From the ground.

Me and one of our dogs (Sandokan) in Portugal on my last trip over there...
The best thing about returning to my country, after living for a few intense years in this mad MAD world of Egypt and the Middle East, resides in the fact that I can be surrounded ONLY by AUTHENTIC and BEAUTIFUL people and things.

I only see my elected friends (although I wish I had enough time to see them all, which is never possible) and family, I eat food literally taken from the ground of our garden, I breath clean air, bath in our wild, immense Atlantic ocean, I run with the dogs (LOVE IT!) and feel no need to defend myself from anything or anyone, as it always happen in my "regular" life in Cairo where I have to be on the watch 24 hours per day, aware of the traps of all colours and kinds.

The best thing about visiting my country, Portugal, resumes what I am and the values I am made of, the things I have no intention of changing - even if life pushes me to do so very often - and the ASSETS I truly search for in my life.

Simplicity, truth, REAL people and REAL feelings, afternoons with my mum and sunsets with my best friends...and all this feeds my soul, my dance, all my creativity and that part of me that RESISTS to ugliness by becoming more and more beautiful.

Thanks to all my friends and family for their blessed presence in my life but thanks twice to my enemies for they are the ones who challenge me most and make me grow stronger, wiser and always reaching higher.