A Woman Among Wolves

By Elisabeth Carrio

This novel retraces the initiatory path taken by a young woman, Anaïs, a bored young woman entrepreneur who decides to change her profession. Wanting to reconcile professional life and idealism, she gives up everything to work in international organizations.
The shock is total when she discovers this politico-diplomatic world: corruption, wars of power, and blackmail. It is not a question of fighting against poverty or for world peace, but of surviving in these opaque organizations, places of confrontation that have replaced armed battlefields.
This book is inspired by a true story even if the names of the protagonists have been changed. It retraces the initiatory journey of this woman who ends up winning her battle but above all by discovering and becoming who she really was.

My book is mainly aimed at women, then at those who work in organizations. Its aim is to convey the message that everything is possible with courage and that one should not be afraid of what can happen: there is no authority that cannot be challenged. Life presents us with obstacles that we can overcome, but we must let go of our resistances, trust life, our intuition. We all have the necessary strength within us; there are always people around us who are ready to help us. Some will take more or less risks, need more or less security or adrenaline because we are all different. But even if it is likely that the Other will always remain an enigma, he will be there to help us or make us evolve by preventing us from moving forward. There are few real bad people but a lot of immaturity. And maturity comes through risk, choice and self-confidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elisabeth Carrio
• Release date: Jul 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005827373

Elisabeth Carrio

After studing in Political Sciences and in Economy, my professional career has known several steps: First Independent Certified Public Accountant and Legal Auditor for twenty years in France, I drapeau FRworked then for multilateral international organizations, such as United Nations, OSCE and European Commission.My missions were various: As Chief of Budget and Finance, expert in strategy, capacity building or evaluator, I participated to national strategic plans in the frame of European Development Funds I acted also as evaluator of projects and programmes in Sub-Sahaian countries, in Cambodia or as expert in capacity building in Syria or Macedonia. These missions often included training, management and monitoring of multicultural or local teams. They all have as aim change management and facilitating the dialog between countries representativesIn France I essentially worked for reinforcing capacities of NGOs or the medical sector: restructuration, advice in organisation, evaluation

Book preview

Who Are You ?

Chapter 1 :

The Decision

Svetlana,wake up; it's time for school.

A grunt was the reply and then:

I won't go; you're annoying me and then first...

I didn't listen to the rest. I knew that Svetlana would get up grumbling, go to the bathroom, put on make-up and criticize the image reflected in her mirror, eat nothing of what I had prepared for a lot of good reasons, especially out of a spirit of contradiction, and leave with a slam of the door. In short, a classic teenage morning run. I often wondered why my daughter and I should have to go through all that. But there it was - one of those initiation rituals from which there is no escape. Still, I felt that our relationship had become even more difficult after she had returned from her year in the United States. It was really hard for us to live together now.

That's how it is.

Meanwhile, I had an appointment at nine o'clock with a new client. Then I had to fill in goodness knows how many tax returns. I would also have liked to go to that new lunch-time gym class that opened a few weeks ago just next to the office, but I wasn't sure I'd have the time. In the afternoon, I had more appointments, specifically with Mr. Hector, the owner of a business who was always getting mixed up between income and cash flow. More fun in prospect, yet again having to explain what seemed obvious to me. Apparently this was not the case for everyone! And what’s more, tonight I was to chair an update meeting on the new tax law. I needed to do a bit of marketing work if I wanted to maintain my turnover. I also had to find time to chat with my daughter. Not tomorrow because I still had a meeting, but on Friday I'd try to finish earlier.

I sighed.

Sometimes I felt like a hamster reincarnated as a human being. Day followed day, season followed season, but I hadn't really been aware of them for a long time. Of course there were holidays. I would book a trip alone or with my daughter. These were almost the only rare moments when the tension inside me calmed down. The unfamiliar, the unknown. I would change my identity. I would swap from being a professional to being a student. I would find things out, I would let feelings and the unexpected take over.

But all this is no big deal, I said to myself in a magnificent moment of self-pity, as I slipped behind the wheel of my metallic grey sports coupé. After all, this was the life I had wanted. I was the one who left the father of my daughter ten years ago when I thought I had found true love.

True love didn’t last long however as one true love followed another. All this had happened too fast and now I could hardly make sense of it all. Anyway, I had lost any sense it might have had. And then I never really wanted to do this job. If I hadn't failed the exam at the time, I would have worked in an embassy and I wouldn't have become an accountant like my father.

