Stagione 1
Part of the Conversation
The Place Doesn't Always Leave Us
Invisible Threads
Welcome to The Terrace
What happens when the conversation you dreamed of joining turns out to be very different from the one you expected? And what do a Permanent Secretary, a BMW, an old Ford pickup, an unwanted Jeep and a woman named Pam have to do with becoming part of Jamaica? In this episode of Notes from Between Worlds, I return to the beginning of my eight years in Jamaica. It starts with a thought from Gabriel García Márquez: perhaps life is not simply what we lived, but what we remember — and how we remember it in order to tell it. Memory makes its own choices. From there, the story moves to Kingston in the early 1990s: my first meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture, an unexpected question from the Permanent Secretary and the realization that international cooperation looked rather different from the inside than it had from afar. Then come the people who began to turn a project into a life: Nelson Wedderburn, Reginald Peddy and the project team; the move from Kingston to Mandeville; Pam, who had a remarkable ability to make problems disappear; and a landlord who one morning appeared uninvited in my bedroom. And finally, another move. Another house. And some new neighbours. At the time, they were simply the people next door. I had no idea that they would accompany me through almost all of my years in Jamaica. And another thread begins. Come and join me on The Terrace.
We leave places. But some places never really leave us. In the second part of my journey back to Niger, the memories become quieter — and more difficult. I remember the simple ritual of arriving in a village: the formal welcome, a bowl of fermented millet passed from hand to hand, and only then the conversation. But I also remember Niger during the drought and food crisis of 1984 and 1985. I remember mothers trying to get sick children to the nearest health centre, a colleague confronted with the limits of what she could do — and experiences that changed the way I look at something as ordinary as wasting food, even today. Yet that is only part of the story. Because Gaya also danced. The extraordinary Ballet de Gaya brought together music, dance, theatre, humour and magic — a reminder that hardship and joy, loss and creativity can exist in the same place, at the same time. More than forty years later, all these memories still belong together. We leave the place. The place doesn't always leave us. Come and join me again on The Terrace. This episode continues the Niger story begun in Episode 2, Invisible Threads.
What connects a short time together in Berlin in 1982 to a night on a donkey track near the Nigerian border — and to a friendship rediscovered 27 years later? In this episode of Notes from Between Worlds, I return to Niger and to some of the people and moments that have stayed with me for more than forty years. There is Mohammed, my friend and assistant, who had very definite ideas about who the passenger-side mirror belonged to. There is malaria, a broken Lada Niva and an improvised repair with a plastic bottle. A village meeting ends with a guinea fowl that refuses to become a gift — and a journey home in an old Land Rover takes an unexpected turn at the edge of a field of floating rice. Some memories remain because they changed us. Others because, even decades later, they still make us smile. And sometimes the significance of a meeting only becomes visible much later. Perhaps our lives are held together by invisible threads. Come and join me on The Terrace. This story continues in Episode 3: The Place Doesn't Leave Us.
Every life is a collection of conversations. Some last for years. Others only a few minutes. Yet some stay with us forever. In the first episode of Notes from Between Worlds, I invite you to The Terrace, where stories begin—not with answers, but with questions. If you’ve ever wondered how a single encounter can change the course of a life, this journey begins here.
Welcome to Notes from Between Worlds. This short trailer introduces the spirit behind the podcast. Over the years, life has taken me across continents, cultures and unexpected encounters. Along the way, I discovered that the most meaningful journeys are rarely about places—they are about people, their stories and the moments that quietly change us. Beginning August 1, 2026, I'll share these stories with you: from Cuba to Afghanistan, from Guatemala to New Orleans, and many places in between. So, take a seat. Relax. And join me on the terrace. The first full episode will be released on August 1, 2026.