mid-week Connect: 6/22/23 ~ In memorium across Cultures
Greetings,
I’m a day off midweek again this week - very busy getting ready to move back to Florida, after 3 years ‘up north’ here in Pennsylvania. I do want to pause this week though and spend a few minutes together, not exploring as we usually do…but rather “in memorium”.
Different cultures recognize the loss of life in so many different ways, but I do think we all at least pause - and then remember in whatever ways best serve our practice and needs. This pause fits into the Harbor dimension of Global SKILLs’ 3D Dynamics, since the harbor is a safe place to come and be together at all times, including times of crisis and need.*
And, surely, the sinking last week of a boat overloaded with hundreds of people fleeing in search of a better life must give us all pause.
In memoriam…
First, instead of just saying these were “migrants’, I pause and remember them as individuals whose lives were cut short even as they hoped and made tough choices and took dangerous risks for better ways and times…women, children and some men - although most of the survivors were in fact men since they were on deck while the women and children were sheltering below deck. As details have emerged of this horrific, and some say totally preventable, accident off the coast of Greece, I do grieve those lost - and my heart goes out to countless loved ones impacted.
In memoriam…
And then too, this tragedy brings back painful thoughts for me of another boat which sank over 2 decades ago and which personally impacted me and the lives of many of my loved ones. In September of 2002, off the coast of West Africa, an overloaded ferry named Le Joola sank with estimates of 2,000 people lost - we’ll never know the exact number since no one knows how many were on the ship. It was the end of summer and whole families, but especially students, were headed back to the city from their villages. I will never forget sitting in a leadership team meeting in our offices in Dakar that morning and being interrupted with the urgent news of the sinking, Since we had many projects in the region where the ship originated, and almost all of our employees were from that area as well, our Director immediately closed down business, because we knew every single person in our whole group would be impacted, since we each either knew people on the ship, or knew someone who did. The immensity of that tragedy echoes down the years for me, as I sit here and think once again, whole villages and families and communities are plunged into the depths of grief.
In Memoriam…may every single lost soul in both of these tragedies rest in peace - and may every single person impacted continue to find the comfort they need to carry on.
Check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more on both tragedies…
And just a note that, although each life is of value - I will simply mention that I have found the extravagant media coverage this week in the US (and perhaps elsewhere) of the 5 people lost at sea while exploring the Titanic to have been quite distressing. No more interest in the Greek disaster...just days of focus on 5 extremely wealthy people ($250,000 per passenger was paid). So much money spent for amateur, or even, professional ‘thrills’ - by people who could have been doing so much more instead for the needy of this weary world. Just my own opinion on that.
Alas.
Thanks for being part of this Connect community.
Until next week,
Betsy
Global SKILLs LINKs
~ Le Joola: https://www.africanews.com/2022/09/26/senegal-ferry-disaster-town-remembers-20-years-after-1900-drowned/
~ off the shores of Greece: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/15/1182373326/dozens-are-dead-and-hundreds-feared-missing-from-migrant-ship-sinking-off-greece
Notes
Related Connect posts: 9/8/21 - remembering; 12/28/22 ‘Be bulai’
(you can find these by using this link: https://www.globalskillspartners.com/blog-1)
* Through my business Global SKILLs and several partner subsidiaries I offer unique cross-cultural consulting and training including:
3 Dimensional Dynamics Model: 1st dimension = HOME ; 2nd dimension = HOST ;
3rd dimension = HARBOR (which we explored this week)
PROACTive Framework:
PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram
ACT = Application, Collaboration and Transformation
~ contact me for more information on this model and these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming: betsy.barbour@gmail.com
2023 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in
intercultural communications and global community building
“It takes a community to build a community"
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