"...let us not forget..."

Sandford School Young Student

[Photo By: KPA]

A little bit of time (and distance) can add to one's thoughts and ideas.

It is fascinating that I decided to post these photos (at the top and at the bottom of this post) on my Kidist Foods Expanded Project (renamed from the original Kidist Foods) website.

I have plenty of photos, which I took during my short day at the beautiful Sandford International School campus in Addis Ababa.

I took the photographs (and many more) while waiting to make my presentation at one of the Sandford School Alumni Reunion events this past January (2023) which including a tour of the grounds by my co-alumni. 

I preferred to stay behind at the presentation area, and clear my thoughts, with the lovely banners that surrounded me as the quiet IT administrators helped me log into the school's wifi, and set my chair and a table for my laptop in just the right location.

Then I saw this young boy, who was waiting, reading a book, and then I caught him looking into the horizon. Maybe he was missing out on something. There was a group of boys playing soccer (football) in the adjacent field, and he may have heard their excited shouts. And I took those camera shots. Talk about the "decisive moment," and being ready to capture it. I must have waited for something to happen, expecting something to happen, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed with the young boy for him to take his head (and mind) off his book.

Presentation at the United Nations
NGO Committee on the Status of Women Conference 61 

New York, 2017
Kidist Foods Cookbook Presentation:
"Economic Self-Sufficiency of Young Ethiopian Women"

In any case, my presentation stated:

The Kidist Foods Project is to provide employment to the Addis Ababa urban women with meaningful work, related to their own past experiences as cooks for their homes, families and relatives.

And later in the speech I say:

But, let us not forget about the men - the fathers, husbands, sons and grandsons, brothers, uncles nephews, who will be the next phase of Kidist Foods.

I wrote the presentation some days before, but fine-tuned it the night before. I read it verbatim at the event in order not to waste time with ramblings, and to say exactly what I wanted to say. So that addition "...let us not forget..." was deliberate, and important.

And as chance would have it, there was that young boy, that student, who decided to sit on the step by the doorway, looking far away at (for?) something, and I noticed him.

How about that?

Sandford School Young Student

[Photo By: KPA]