Tonight I went to the coolest dinner party ever.
That opening sentence sounds kind of “dear diary,” but in reality I am basically that giddy.
Yousef, if you’re reading this, make a note. This is how those parties we talked about would go…
The director of La Fundacion Paraguaya had a bunch of people from the foundation over to his house. The guy’s name is Martin – he is a Paraguayan who was educated in the United States and went back to Paraguay. Under his leadership, La Fundacion has become one of, if not the foremost microfinance institution in Latin America. He is regarded by employees and competitors alike as a visionary in economic development.
Turns out he’s also an incredibly cool guy. A lot of the other people in the room were MBA students, so we started to talk about business philosophy. Martin started saying basically what I’ve always believed…economic development isn’t about money, it’s about people. that’s all there is to it.
I wish I could remember the wording that Martin was using. or more accurately, I wish I could explain how I feel about economic development, or what I’m doing here, as succinctly and elegantly as he did. basically it comes to this – he wants to do as much good as he can, and economic development is how he sees himself doing the most good.
then somebody pointed out his poetry collection. he got really excited, and he’s the kind of man that projects his emotion to everybody in the room – everybody started talking about poetry, the poetry they grew up with and the poetry they wish they remembered. Martin took books down and started passing them around and telling people to read their favorites, which they did gladly.
It was a really beautiful experience, and even more so when he began to talk about how his love for poetry reflects his economic development work. it is difficult to imagine a person being able to appreciate either one or the other, he said, because fundamentally they are both about the same thing: understanding the needs of others and relating to them with true empathy.
poetry: the shortest distance between two humans
-lawrence ferlinghetti
