that it is easier to access. Her post will always figure on the front page here. I also postponed the writing of my angry post :-) about the sorry state of the world. :-). I guess that is the sister effect.
Have a great week-end and call your siblings, it might put you in a whole different mood !!!!