Some News About Matt!!! And More...
G'day everyone !!
Many of you have asked me to send some news about me, my life, my trip in Australia. Here it comes!!! It’s a long, very long post but I do believe it’s worth it. Thanks for reading it.
September 21st 2006 – A normal day in Matt’s life…
Waking up this morning at 7.00a.m, I was a bit sleepy but quiet happy. I went to very good gig in Newtown yesterday night where I discovered an amazing girl: Steph from The Fifth Nation, a small Sydney band soon to be a not so small band… At the same time, the city of Bangkok in Thailand was still undergoing its 18th Military Coup since 1932. Military Generals took over control of Bangkok two days ago and basically shut down the democratic system. (LeMonde – FRA)…
I had a shower and light breakfast, mainly composed of Mango&Apple Juice, the one JB –my brother- buys at the Fish Market of Sydney, very yummy. At the same time
, I could have bet on the number of Iraqis who were lying in beds in hospitals of Bagdad. A U.N. report showed yesterday that during the months of July and August, 5,106 people died violent deaths in the Capital of Iraq…(NYTimes - USA)
I took the train at the Town Hall station, looking at Sydney-siders going in and out the carriages. Some of them were going to work (wearing suits and nice shirts), others going to the beach (with Havaianas flip-flop and swimming suits…), but none of them really looked stressed… Sydney is definitively an easy city to live in. At the same time, Sri-Lanka was probably waking up on another day of civil war. The cease-fire established in 2002 between the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has been threatened almost everyday since the killing of 17 aid workers in eastern Sri Lanka last month…(NYTimes - USA)
Going out of the Chatswood station, I stopped in the small Scala Café where I often get on of these very good Italian coffees (Yes, I do drink coffee now for those of you who were wondering) before going to work. At the same time, Iran’s president was giving a rather provocative speech at one of U.N.’s meeting in New York. Since almost a year, the U.N. is struggling to stop Iran’s nuclear plans, and the shadow of war is more and more present over this country…. (LeMonde – FRA)
As I was reaching the office where I am working (a small job, some admin work and accounts work for a Mining Engineering company) I passed along the Red Cross center where this really cute receptionist is… She wasn’t there yet… But the day was only starting… At the same time, in Hungary, officials were releasing a press stament saying that more than 200 people have been injured and 137 arrested in the clashes between troublemakers and the police. Since the end of last week, a political turmoil is taking place in Budapest and some violent troublemakers and hooligans are taking advantage of the situation by committing violent acts during demonstrations… (NYTimes - USA)
After a hard 
morning of work in the office, I left the office to grab a lunch and eat it in a park. Nice lunch, nice sun, and while I was going back to work, the posters of the Red Cross centre were put down by a small wind. I took them back inside, gaining a wonderful smile from the receptionist. Unfortunately, she was answering a call so she could only whisper me a “Thank You”, but nothing more… Tomorrow will be better. At the same time, genocide was taking place in Darfur. Sudanese president refuses to have peacekeepers from the UN in the Darfur region of Sudan where 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes. (Le Monde – FRA)
Now I am sitting in front of my computer, back at work… I will head back home soon, probably go for a swim in the nice pool of the building where my brother and I are living, have a dinner with him and watch some stupid Australian TV program… This is my life at the moment… I won’t have enough time to talk to you about the other stuffs I’m doing here, like the Sydney French Theatre; going to the beach every week-end now that the sun is back; planning my future trips around Australia – Brisbane – The great barrier reef – Cairns – Darwin – Ayers Rock – Melbourne; planning my even further trips around the world – Argentina – Brazil – Bolivia – Colombia – Costa Rica – New York; or the really “Chouchou” receptionist who work next door to my work (Oooopppsss, I already told you about her… Sorry)
But it’s just fair enough cos I won’t have enough time to talk to you about what’s happening AT THE SAME TIME, about Religious tensions between Catholicism and Islam, about 50 years of civil war in Somalia, about Uganda’s fail to have Peace Gathering in order to solve their 20 years old civil war, about the so fragile situation between Israel and Lebanon…. About all these wars and violence happening in the world…
I wrote this post here because today is the 21st of September, the International Day of Peace. Not enough people know about it… Though this has probably never been more needed than today…
If you still have time after reading all this, go and check those websites, they are full of information about today, ideas on what to do, where to go, what’s happening near you…
http://www.ijb.cisv.org/ewiki/index.php?id=International+Peace+Day+Project
www.peaceoneday.org/
www.internationaldayofpeace.org/
Thank you for giving me some minutes of your time. Don’t hesitate to write me I’d love that!
Peace
Matt