A true honour of my life: On Saturday morning I went with my colleague (and friend) to meet the winner of the 2018 nobel peace prize. Around town they call him "le prix nobel". Like, "what time tomorrow should we leave to meet the nobel peace prize".
His acceptance speech is here, and is worth reading again and again. It made me weep, even though there's no point to weeping. I just want to to remember how it felt to be in the presence of a true hero - so charismatic and committed and honest and brave, with a true gift for human connection. I felt so inspired - it was a reminder of what is possible in even the most hopeless settings. He met us in his scrubs at the hospital where he works, and it reminded me of the hospital that I worked in in Mumbai, back when I was just getting started in this work, long ago. Hospitals that become community centres for hope and help. This is such a messed up world, and I will be processing a lot of what we saw and heard for months to come. Even now I see that the death toll from the mudslides has risen to 400. We just need to find these leaders and give them all the money.

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I just landed back in Washington and my next flight is in a couple of hours. R will pick me up and give me a huge hug. I will go home and have a hot shower and eat some celery and recalibrate.

4:58 p.m. - 2023-05-08