The World as Home

© Yolanda Weldring

Text Yolanda Weldring and Nils von der Assen

eBook Mat-Zet bv

Second print, January 2024

ISBN 9789460229688

ISBN 9789460229671 ePub

Preface

What makes you write a biography?

Family, friends, and colleagues have often asked me that question: “What makes you write a biography”? Some do ask because they just like the idea. Others question me because they see little point in doing so. What should another person do with my reflections on a life lived? Is that actually of interest? I am not a film star, a scientist, or a president of a nation. I am not a celebrity of the kind that libraries are written about. What I am is a woman, who has had an interesting career all over the world, and who tried to combine work with an active social life. Especially to people who are culturally tied to one place, it is sometimes difficult to explain what such a life looks like. This biography is an attempt to do that explaining.

I wrote this book mainly for myself, while having a lot of fun putting together the various chapters. So, I felt tired again when recalling difficult experiences. Similarly, I felt sad reliving tragic events, but also happy thinking about nice memories. I didn’t know it would work like that, but apparently writing a biography is a kind of reexperiencing your life, with all the emotions cropping up that come with it. In my often hectic existence, the months I reserved for research and writing were mostly felt like times of rest and reflection. I spent considerable time to quietly going through my notes, which form the basis of the story in this book, that I hope you readers will enjoy. For former colleagues there may be recognizing of things we shared. Others, a little further removed from the experiences and sectors discussed, will get a glimpse into this life ‘lived around the world’.

It has taken me to wonderful places. I have lived and worked in Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as travelled to North and South America and Australia. Travelling has been mostly for work purposes, but sometimes a holiday was attached. I find it valuable to share with you some special events and experiences from all those trips abroad. An important lesson I’ve learned, that when on the move you have to follow your heart and your motives, wherever they might take you. Of course, this all happened in tune with the interests of loved ones, but satisfying everyone’s interests never really works, and perhaps shouldn’t even be tried. That trying to meet all interests sometimes hurts, but so does not following your heart.

Although I have almost reached my seventh decade in this life, I am not finished working yet. I am looking forward to the next phase of my career, in which I will set up and lead, on behalf of the Executive Search-firm Oxford HR, an interim management department. But the busiest, most dynamic part of my career is behind me, so reflection is nowadays possible. In terms of relationships too, the tumultuous years are behind me: I have been happy now with my partner Lenze for 26 years.

I dedicate this biography to him, because all these years he was my first and foremost support and companion. Dedication is also warranted towards my parents, Job and Toos, who were equally supportive during the first 20 years of my life. In between there was Rob, and many dear friends, girlfriends, relatives and colleagues that helped me getting along. Without them, I would not have become who I am.

Prologue: A boat as an elderly woman’s retirement (2005)

The scene is a Sunday afternoon in Kollam, a fishing town on the Arabian Sea coast in southwest India. The meeting tent is gradually filling up. I wave some coolness to myself, and look around in amazement: Have so many women really come? I count about a hundred of them among perhaps two hundred local elders. All are full of expectation. On the stage, a man walks busily up and down, his purple habit fluttering to the rhythm of his steps. Soon, the man – the bishop of the city of Kollam – will preside over a festive ceremony. This wet and tropical place, hit a year ago by a disaster beyond imagination, finally has something to celebrate today. The bishop has come to bless the boats, a whole brandnew fleet even, purchased with help from HelpAge International’s Tsunami Fund. Soon, after I sign the certificates under the watchful eye of all these people, the official handover will be a reality. Then we will all wish the fishermen the luck that let them down once so horribly. A new beginning and a safe journey is wished for, with plenty of fresh fish harvested…

The strange thing is that in my busy career where I roll from one assignment to another, and usually have little time for family and friends, I am always just in between jobs when my parents really need me. In 1999 I had that kind of break when my father fell seriously ill and passed away. In September 2004 my contract at Oxfam Novib came to an end, and I took a few months off to assist my mother. That same year a tumour in her kidney was removed. She had to recover for several months and needed my help. Those days, I took the time to think about what I wanted careerwise. After four and a half years as a director at Oxfam (1999-2004) I wanted to work in Africa, preferably for an organisation that focused on the well-being of children. In February 2004 I spent a couple of days in New York, at the headquarters of Unicef, and was put on a job list. I had applied for positions at Unicef in the past, but because I mainly had management experience and still lacked field experience, it never led to being interviewed.

