About Achi
Trip Start
Dec 12, 2007
1
13
Trip End
Dec 24, 2007
London,
United Kingdom
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
I met Achi in 1990 during my two and a half years of travelling Europe, The Middle East and the USA. My late Granny gave me his name and number as she and Achi's late mother were very close friends. My first phone call to Achi was to leave him a message with my Grandmother's name which was also the only reason he returned my call. Based on that and my first meeting with Achi I got my chance to be a part of a project and an opportunity to become part of Achi's world and family. Thankfully I did something right and thereafter Achi had a huge involvement and influence in my life.
For the next 12 years most of the work I did had something to do with Achi and the reason I am living in London is because of him too
Achi
. In about September 1995, after three and a half years of living with Retinitis Pigmentosa (see www.brps.org.uk if you would like to know what this is) and relying on poor public transport or friends and family to drive me around, I decided to leave South Africa. I had chosen Sydney in Australia as I had heard there was decent public transport there and it was somewhere I had never been before. On hearing this Achi's response was "no you are not, you are coming back to London to work for me.". It was an easy choice, on the 26th of February 1996, after a 6 week holiday in Australia, I left for London. Almost 12 years later and I am still happily living in London. Sadly it is also 5 years since Achi passed away after losing his battle against Cancer.
I also became a part of Achi and Yael's family and am pleased to say I am still very much in contact with and a part of Yael's family. When Yael told me that she was setting up a fund in Achi's name and planned to hold a memorial to commemorate 5 years since Achi passed away where she would donate the proceeds of the fund, a HUGE target of US$1 Million, to a Jerusalem Engineering College, I decided that Annie and I would be involved in some way and attend the memorial. I developed the website for the fund, see www.achi-ezer.org, and this blog is the result of attending the memorial and also going on some great excursions that Yael organised for us.
Some added benefits of this trip was meeting and putting faces to names I had heard about from Achi for many years, making some new friends and also getting back in touch with family I have not spoken to for about 15 years!
