Category Archives: PERSONAL

IDENTITY, PERSONAL

Evelyn Marsters: Finding home in Berlin, four years on

It’s 9am and my daughter has a high fever. It’s been three days since she’s been her normal sassy self and I’m worried. Without a second thought I pick up the phone and try to find her a doctor’s appointment. I make two phone calls before I realise that I have been conducting these conversations entirely in German. Despite these attempts I’m unsuccessful in booking my daughter an appointment, so I open up my email and fire off a note to the pediatrician. Without using Google Translate.

This is what living in Berlin feels like four years on.

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ENVIRONMENT, PERSONAL

Selina Leem: Farewell to legendary climate advocate Papa Tony deBrum

On August 22 the climate change movement lost one of its fiercest advocates. Tony deBrum, former Marshall Islands foreign minister and climate ambassador, passed away aged 72. Considered a hero by many in his homeland, deBrum was a strong, committed voice in the campaign for greater protections for small island nations in the face of environmental change, and a crucial proponent of the historic Paris Agreement.

We asked Impolitikal contributor Selina Leem to reflect on her close bond with ‘Papa Tony’, and the impact of his passing.

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