A few weeks after Christmas however, as one of the most terrible tsunamis in recent history swept along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia causing 200,000 deaths and inflicting massive damage, I received an email from Eduardo Klien, the Asia director of HelpAge International (HAI). He asked if I would be interested to join his office in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as Tsunami Programme Manager. After several talks with HAI’s management, I was formally offered the job, initially for five months. Note that on the same day, a Surinamese organisation approached me to reorganise an educational programme, but after an evening of deliberation I tied the knot. HAI would be my choice.

On 22 February 2005 I reported to HAI headquarters in London, and after a briefing, I flew from there via Bangkok to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. This was in as such exciting; for the first time I got a job in another country. While working at Oxfam-Novib as a programme director, I regularly went on field visits to various countries, but those trips usually lasted one or two weeks rather than many months. The first weekend in Chiang Mai I stayed at Hotel Amari, getting used to the hot and humid climate. There was time to explore the neighbourhoods and the city at large. But once at the HAI Asia Pacific Regional Development Centre (APRDC)-office the following Monday morning, I immediately got to work.

As I prepared for a round of introductions with the staff HAI Asia Director Eduardo Klien explained to me what needed to be done. We were set to develop a three-year strategy for the English Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), on the basis of which funding for the HAI Tsunami Response programme would be then put in place. While back in the Netherlands the Samenwerkende Hulp Organisaties (SHO)1 normally formulated a joint response after a disaster and raised funds for it, in the United Kingdom the DEC oversees that response. HelpAge International (HAI) is one of 15 organisations within the DEC, that receives for that purpose 3% of the money raised in the UK. A strategy for how that money would be spent in tsunami-stricken India and Sri Lanka needed to be put on the table. Later, HAI, which focuses mainly on helping the elderly, will also add the region of Aceh in Indonesia to this list. When I asked who will be in charge to develop such strategy, Eduardo’s answer was clear. All relevant managers from the UK, India and Sri Lanka were coming to Chiang Mai the week after for a meeting that I was supposed to prepare. The need was high, and it was my responsibility that a solid strategy for the next three years will be rolled out. Glad you are here was Eduardo’s message to me. I didn’t start a day too early!

I went straight to work then. I read the DEC requirements, went through HelpAge International’s policy documents, and made a draft agenda for the meeting, which I circulated to those coming to Chiang Mai. Their ‘names and numbers’ were new to me then, but the faces that look at me expectantly in the meeting room a week later would become very familiar to me in the months that followed. In Silvia Stefanoni, HAI’s Global Programmes Director, I found not only a good colleague, but also a friend for life. Silvia and I worked together in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka in the context of the tsunami programme, but later during other projects for HAI as well, in Nepal, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and London. We worked together, we sparred together, but also talked about our love lives, about children, about the balance between work and life, and all other things that drive and inspire us. Matthew Cherian is a soft-spoken man who heads HelpAge India, and during that time succeeded in building a widely respected organisation fighting for the rights and needs of Indian elderly people across India. Tilak de Soyza, chairman of HelpAge Sri Lanka, also works tirelessly on behalf of the elderly population. He is really a businessman, a CEO of a large company in Sri Lanka, and so more focused on the ‘harder’ infrastructure for seniors, like housing the elderly, rather than concentrating on the ‘softer’ side of the work, such as setting up Older Peoples’ Associations. OPA’s is an apt acronym in this context!2 Michael Etherton, the interim director of HelpAge Sri Lanka, reminded me of my father. A pleasant man whom nobody could dislike, but who was perhaps ultimately slightly too gentle when it came to taking tough and difficult decisions. Eduardo Klien, my manager in Asia, completed the company. I will also get to know him as a fierce advocate of the rights of the elderly. He is someone who is more comfortable in a managerial role, than letting himself be managed, and especially by a woman.3 Together, we considered the issues at hand, we contributed our views, and we sought compromises. Arriving at a ready-made strategy with a corresponding budget is not an easy matter at all! For instance, for me it is important that the most vulnerable groups, both the elderly affected, and the people living in the hinterland (the ‘host communities’ in development jargon), are involved in the tsunami response programmes. This immediately created ambiguity, because how far should that hinterland be extended? Five kilometres inland, or ten, or fifteen…? Where then is the limit actually of the disastrous tsunami’s influence? In the end we arrive at completing the strategic plan wanted. The session has been successful. A three-year plan is on the table, with corresponding targets and budget. The work can begin…

