The Searcher by Jorge Bucay

This is the story of a man who I would define as a searcher. A searcher is a person who searches, but does not necessarily find anything.  Nor it is someone who necessarily knows what he is looking for. It is simply someone who takes life itself as a search.

One day, the searcher felt he had to go to the city of Kammir. He had learned to follow his internal voice, although he didn’t know where that voice came from. He left everything and took off.

After two days walking along dusty roads, he could see, on the horizon, the silhouette of Kammir. Shortly before arriving in the town, he noticed a low hill on the right side of the road. It was covered with a wonderful green lawn and lots of trees, birds and flowers and was surrounded by a small shiny wooden fence. He saw a small gate, and decided to go through it.

He suddenly forgot the town and wanted to rest in this place. As he crossed the gate he walked slowly among white stones that were distributed randomly between the trees.

His eyes were like butterflies alighting on each detail of this amazing and colorful paradise. His searching eyes discovered an inscription carved on a stone.

Abdul Tareg, lived 8 years, 6 months, 2 weeks and 3 daysHe realized that the stone was not just a stone,  but a gravestone. He felt sorry for the kid buried in this place and as he looked around, he noticed that there were other stones with inscriptions. He stepped closer and read:

Yamir Kalib, lived 5 years, 8 months and 3 weeks

He felt deeply saddened and moved. This beautiful place happened to be a cemetery and each stone was a grave. One by one, he read the inscriptions. They all were similar: a name, and the exact time the buried person had lived. But what shocked him most, was to notice that the one who had lived the longest, had been just over 11years old.

He felt a terrible pain, sat down and gave vent to his tears.

The guardian of the cemetery was walking by and he approached the crying man. He watched him in silence for a few moments, then he asked him if he was crying for a relative.

“No, no relative”, the searcher replied. “What is wrong in this town? Why are all these children buried here? What is the curse on the people of this town that they had to build a cemetery for children?”

The older man smiled and replied:

“Calm down my friend. There is no curse on this town. We just happen to have a ritual. Let me tell you about it. When a young person has his fifteenth birthday, his parents give him a little notebook, like this one I have here hanging on my chest. Starting that day, it is a tradition among us to open the notebook and note inside it, every time we have an intensely happy experience. We write down on the left what we enjoyed, and on the right, how long the enjoyment lasted. You met your girlfriend and fell in love with her. How long did the intense passion last? How long the happiness of having found her? A week?  Two? Three and a half?… Then, the emotion of the first kiss, how long did it last? A minute? Two days?  A week? Pregnancy, or the birth of a daughter….? The wedding of a friend? The most anticipated trip? Meeting a brother returning from a distant country? How long did the enjoyment of each of these situations last? Hours?  Days?”

And so… we just write down in the little notebook each moment we enjoy…every single moment.

When someone dies, it is our tradition to open his notebook, and add up the time he has enjoyed, and then we write it on his gravestone. Because this is, for us, the only time the person really lived.

Four Years

September 18^th I left Arequipa, Peru for my adventure in Europe, I got elected MCVP in AIESEC Macedonia for the term 2007-2008.

September 19^th I arrived to a beautiful country called Macedonia for an original idea of spending 8 months and then returning home, 4 years later I’m writing from Germany somehow celebrating, my 4^th year in the old continent, my 4^th year away from my family.

Looking backwards they were 4 amazing years that brought me many learning experiences in every aspect of my professional, personal and spiritual life.

I learned to say I LOVE YOU to a very special person who shared 3 years of her life with me but, sadly and painfully, life showed me to say GOOD BYE to her (the hardest thing I did in my life). But again, looking backwards, those were good years, she was the best thing that happened to my life until now, and to her I’ll be eternally grateful.

I discovered that you can never be granted of having everything ensured such like job, money, relationship, health, friends, etc. A good friend passed away in 2010, but leaving me the most inspirational message that I could have ever imagined. Figuratively speaking he gave me a slap in my face for a wake-up call, since then I can really notice I’m different for good.

I learned to deal with my fears and solve every complicated situation face to face. This one was very hard to deal with because I rather avoid things than face them. 2011 was the year where I faced many challenges in the professional and, specially, personal side.

I’m connecting the dots and almost everything makes sense, every decision I made or every situation the destiny drop me let me to something really good; there is only one thing that I still can’t understand and trying to find out the sense of it, I believe this means there is still a string waiting to be connected to that dot, we will see, life is life and my lead performance in the play is still waiting for me.

4 years in Europe, don’t know how many more, I just know there is still time.

Just for closing this post, THANK YOU to all of you who shared your life with me in this past 4 years; It was an almost __________ experience :) (if you know me a bit, you might be able to complete the blank space :P )

With love and respect,

Yoelinho
Bonn, Germany

Just one year ago...

This post is not related to AIESEC, however I believe is worth to share it.

It is a pretty weird feeling when you meet for first time a person and immediately you became friends.  It was during a championship, one of my team mates introduced me to his cousin, who will join to the club, 2 years younger than me, funny face, crazy and kind of stupid like…

This is how I meet you... MY FRIEND.

13 years later, even the number is creepy; I read your stupid email with the subject “Cholo, as always I’m the first in everything ;)”… I was traveling and had no much time for emails so I couldn’t read this email almost a week after, when I opened it I saw a large email, so I was surprised because, you little bastard never spend time to write, you rather call or explain everything in 2 lines, anyway, because of the subject I thought you are going to get married or maybe you will get married and being a father too, so once again I was thinking on how much I hate you because you want to be first in everything I want to do.

I read the email 4 days later and I couldn’t believe what it was written there and even worst I didn’t have the chance to answer it...

No handshake, no one more beer argument, no Starcraft duel… just like that you left... first.

The black ribbon, our promise once we did is kept, not sure when will be time to get back, but until then it will be in my wrist.

For the email, thank you, it helped me and sure it will keep helping me in the future, and this is what I feel is worth sharing,.. For the readers, I’m just posting some things in very short statements, many other thing just make sense for him and me:

• Be yourself, be yourself and be yourself because at the end you have to stand yourself before standing your wife.
• Never let anyone eat alone not even to yourself.
• Small details are very important.
• If you fucked up, then fix it, is never too late or too impossible. You just need to get rid of your silly proud.
• Don’t lie, please don’t, even if you are good at it.
• A big hug, a huge kiss or a well done handshake should be never be forgotten, you don’t know if is going to be the last one, and please, do it if you really mean it.
• Home is where your heart feels joyful and for obvious reasons where the one you love is happy next to you.

One year ago he left this world, although for me is hard to understand it, for me he is still in my country or traveling around the world.

Take care my friend. Cheers and rest in peace...