Looking for compatriots!

Feeling sad, as everyone in Belgium I guess, because of what happened this week with the bus in Switzerland, and living abroad in real life myself, I was looking for something close to home, Belgium, or close to Switzerland, in the internet world of Second Life.

Both countries not strongly represented in this internet world yet!  

Second Life promises us that “search” improves with almost each new version… so if there is anything to find… I must be able to find it via search.  

And you know what! I found it, …a lovely part of a sim in the Ardennes!

I even talked to the owner… also asked him if I could make some pictures for my webpages, and I could! 

The thing about the bus is… all these children, and the adults, feel very close to all of us.

We all could have been in it… and it could have been “our” children, our nephews and nieces… our grandchildren, …and it feels like they are!  
We all loved our school outings a lot, and we all had them.
And most of all… we do not want for the children to stop enjoying them!

I have a nephew of 12 years old…

It makes me cry when I think of the parents who have lost… , the aunts and uncles…

And then I see the picture of my mother, that is in my living room with me… and I cannot even start beginning to think how this must feel like for a grandparent.

I know a part of her would die with her grandchild!

I loved hearing the children in the classrooms, in the news, giving their opinions on what happened. How they felt.

Talking about it is a good thing to do, and listening to them was helping me to let it get through to me.

But the thing that worries “me” a lot “also” is the children who survived the accident. The traumas that are in their hearts… in their minds… and what it will do to their developing from now while growing up.

I have had a few traumas of my own, and I know you carry them with you all your life, and it will affect your behavior, your way of thinking, your way of worrying and the way you will develop yourself.
I hope they will meet understanding in their lives, and awareness of the effects it can have on someone.

I also hope that there will be a lot of attention for these children now, that they will have guidance to help them to learn to live with the pictures and the experiences that are in their minds and in their hearts.

I was very happy to find a Belgian person to talk to this evening. A French speaking one, who, happy for me, talked as well English as I do.

I really “must” do something about my French.
I admire our Prime Minister a lot for what he could achieve in so little time,  while being occupied with the many difficult things he had to face, since his first day.

Please find below the lovely pictures that I could make of the Belgian Ardennes in Second Life.