Developing a bit of a crush on Madrid...

Thick, rich, not too sweet, and delicious.

So today after work, I was on a mission to find the Chocolatería San Ginés. Instead I got lost and found my perfect boots! They're black, and leather, and perfect, and Spanish, and on sale. I don't eat meat, you know, because it is gross...but oh my god, I want to collect every single leather good in Spain.

Yesterday, I had gone to Calle Fuencarral, which is a street full of shoe and clothing stores, with the sole purpose of finding those boots, but had no such luck. I did eat dinner alone at a small sandwich shop, which was an uncomfortable experience for me...but something I should get used to.

Today, after I had bought the boots and was literally skipping around the Sol area, I found Chocolatería San Ginés and had chocolate con churros, alone. Thankfully, Spain doesn't give much of a shit about Valentine's Day, and I didn't feel pathetic. I pretended to write something profound and important as I ate, but really just made boring work-related notes.

Work has improved significantly, with my Mondays & Tuesdays now devoted entirely to the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network (GIAN), and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday spent doing Africa work. I've been given a research project for Africa to be worked on over the next few months. I will be researching best practices in education in emergencies in Africa, and analyzing 4 of our current projects to see how they comply with emergency education standards. Pablo and I will meet every 2 weeks to discuss my progress, and I will be preparing a presentation for the Africa team to share my findings.

This really deserves its own post, but I want to share the thought before it gets stale. As I was reading through the GIAN materials, I came across a whole lot of Jesus and God references. But this time, I found something that helped:

"The mission of his disciples today is to understand the eloquent signs of God's presence and the call for change from those excluded. To do today those things that will return the dignity they were once denied, and work to promote opportunities for a worthy life, and thus we will meet God in our brothers and sisters and we will review our complicity with the systems that exclude them."

Those two actions, restoring dignity and the rejection of exclusion, are what I needed to hear. Adam Smith defines a nonimpoverished life as "the ability to appear in public without shame."

dignity = absence of shame

At some point we're going to have to discuss who exactly was responsible for the denying of dignity and the systems of exclusion in the first place...but we're cool for now.

Apparently I'm about to ride this roller coaster:

Where is the "Honeymoon Phase" on this thing? That's where Madrid and I are headed right now.