I have a colleague, K, that is now off to Kenya to look after orphans.
It’s strange. I have known K for about 3 years that in only the last few months I have begun to see as a dear dear friend. Of course it isn’t a radical departure, we weren’t enemies in any way and I am very pleased of the development - but how is a transformation like that likely?
It feels like love at first sight only it is platonic love and not at first sight. Does that make any sense?
The orphans bit isn’t quite the full story. Her cousin is in the Royal College of Nurses1 and has set her self the ‘mission’ to foster links between her group and outlet hospitals, or more correctly clinics, in Kenya to begin with but East Africa as a whole in the future. The first trip is a sort of feasibility study both personally and professionally and is based at clinics looking after orphans through AIDS.2
I am now in a position where this ‘new found’ friend is away so shortly after the foundations are fostered. The trip comes at absolutely the right time for K. Stresses at work will be well forgotten as she simply supports her cousin. So I am pleased for her. My only sadness3 is that she ‘came along’ at absolutely the right time for me. I can truthfully say that I needed a friend and there she was - ready made :D.
The other thing about this friendship I’m finding strange is how I feel about her. It is possibly the most intense platonic sensation I’ve experienced. There is no physical attraction either way and I have no doubt we would be absolutely terrible together even if there were. It is like a sibling closeness that I am unfamiliar with having with a non family member.
All I have to say about it here is that I wanted to record this new sensation and have it as a reminder of a happiness that has no basis in anything than serendipity and an inter-human emotional connection.
- Actually the largest Nursing union in the UK ↩
- There is some odd notion of setting up transfers of UK medicine that is past its best before date over there, but that is one of several naïve ideas this post is not about. ↩
- It hardly registers as sadness, but it felt the most apt word to describe how i feel ↩
- sources
- reading list
- links
- Royal College of Nurses
- updates
- Special K is back and is safe and sound. Things were a little tough for her before she left, but it absolutely has given her a new mission and sense of purpose. Check her flickr photostream of Bungoma.
- originally posted
- October 06, 2006
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UK Conservatives have called for Government intervention to save a British charity supplying lifesaving medicines to Africa that has been threatened with closure as a result of the overly-zealous interpretation of EU directives by the Environment Agency.