Tag: history

or I as International Juridical Organization for Environment and Development

In the late 80s I found my first job at IJO, an organization created by a lawyer based in Roma, Avv. M. G.

He was quite successful dealing with separations and divorces of famous people, but had a penchant for international affairs. One of the few people I met in that world who was spending money with international cooperation rather than making it.

He was also member of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, based in Moscow at Gorbachev time; Sakharov was also a member.

I remember we were exchanging messages with Moscow and Washington from the lawyer’s studio, with one of the first modem, just few words at a very slow and irregular pace. We were using Greennet, an antecedent to what is now known as Internet and did not existed at the time.

At a very little scale, but it was history. I also attended the European preparation meeting in Paris for the first Earth Summit in Rio. Remember a concert of Mory Kante.

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History of Arruffat El Hachbedel

Sheik Arruffat El Hachbedel had two daughters: the oldest was called Msida, and the other Gzira.

When he was visiting them, he couldn’t avoid going back to the time when they were living together.

On the contrary, the two women could barely wait for the moment he would leave. Not for lack of affection, as they loved him, but for fear that something could go awry, that he may get angry, a quarrel start abruptly and they may not see each other once again.

Indeed, the good sheik had a fierce temper, and was incapable of mending relationships; he was as a tree plenty of broken branches.

Whilst he was there, a strained atmosphere pervaded the house, made of few words, restrained gestures and some faint smiles.

One day, one of Gzira’s girls wanted to bring her grandpa a cup of coffee and, bumping into his kaftan, spilled the boiling beverage over his legs.

The Sheik’s yell led to a flood of shouting and fighting throughout the house in which everyone released their pent up feelings. Every lack of attention was reproached, every suspect, every concealed regret.

They almost came to blows; then, out of the silence, they waited for Arruffat’s reaction.

He came back to the room, in his underpants, and was received by a sweet, boisterous laughter, wafting through the walls as a salty wave.