In the 10 months I worked at HelpAge International in 2005, and then again in 2012, 2013 and 2014, stationed respectively in Kathmandu (Nepal), London and Nairobi (Kenya), I learnt a lot about the difficulties faced by older people in developing countries. Especially when there are emergencies like tsunamis, but also in cases like drought, or the HIV/AIDS pandemic in large parts of Africa. The report ‘The Impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami on Older People’ (2005, HelpAge International Asia Pacific Regional Development Centre) states: ‘Older people, often neglected in normal circumstances, are even more vulnerable during disasters. Despite international protocols such as the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and the Sphere guidelines, research confirms that during tsunamis they were not specifically targeted and, in some cases, the relief effort even discriminated against them. In many cases, older men and women were unable to access health care, food, and cash support due to discrimination, lack of information or support mechanisms.’ Elderly people make up almost 10 per cent of the population across Asia. Before the tsunami struck, they actively contributed to their families’ livelihoods by bringing in salaries, sacrificing their pensions, looking after children or working in family businesses. After the tsunami disaster it was vital to continue providing livelihood opportunities for the elderly. Many applied for short-term benefits of around 8-10 euros a month. An income, however small, can make the difference between life and death, especially for elderly women, who usually figure among the poorest.

The health issues faced by vulnerable elderly people in the (post-)tsunami period, for example chronic illnesses or psychosocial problems, were also a critical concern for us. Many elderly people we spoke to during our visits to OPA’s4 were consumed by trauma and stress and talked openly about their depressions. All had suffered losses, money, belongings, as well as had lost loved ones, children and grandchildren. We visited Kupamma, a sixty-five-year-old woman who had lost her husband, her only child and her home to the swirling waters. All she still owned was the sari she wore. Another poignant experience was a visit to a home for the elderly in southern Sri Lanka, where we encountered elderly people who had survived by hanging in a tree during the flooding. Now they were housed in dormitories with field beds, with no clear perspective of how to proceed with their lives.

Working for HAI is dynamic, demanding and intense. I constantly feel what is at stake. Fortunately, between all the desk work, the field visits and the conferences, every now and then there is also time to blow off steam. Together with my partner Lenze, I travel around the region, obviously at my own expense and always for a few days. In Thailand, we visit the historic sites of Lamphun and Sukhothai, we see the Royal Palace in Bangkok, and witness the Sonkran festival, the spectacular Thai New Year. We feast our eyes on the Sri Lankan city of Polonnaruwa, with its temples, its Buddha statues, and unique stupas. In India, we visit the Mahabalipuram temple complex, and in Cambodia, Angkor Wat.

Having a busy job in another part of the world is sometimes difficult, living separately from your partner, parents, or friends, but of course also is an enriching experience. I have managed to arrange it so that I can spend a week at home and see my mother prior to meetings at HelpAge headquarters in London, and the trips with Lenze are incredibly beautiful and enjoyable.

My life in Chiang Mai follows a set pattern. In the morning, I have breakfast in my rather dreary one-room flat in the condominium, then jump on my mountain bike towards the APRDC office. Once there, I immediately throw on the air conditioning, completely sweaty after the 20-minute bike ride in the humid Thai climate, and get to work. At lunchtime, we eat Thai food in the canteen of the university hospital, which also houses the HelpAge office. Early in the evening, I pedal out of the office towards the supermarket to get food or have something delicious served to me on the terrace of a small restaurant. For me, as a vegetarian, the choice is limited, because in Thailand a lot of meat is consumed. In that sense, South India, with its wide variety of vegetarian dishes, was a much easier place for me to live.

A call via FaceTime, Teams or Zoom wasn’t possible in 2005, so Lenze and I either call via a telephone switchboard, where you can make relatively cheap calls sitting in a cramped cubicle, or via a poor Skype connection from my flat. It’s fiddly and I find that difficult. My mother does not have a laptop, so I speak to her from that small telephone booth anyway, as I do with a client who is following a management coaching programme with me at the time.

