Upstaged

Yesterday’s event at The Hague City Hall to celebrate the opening of an Expatriate Archive Center was well attended. Not surprisng as the Archive Center is a Shell initiative and Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell was speaking. Another big draw on the program was newly appointed Mayor of The Hague, Jozias van Aartsen, former Minister of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs. His term as mayor is only days old, so public interest in him is high, based on the number of photagraphers present.

The audience was receptive to both of these high profile speakers, but when a nervous, slim, casually dressed seventeen year old Anika Smit took the stage, the audience and the event were entirely hers. She spoke a truth you don’t hear from politicians or CEOs.

She stood with her knee trembling, telling about the book Taxi she wrote at thirteen. Anika has moved 13 times and lived in 18 different houses around the world. She shared the heartbreak of goodbyes and the difficulty of adjusting to life in China, where she wrote the book. It begins in a taxi on the way to dancing class and ends in Inner Mongolia, where she truly came to understand the good fortune of her lot in life and the deep sense of responsibility that goes along with it. She urged us to make the distinction between real problems and uncomfortable situations. Her wisdom, poise and grace left me feeling hopeful for the future.

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