Like the legend of the phoenix

As an adrenaline junkie and a woman with high variety seeking behaviour (that's what the personality test said), my new professional perspective seem to meet up to my never ending search for 'that job'.

Ten days of training on personal communication, life in a mission, prioritize in emergency situations, refugee camps and how to deal with cholera outbreaks gives me a certain feeling of excitement and a weird species of butterflies in my stomach.

Off course it is not all as romantic as it sounds. Good thing I lost that idea working in conservation projects for a while...

Meeting new people who share this passion for a certain life style make me feel more 'sane'. On the other hand I need my friends and family at home to keep me with both feet on the ground. To stop me from jumping on the next flight to see 'that guy' (Judas's call) and to protect me from expecting to much from life and people. It's true, despite all the misery, war, destruction of the environment, bush meat trade, killing of innocent people,...it is important to remain a romantic soul, to cherish those weird butterflies and to jump on that next flight anyway....because we all need to go on that second mission!

[dancing in Denmark]

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid [Epictetus]

Valentines’ week: 

cheesy movies on TV and bakeries throwing free donuts at your head so you can surprise your love with a huge sugarbomb in the morning (who said the food-sex strategy was only for chimpanzees and bonobos?).

To get in a romantic mood I started the week with watching Nymphomaniac part 2. It becomes painfully clear that you can be as free as you want until love comes into play,…wonderful, thinking about all these beautiful dark twisted fantasies (yes, I do like Kanye West) that we as decent human beings do not dare talk about. So thank you Lars von Trier!

To snap out of it, I finished the week with 'Serendipity', explained as 'fortuitous happenstance' by etymologists. Interesting how Jonathan and Sara want to control their beautiful clear sane fantasy on meeting again years after they first met. 

How can you not love this day?

[Antwerp city, view from the MAS]

What's next?

Spending time travelling and working in projects around the world during the last couple of years I realise I have a backpack full of crazy stories and beautiful pictures which are often put in a corner when coming back. 

I don't want to bother everyone with my stories, nor organise evenings showing all my holiday and chimpanzee pictures. However, last week I had the opportunity to talk about my work as a researcher in primatology to a class of enthusiastic children. It was amazing seeing their eyes lighting up when I talked about all the endangered species in the forests of Cameroon, Uganda and DRC. They reminded me of myself, when my father took me to see Jane Goodall and how it completely changed my life. A girl asked me how a simple Belgian girl got the chance to work in such extraordinary circumstances...good question!

I guess anything is possible if only you want it enough...

[Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, sitting in a tree in the Budongo Forest, Uganda]