Below I present what my dear friend Dimitris Kalligeropoulos wrote, while we were in Ethiopia. He wrote also a short part "3" here in Athens.
He is a special person, an artist, a researcher, a teacher in a University, but above all a great human being.
Ethiopia 1
Overturning
Ethiopia, November 09
I want to write something for this country
without emotion and sensitivity.
Besides, I don’t have gathered much.
Only images and figures and souls
of surrounding children.
I sit among them in the garden.
And three young girls speaking to me
in a language I don’t understand.
And they look at the letters I write
and they touch my hair
and they whisper like birds
with their thin voices.
How can I concentrate?
How can I write down my thoughts for you ?
Souls around me caress
my soul
and make me remember
with the same tenderness
my own beloved persones,
my own friends,
my students.
This is Ethiopia,
with the soil,
the simplicity,
the austere poverty
and with its souls.
Ethiopia 2
The changes
Ethiopia, November 09
What a strange thing.
With a trip
in a country far away
with swarthy people, thin, minimalist,
soil people, proud and smiling
how things changed
which appeared unchanged.
How much they lost their value for us,
our money
and how much they got value
for others.
How much emerged
the quiet, delicate, inner sensitivity,
that comes from children’s eyes
and converts the suspicious distrust
in to confidence.
How much has overlooked
the arrogant and selfish egoism,
in front of the common, the team, the unified,
that unites and binds and ties,
that calms, reduces, integrates
rather than break, raise, stand out.
Ultimately, how much it helps
to identify that
there’s another world
except yours
Ethiopia 3
To Makis
Athens, December 09
You told me yesterday that you’ve been touched
by the words I had written.
Rather seemed to bitten you
like those mosquitoes did
in Ethiopia.
And suddenly they began
itching.
And you scratch them
and they bled.
__________________________________________________________
I’ll be out of town for a week, so I wish you all my friends Merry Christmas !
.
Below I present what my dear friend Dimitris Kalligeropoulos wrote, while we were in Ethiopia. He wrote also a short part "3" here in Athens.
He is a special person, an artist, a researcher, a teacher in a University, but above all a great human being.
Ethiopia 1
Overturning
Ethiopia, November 09
I want to write something for this country
without emotion and sensitivity.
Besides, I don’t have gathered much.
Only images and figures and souls
of surrounding children.
I sit among them in the garden.
And three young girls speaking to me
in a language I don’t understand.
And they look at the letters I write
and they touch my hair
and they whisper like birds
with their thin voices.
How can I concentrate?
How can I write down my thoughts for you ?
Souls around me caress
my soul
and make me remember
with the same tenderness
my own beloved persones,
my own friends,
my students.
This is Ethiopia,
with the soil,
the simplicity,
the austere poverty
and with its souls.
Ethiopia 2
The changes
Ethiopia, November 09
What a strange thing.
With a trip
in a country far away
with swarthy people, thin, minimalist,
soil people, proud and smiling
how things changed
which appeared unchanged.
How much they lost their value for us,
our money
and how much they got value
for others.
How much emerged
the quiet, delicate, inner sensitivity,
that comes from children’s eyes
and converts the suspicious distrust
in to confidence.
How much has overlooked
the arrogant and selfish egoism,
in front of the common, the team, the unified,
that unites and binds and ties,
that calms, reduces, integrates
rather than break, raise, stand out.
Ultimately, how much it helps
to identify that
there’s another world
except yours
Ethiopia 3
To Makis
Athens, December 09
You told me yesterday that you’ve been touched
by the words I had written.
Rather seemed to bitten you
like those mosquitoes did
in Ethiopia.
And suddenly they began
itching.
And you scratch them
and they bled.
__________________________________________________________
I’ll be out of town for a week, so I wish you all my friends Merry Christmas !
.