My weekly outing is taking a ‘tuk-tuk’ to the night market. It is open daily until midnight and offers a colourful collection of Thai knick-knacks. Not all of them beautiful, but I manage to find nice gifts and gadgets for my family and friends in the Netherlands. I really like to visit markets, and those in Asia are especially wonderful. It is nice to have such a place in a still largely foreign environment.

Weekends alone I find difficult. Usually, I do go out for one or two days, go swimming, visit the town or see a temple. I am on the road to Sri Lanka and India one week a month for work anyway, but still, and especially then, I feel the lack of having a real home. Weekdays have their regular pattern: Work, buy food, make phone calls, watch the news, sleep. But weekends are long, when you have to entertain yourself. At home, I never suffer from this, but in a small hotel room or in my flat, I really do.

When I leave for Cuddelore, South India on 13 March 2005 for a series of meetings with HelpAge India’s partner organisations and field staff, little do I know that a revelation awaits me. Except for two or three young women, only men appear at the meeting. When I ask why there are not more women, I am told that women do not want to work far from their families, and so don’t do this kind of work. This sets off a lively discussion because I find it unacceptable that there is not a more proportional representation of women and men within our organisation, whether behind the desk or ‘in the field’. The tsunami victims for whom we work are both men and women, and with more women in the team, I think we could generate real attention to specifically female issues – including those of vulnerable elder women – in the affected areas and communities. Especially with younger women, it is very important to put them in groups in one location, so they can live together in a staff house, for example. Putting one woman among a group of men would not only antagonise her parents but could also place her in an unsafe situation. After open and honest deliberation, we decide as a group to specifically recruit several female colleagues, who will then be placed together in a location.

In the same meeting, I am presented with some contracts to sign. These turn out to be boats to be newly purchased by APRDC, which, the plan is, will be handed over to groups each consisting of six men. These men lost their own boats in the tsunami. Food for a new discussion it soon turns out, which is lively, extensive and necessary. I ask the group of some 40 staff (from HelpAge and from the partner organisation) why the lists of prospective owners only include men’s names. ‘Because women don’t fish’, is the reply. ‘But these men between 80 and 95, they don’t fish anymore, do they?’ I observe. Since HelpAge helps mostly elderly people, all the men on that list are well over 80. ‘No, these men no longer do’, the staff acknowledged, ‘but their sons do. Of the catch, half is for the fishermen and half for the boat owners. That way we offer them an income’. To which I put forward the idea: ‘If these fishermen have a father, they probably also have a mother. So why not make their mothers owners of the boat too?’ There is no eye-rolling visible as a reaction to my queries, but the ‘this-is-how-we-work-here-in-the South’ look cannot possibly be missed. ‘Here in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the men are the boat owners,’ I am told. ‘Not the women’. Not at all happy with this response, I ask if there are any legal objections to making a woman (co-)owner of a boat. ‘There aren’t any, miss Weldring’. I ask the staff how much age difference there usually is between husband and wife in a marriage. ‘About ten years, miss. Women are on average ten years younger than their husbands.’ ‘If HelpAge is there for the elderly and those women are on average ten years younger than their husbands,’ I say, ‘so they benefit from their co-ownership for ten years longer.’ And so you are talking about a form of retirement. Women’s life expectancy in Kerala is among the highest in all of India… The staff weighs and weighs the arguments on the table... and in the end accepts my reasoning. Eventually we agree that groups of six co-owners will be formed, and that I will not sign for the boat transfer until each group consists of three men and three women. So be it!

And so there I sit on that Sunday afternoon, in the fishing town of Kollam. To my surprise and amazement, the tent is half full of men and half full of women! The bishop has blessed the boats, and so the signing of the certificates can begin. How good it feels to offer something lasting to these people who have lost everything, who are still suffering daily and could use all the help they can get. Never before have I received so many kisses from women completely unknown to me, happy and grateful as they were with this precious possession, a boat with a life span of twenty, maybe even thirty years! It is a well-known adage: ‘Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime’. In Kerala, we put our own spin on that saying: Give a woman a boat and you provide her with a pension!