A chartered accountant. The title itself exuded seriousness and boredom. It's true that I had developed my clientele and that I was doing rather well. The same thoughts came back:

I'm suffocating with this routine! I want to travel. What if I changed jobs? Only, what could I do? Svetlana is going to finish her final year at high school this year and will probably then leave for another town. I just can’t see myself going on like this! What if I leave too? What if I create a job out of all the work for charities that I do? What I actually like is travelling and I really enjoyed my last two volunteering jobs in Africa. For once, I felt like I was truly somebody.

Those two jobs! I had taken them on by chance! Reading a professional magazine once, I had been attracted by a classified ad. from a humanitarian organization that was looking for volunteers to give accounting courses in West Africa. I contacted them and they accepted my application. I was away for three weeks one summer. A revelation: the contact with the children, the local officials with their speeches full of outdated words, the courses to be delivered, and the colours, the human solidarity of African communities!

That's where I had met Daniel.

We shared the same ideal of transmission. But he was mired in family commitments and a religious culture that he found difficult to challenge. I made him dream of a freedom he dare not embrace. We had spoken several times about plans for a new life together. The scenario was always the same. His first reaction was to say that he would go off with me. Then, what he called his responsibilities took over and his gaze saddened. He didn't want to hurt his family. The only escape from his inner prison had become poetry and imagination, and I dreamed of action and facing up to reality.

What if I made this a new way of living? I asked myself. I’m forty-four, if I’m to change career, it’s now or never! If I leave it till later I don't know if I would have the strength to do it. Svetlana will be off to continue her studies elsewhere, once her exams are over. My friends will understand...or perhaps not! And Daniel? If he really believes in our relationship and in our love, he will join me.

This was how my innermost thoughts were running. I could no longer see the road ahead. My vigilance had been replaced by automaton-like responses.

I had been assailed by such thoughts more and more over recent months, especially after the death of my father. I never really understood what had happened then, but subsequently I had been asking myself questions about the meaning of my life, becoming aware of the limitations with which I had surrounded myself, gilded limitations, it is true, but limitations all the same.

It was around this time that my journey of initiation began.

Chapter 2:

The Departure

And so that's how I arrived one day at the wheel of my car in Nice, a city that was totally unknown to me at that time. It was a late afternoon in winter; it was raining hard, casting a dried-up grass colour over the town. This colour was to remain engraved on my memory and I remember it each time I had to take a new step in life. I parked the car in the basement of the building where I had rented a small furnished apartment. I heaved my two large suitcases into the lift and then into the apartment.

I felt strangely empty, tired. I was scared. I was lonely.

It took me a few days to get my bearings. I was discovering the city, walking a lot. I signed up with the town’s Welcome Service so as to link up with people.

I was now unemployed for the first time in my life, not really knowing what to do. I registered with the local Job Centre. An atmosphere of impending doom weighed heavily there. I felt out of place, firstly because I had chosen to be unemployed, which could have looked like a provocation, but also because, having made the choice, my state of mind was different. I didn't feel like a victim. And then, I had a professional career I could take up again at any time.

The Job Centre advisors weren't sure what to do with my application: fulfilling a dream, giving meaning to my life, or even saving the world were not among their goals. They were there to find us a job, not a vocation. It was true that my plan remained unclear except that it would be in the humanitarian field and abroad. The Job Centre offered workshops to help me see more clearly. That was a good thing. I signed up for the course entitled -What jobs can you do?"

Is this seat free?

I turned my head and looked up at an emaciated figure with dark, strained eyes.

Yes, I think so,I replied.

Thank you, said the skinny young man, laying a sort of shapeless sack on the table with a broad smile. John.

Anais, I said, shaking a little too hard the hand he was holding out to me, which made him wince. Yes, I know, I don't know my own strength, I added, half mocking, half annoyed because I knew my handshake was too forceful.

A dynamic and lively tutor came up at this moment which temporarily stopped our chat. She explained to us that we all had a lot of talent, which cheered up some of the participants, but somehow we had forgotten this. In order to remember it, she made us write on post-it notes all the professional tasks we knew how to do. We could write down anything we could think of. We soon found ourselves confronted with a pile of notes that we had to classify by category in order to discover which