Manuel Iglesias:
CLASS OF 1979
Jordan High SchoolClass of 1979
Durham, NC
Manuel's Story
Dear friends,
As many of you know, I come from a remote region of the north of Spain with mountains and forests and a wild sea in the North. A land of sailors, fishermen, mountain people, miners, but also a land of painters, musicians and poets. Part of my family still lives there, including my parents so I still go to Asturias (that is how it is called) every once in a while. My residence is in Barcelona though: Mediterranean city full of life and light, and I enjoy it a lot. I cannot think of a better place to go back to, after travelling or being working in a lost corner of the world...
My professional life has always been very much linked to NGO's and humanitarian issues, except for a few years after university when I worked in different companies in order to develop skills and gain knowledge that I needed. I have worked for a humanitarian organisation called Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) since 1995, where I've had different responsibilities and assignments.
During these last years I have lived through very intense experiences and developed a very strong political personal standing regarding international affairs and humanitarian issues, meaning I cannot pass it by without getting invloved with the people in destress and need. Most of the work I do is related to management of teams working in contexts of crisis, bringing relief and humanitarian aid to people in need. Sometimes, while being in the field, my life gets very difficult and I have to witness a lot of misery, suffering or violence (I realise day by day, how priviledged I am because I'm always able to return from that)... I'd not change my life, though. I am doing what I want to and I feel free, travelling around, discovering peoples and places... and going back home every once in a while..
I got married when I was 26 (and divorced at 32). No children. After healing from previous experience, I lived for a few years with another girl, sort of a second marriage. No children either. After a few years we also broke apart. Being a humanitarian worker has made love life a little complicated travelling here and there.
But it seems I am really lucky a person and after a lot of travelling all over the world for a while, while being on assignement in Athens, of all places, I met a journalist girl, Joanna or Ioanna, for she is a US citizen and a Greek one as well, with whom I felt in love. We spent a year together in Athens and a few months in Montpe...Expand for more
llier, in the south of France. Back in Barcelona, we decided to go overseas together and spend a year in Ethiopia -and so we did.
It was a great experience all in all. We arrived in Addis Abeba in january 2006 and had a very interesting life while in that marvellous and enigmatic country. We did our best to save victims of cholera, famine, floods and conflict as I worked for MSF there ans Joanna for other organisationas and as a fre lance journalist. We left Ethiopia in March 2007.
From there to Zimbabwe, in April 2007. We saw the country collapsing - hospitals and schools closing, monetary system destroyed, economy bankrupture- and its people going through a terrible epidemic of cholera - not to mention the HIV because of which more than 3000 people die everyweek in Zimbabwe-. We worked hard and lived in difficult conditions. I left in June 2009. Joanna stayed there until August 2009 for she was shooting a film about women with HIV and that required a little extra time. The period we lived through in Zimbabwe was historical in many ways but very tough. We were both exhausted when we left that country.
After a few months in Barcelona, healing our wounds, we hit the road again and went to Niger. I stayed there through one of the worst nutritional crisis of the history of the Sahel combined with a terrible epidemic of malaria. Tough period again ... and very different from previous settings. Joanna did not find a job in French so she decided to take her chances in Haiti, in an English speaking organisarion, where she still is.
I am through with Niger already and spending Xmas season in Asturias, Spain, these days with parents, family and old friends. I hear a lot of complains about the economic crisis in Spain and the rest of Europe but I don't see things are so bad by comparison with what I have seen during these last 20 years. We are really and mistieriously priviledged by life.
When I hear or read about North Carolina and Durham I remember the time I spent there and think of you all. It seems so long ago and still so close.
After Xmas I will be going to Jerusalem on assigment for MSF for a year or two. I hope Joanna will reunite with me there in February.
Strange to leave Africa after all these years. I feel sad in a way but on the other side I am getting ready for the Middle East and I find it amazing.
In the meantime I wish you a happy 2011 from the bottom of my heart!
Manuel
Oviedo, 1st of January 2011.
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