At the end of November, I say goodbye to my colleagues, hand in my mountain bike and leave for the airport for the flight Chiang Mai-Bangkok, and then Bangkok-Amsterdam. The following week, I report to London for a debriefing. I recently sent an application letter to Save the Children UK, for a position as Regional Director East & Southern Africa, with Addis Ababa as station. When Silvia asks me about my plans, I talk about my application to Save the Children UK. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I have an appointment with the International Director of Save the Children UK tomorrow’. Coincidence? You name it. The person she is about to meet is exactly the one to whom I sent my application. When I tell Silvia that, she replies, ‘I will tell him to interview you. You have to do the rest yourself.’ And so, it happens. On 21 December 2005 I look out from the high-speed train, again on my way to London, a watery sun hesitatingly shining on my face. That afternoon, I have an initial interview with Save the Children’s interview committee, soon followed by a second interview. A month later, in our apartment on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, the phone rings. They want me and a three-year contract is ready, starting date 1 March 2006. Lenze and I weigh, weigh again, and decide. We do it. Destination: Addis Ababa.

Women in Kollam, Kerala, South India, waiting for their boat certificate, 2005

Handing over boats to elderly people in Kollam from the HelpAge Tsunami fund, 2005

With women affected by the tsunami and receiving help from HAI, 2005

1 ‘Cooperating aid organisations’

2 ‘Opa’ is Dutch for grandfather

3 In 2013 the roles were reversed. I was his line manager, which proved a whole lot trickier than the relationship in Chiang Mai!

4 Older Peoples’ Associations

1. My life as a woman

I was a first for my parents, their first child. Two and a half years later my kid brother Bob was born. My parents always treated us equally. From time to time, we both were supposed to perform little household chores. Bob specialized in vacuuming. I took on ironing shirts. We were both allowed to pursue the educations we wanted. During the days of our childhood – the late 1950s and early 1960s – it was quite unusual that a mother worked outside the household. Even if it was part-time, but she worked. No less modern was the fact that on the days my mother was away for work, my father cooked the evening meal, sat with us to eat, and made sure things were tidy by the time she got home. Now that all is quite common in Europe, but not back then.

My mother worked as an international telephone operator for the PTT (the predecessor of KPN) in Amsterdam. In the 1960s, telephone calls were still made via plugs, and the language of communication was French. She regularly worked evening shifts, which led to the rumour in our street that she might work as a prostitute. After all, what woman walked in high heels and came home from Amsterdam at midnight? My mother knew better and didn’t care about the gossip. Might I have inherited her stoicism, her attitude of ‘who-does-me-what’?

That I was a somewhat fast learner, and my brother a little slower was attributed to our different personalities. We were both given equal attention and opportunities, encouraged equally. Only much later did I realise that this is not a given, that girls do not just get the same opportunities as boys, and that the slower learners by no means experience the same as the faster ones. I went to primary school, skipped a grade there, went to grammar school and then to university. The fact that from the age of about fifteen I was no longer such a fast learner was mainly due to other priorities than school: Going out (to the pub De Taveerne in Bergen with my boyfriend Wouter, to the North Sea beach in Bergen aan Zee with my cousin Marjo) and a part-time job on Thursday and Saturday afternoons in shoe-shop De Raadt in Alkmaar, where I earned the money for holidaying, acquiring myself a moped and going nights out.

That I could go to university was new in our family as well as in the wider family from both sides. My parents had done Mulo1 and then seeking further education. Their parents were artisans, tailors for instance, but their schooling was limited to primary school. My great-grandparents were farmers and tailors respectively, at a time when large families lived in poverty, a time when the majority of girls had to seek employment as early as 12 or 13 years old. Later, I saw this pattern repeated in Africa, when I visited schools for Save the Children where I found a first generation of girls schooling. That was quite a step for those relatively poor and traditional families. I remember once visiting a school in the Somali region of Ethiopia, together with regional programme manager Steve Thorne and country director David Throp. At that school, in a remote village just outside the town of Jijiga, we encountered many young girls, while their fathers stood at the back of the classroom because as village representatives they were our hosts. When I asked them how they felt about their daughters now schooling, they responded positively. They had never learnt to read and write and experienced that as a handicap in modern times. They were cattle farmers, but often experienced the greatest difficulty in dealing with the government, for instance. Their daughters, however, helped them read and write letters. I told them that my great-grandparents had been farmers, that my grandparents had done primary school and vocational training, that my parents had had office jobs, and that I was able to go to university, leading to a university degree and eventually a director’s job at Save the Children. It could go that fast, is what I wanted to tell those cattle farmers, even for their daughters and granddaughters. Moreover, there was no shortage of ambition. The girls, nine or ten years old, made clear that they wanted to become doctors, teachers or accountants...

