Differences

I’m back home, back to my not-so-excited- life here in Switzerland.
In France I met my old buddies and new people as well. It was great, more than that, it was wonderful!! However, things not so excited happened there and I need to talk about them, because it is a world issue right now.

For me the best thing in the whole world is the difference. The difference of color’s skin, the difference of language and its accents, the difference of cultures and thoughts.
Those are what make the world, in its most ample possible sense, the world!

I love so much to meet people from different countries and cultures. I do grow with that! I love to hear their day-by-day histories, how they grew up, about the schools they went to, how they met theirs loved ones, what they eat every day, what they eat for specials days such Ramadan, Christmas, Divali and so on…
It is a very enjoyable time for me.

I’m this kind of person that take the initiative to talk to somebody if I want to. I look at people’s eyes to talk to them and usually I talk with a huge smile on my face. That's me! I think that is so agreeable to chat with different people from different places. It is remarkable!

My father thought something that I will never forget it. He said that everybody deserves a respectful approach. Absolutely everybody!! Also, he said that I need to treat everybody equaly, and it doesn’t matter if the person works as the president of the country or as maid.
It really doesn’t matter! Thanks dad, where you were right now.
When I was 12 years old, he took me to prostitution’s house and he explained to me what the girls did there and how hard their lives were. In Brazil those workers are called women of easy life. He also pointed out that they had parents as everybody else, they had illusions and dreams as everybody else. Fantastic!!!
It was the most valuable lesson somebody ever taught me.

What I want to say with all that?
I want to say that one day I would like to see people treating people equally, people of all skin’s colors getting along friendly, people celebrating their differences, people respecting the others' religious. Is that utopia? Maybe, but I cannot live without thinking this way!

Differences, that is the statement!
It’s what makes this planet so splendid, so noble. The difference is the way that takes us away from all the boring issues of diary life.

All those conflicts going on now make me sadder because I can feel that there is a not-so-invisible line trying to destroy the differences, trying to put everything in the standardize mode. If you are different from the power people, you are nothing or/and you are danger to the society or/and you are terrorist or/and you are called names on the streets and a lot more.
That’s just unbelievable, unacceptable, and inadmissible. Hello, we are in the end of 2005, XXI century!

I went to France to see my dear friends that I met there when I was studying French. They are from Libya, South Korea, Portugal, Turkey, Hong Kong, Thailand, Morocco, Nigeria…. you name it!
Almost all the students live there for short time, like 6 months or so. Usually in the same building that belongs to the school.
I cannot say how many times I went to this building to meet my friends. This building was criminally burned down. One student died and 2 are in a hospital right now.
This happening for one reason: xenophobia.
I cannot live with that. I cannot accept that.

Take care!