Merigoesaround

Reading about somebody I would like to emulate in the next years, Rory Stewart , I realized that even those who seem so sure and certain of where they go and what their contribution to society is or will be suffer from the accute syndrome of reinventing yourself. This syndrome makes you be whoever you want to be, learn as many languages as you can, travel as many countries as time and money allow you to, and struggle with an internal conflict between your life now and your life one second later from now. The constant reinvention of who you are and who you want to be can be tiring but is the path to self-improvement.

Somebody from the Far East told me recently that I was probably a man in my previous life. At first I thought the male in question was insulting me. To be fair with him it is true that it is difficult to dance salsa with me because I always try to lead the movements, spins and tempo...in short, I take the man's role. However, from that to have chest hair...nah. Man or not the comment made me wonder about the belief in previous lives and how strange, mysterious and almost comical, the concept of 'previous life' sounds to the Western Christian ear. Wikipedia tells me that Christianity, Islam and Judaism reject the concept of reincarnation while Hinduism and Buddhism endorse it. I've been googling 'past life', 'reincarnation' for some minutes now and all google comes up with are 'past life generators' that when you click into a mirror tell you what you were in your previous life. I did it twice and twice the mirrow showed male pictures.

Bongo, recently departed ex-president of Gabon: “Africa without France is a car without a driver,” he said, "but France without Africa is a car without petrol.” Courtesy of Mr. Blattman .

French people do not go jogging or running often. Or at least some around my hood find it terribly comical to see somebody (me) doing so. Today after work, and terrorized by how fat accumulates in all the wrong places of my small and roundy body, I put on my Mizunos, armed myself with my iPod and went for a run around Bastille-Marais...not once but twice was I applauded by le peuple screaming 'Bravo' and effusively supported by a 50-year old pal who ran for 2 minutes by my side in his office suit. For a second I double checked my hand to make sure that my old iPod hadn't mutated into the Olympic torch. Frankly, with workouts like this, forget about spending money on concerts, opera or theatre. This French spontaneity is priceless.

Social Policy has been at war with targeting since the very early conception of public cash transfers. How can governments make sure that they help those who need social support and not compensation seekers? Targeting is certainly the key word and probably the most complicated and crucial element distinguishing good from bad aid programs. I have news; I think microfinance could help with this. Information on microfinance usage could be used as a proxy to identify social protection beneficiaries. Think of a village or a region with very low income levels. Within those income levels you have the poor, the very poor, the ultra poor. Think about those days when you would delegate to your little brother what your mum asked you to do…weeell, this is the right picture: there is always somebody below you. Now, as a point of departure, let’s assume that microfinance should target the poor, probably not the very or ultra poor, who do not have regular income sources and will almost certainly bec...

I can't help it: I listen to others' conversations while they chit chat on their cellphones in metro or bus stations. Yesterday I was sitting by this young, handsome, black guy who involuntary disclosed his love life out and loud to the bystanders of Oberkampf metro stop. I obviously could not get the whole story but all I understood is that he had been dating a white girl. Apparently white girls did not meet his black standards. "No brother", he said to his interlocutor, "to play is ok, but to marry...I want to do like Obama, choose one of ours". This sentence amused me for a second, shocked me for a minute and terrified me immediately after.