I myself do not have much talent for housework, nor the patience to spend a lot of time on it. I do have however the desire to live in a tidy house, so I have always had a domestic help. I find continued payment during illness and holidays quite normal, even if it is not formal employment. Decent working conditions are a must. You help someone get ahead in society. For instance, during our years in Addis Ababa (2006- 2010), Lenze and I had Elsa, who did the housework in the morning and cooked for herself, the guards and for us. In the afternoon she did the assignments for her financial-administrative training at our dinner table. She was thus able to work her way up to become financial officer at Save the Children Ethiopia. And between 2010 and 2012, Margaret similarly worked with us in Pretoria, South Africa. We are still in touch with both Elsa and her, as well as with the domestic workers who have worked with us in Langedijk since 2012 and have since developed into (among others) logistics workers and supervisors at a day-care centre. I cherish the contact and the role we played in each other’s lives. However, I find it difficult to see that the generation that has just ‘lifted’ itself above lower forms of labour sometimes acts so denigrating towards their domestic workers. In all the countries where I worked, I saw how women were exploited as full-time housekeepers and/or childminders, often even living with the family. I find it incomprehensible that notably women do this to other women, especially with both my grandmothers – who were facing similar situations – in mind. During my time at Hivos in Southeast Asia, there were projects to support Filipino and Indonesian women working in the Middle East who were horribly exploited there; their passports taken, their children forcibly left with relatives… The question then is how you can create and enjoy personal wealth if you happen to enslave others, often women, in the very process?

When it comes to domestic work, I am amazed every time how it all usually comes down to women. Wherever in the world I worked for extended periods of time – from Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and South Africa to Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Thailand – everywhere my female colleagues appeared to have already completed half a working day by the time they arrived at the office. They get up at 05.00 in the morning, clean the house and prepare dinner for the evening. Then rush off to work – at Save the Children, HelpAge, Practical Action, Hivos, the Education Development Trust – to work eight hours there as a manager or officer, after which they rush to get back home in time to pour their husbands a soda or a beer, finish cooking and serve dinner, and then clean the dishes. Among the younger generation, I can see the division of roles shifting somewhat, but hardly at all among those of my age, and up to 20 years younger. I would enter into discussions with my female and sometimes male colleagues but was still looked at as someone from another continent, where this division of home chores ‘is simply better organised than with us’. With the younger generation, things do seem to be changing, and hopefully this will continue. I am lucky with my own partner. Lenze thinks it is the most normal thing in the world that he cooks and does more housework than I do, because I work many more hours per week than he does.

A lot has changed in the past 50 years. Today, there is much more focus on encouraging girls and young women to build their own careers. The fact that my parents already gave my brother and me equal opportunities to shape our (working) lives back then certainly helped me develop. The fact that I was quite ambitious in my twenties and thirties also contributed to this. I studied psychology in Groningen, participated in student working groups and in the Faculty Council as a student member, partly because of my interest in policy making, but also with an eye on my future. At twenty-seven, I finished my studies and found a job as team leader at the General Probation Association in Zaanstad, that covered the Zaanstreek, Waterland and IJmond regions. Actually, that was a slightly too big a jump for someone just having finished university studies, and it took me quite some effort to command some respect within my team. Everyone there was older and more experienced than me.

With my background in psychology, I found some pretty tough cases on my plate, such as crimes committed in groups of youngsters, which involved a lot of violence. I tried to fathom where for those boys the boundary lay in kicking and kicking again someone who was already laying on the ground wholly unable to defend himself. I was quite shocked to discover that there was in fact no such boundary: ‘When the other group hits someone from your group,’ I often heard, ‘you hit and kick back. Then you don’t think about the consequences and whether it’s justified or not.’ Those boys seemed to fly into violence blindly. Although I had studied criminology alongside psychology, being confronted with violence, rape and even murder taught me a lot of new things about the behaviour of boys and men towards each other, as well as towards women.