Every move I make between living in big cities around the
world seems to claim a non-guilty victim, one – way or other.
When we went spectacularly bust from our first endeavour
to reform the construction practices of NZ some 4 years ago, my Father,
repatriated to his homeland of Serbia got irrecoverably ill. One may say that
could have happened regardless of our need to move away from NZ, he was/is an
old man – I am convinced that there was a connection.
Then, the eldest daughter got left behind, with not a lot
of family support, a sad little ‘dot of loneliness’ at the end of the world.
She successfully picked up the broken pieces in time and is now a strong,
confident, independent young lady. I would have chosen for her a slightly
slower and less ruthless growing up timeframe.
Not eaten up enough by guilt of putting my family’s
future at risk again – and acting as an irresponsible parent to the other 2
daughters, still in their mid-teens, I upped the ante and set out to reform the
AEC world at a much bigger scale when I got into messing with the ‘big guys’
like Leighton, HLG, Gammon etc…
So, virtually penniless and treated as criminals (almost)
husband and I left briefly Hong Kong two days ago – or not so briefly – the
future will tell, after putting the two previously mentioned,
future-compromised teenagers in the care of a dear friend and her family at the
other end of the world for a ‘limited time’.
Teenage years can be difficult under any circumstances.
When you had the privilege of being constantly
brainwashed by overpriced private schools on how important every part of your
‘formal’ education is, I can understand that they may feel hugely let down and ‘given
up’ for some silly ideals of their parents.
When Universities, run as big businesses have been
attacking them over the last 3 years with manipulative marketing campaigns of
‘making the biggest choices of their lives’ by choosing to apply for one of
their institutions – it is hard for me not to fear them feeling like the
victims of this latest interlude of our lives.
Trust me girls, things will be fine.
But don’t trust me so much that you are lulled into an
extended holiday by the generous hospitality of dear friends. Teenagers should
be pushing boundaries; some give pleasure when nudged, some pain, some both;
live, make choices and decisions,
Don’t panic, take it easy. But not too easy.
Read, learn, research. Walk! Socialise, develop tools to
cope.
I know you’re not meant to grow up at 15 or 17, not in a
white-middle class family.
Tough. It is, what it is. Don’t let yourselves victimised
by this situation, make the most out of it.
(learn finally how to make that real Hungarian chicken
soup – you have the best resources at hand);
There definitely is one victim of the Gammon scam and me
moving back and forth between UAE/HK over the last 5 months.
That is Mishmish, the cat. See, we had him for about 3
years, while living in Abu Dhabi.
We are not really a good-pet family but we did get on
with Mishmish OK.
We had to give up on Mishmish when I took on the
‘dream-job’.
Not sure how does the law of HK look at compensating for
the hurt feelings of a pretty average ginger cat, but I will keep this issue in
mind when I count my losses.
Unless he was given to a much more caring family in which
case there will be one less compensation claim for Gammon to worry.
Unfortunately, we had promised not to ever enquire about
his fate once dropped off at the shelter – so maybe Gammon can cross Mishmish
off their list of worries.
It will be pretty hard for me to prove that they
intentionally caused him a harsher life than he would have had, had they not
scammed me into their faux job of the non-desired Head of Innovation.
Thankfully for me, there is plenty of evidence to prove
other claims against the same entity.
Still, just to make a gesture to a new life for us all
and Mishmish as we were ‘sneaking’ through Hong Kong’s wonderful MTR system to
the airport with 8 bags between us two, I chose to take with us a mosaic
picture I created of Mishmish some time ago and packaged it in a distinctive HK
red/blue stripy bag.
We gifted the picture to a friend that welcomed us to his
home in UAE because while Mishmish was still ours, they were good mates, one
summer he cat-sat him for weeks.
Life is all about gestures. Good and bad.
Good to be back in the UAE – still ready and eager to
work globally.
(This blog has more pictures to accompany it than I usually
choose to have, to illustrate to the wider audiences some of the mementoes of
Mishmish while living with us, also the picture and G lugging the oversized bag
from North Point to Central, Hong Kong – thanks darling!)
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