Following the birth of his granddaughter in April 2005, Ludo Welffens writes a letter to his family and friends... .

1. A little message to all of you...
May 7, 2005
Following the birth of his granddaughter.
A little message to all of you - we worked together, or we just
met not so long ago.
The reason is a desire to share with you a special moment on the
day of my sixtieth birthday, April 29th 2005, you would agree, a
milestone.
On that day - sub-conscious planning? - I traveled in the early
morning in a overused OCHA LandCruiser from Kitgum to
Palabek in northern Uganda. Christiane called in the evening: the
day before, I had become grandfather for the second time. Maeva,
a girl, was born on April 28, 2005, in Washington DC, Frank and
Veronique the happy parents.
That morning, curled on a giant rusty bed in a tiny health center in Palabek Gem, I stared at
Maeva's twin sister, a one day old girl, still without a name, her very young mother exhausted on
the next bed, feverish with a severe bout of malaria... I admired the perfectly sculpted fingers of
the sleeping little girl. And on these winding dirt roads, brown-red, with the mountains north-east
of Kitgum in the distance, heavy with the absurdity of a UN blue bulletproof vest, I reflected for
the rest of the day on the miracle of human reproduction, in a desolate war-torn society, held alive
by massive infusions of ill-coordinated aid.
So I saw Maeva's twin sister, and she has certainly many more twin sisters than only the little
Palabek lady, born in this village/IDP camp, 40 kilometers from southern Sudan, the border a
century-old crooked line which only exists on maps. If it were possible to have the stats right on a
larger or even global scale, one could reflect on how many are there for every Maeva, the very
many with so radically different futures than Maeva - or is non-future the better word for them?
After 30 years with the UN - 29 years with UNICEF and 1 year with UNAIDS - I will go back to
University in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, in September, to read and write about the freedoms
and choices Maeva will have, and will not have, because the many sisters born on the same day as
she - after 200 out of every 1000 will have died before their fifth birthday - will to a large degree
determine how the world in 2045 will look like.
With the scenarios of failed development that are our paradigms, - an African scholar once told
me quot;quot;on patoge dans la merdequot;quot; - then over half of Maeva's twins will indeed never go to school,
have unwanted pregnancies in their teens, survive with no human dignity, differently put: the
contours of the societies of 40 years from now, are being drawn today.
Or looked-at from a different angle...the challenges for the Maevas are spelled-out with extra-
ordinary clarity….
Let’s stay in touch,
Warmest,
Ludo