APRIL 1968: My parents and I have already moved between areas where different languages are spoken a number of times – now we enter another world, the francophone one. Even though I can't speak a word of French, I immediately feel at ease. One year later I am at the top of class in French.

JULY 1969: One sunny Sunday afternoon I go to the cinema instead of going swimming. There are six of us in a room for three hundred people. Emerging from the cool, dark cinema into the hot summer afternoon is unforgettable.

APRIL 1971: Don't want to leave Geneva, don't want to go to Zurich, I fall into a hole.

MAY 1982: I meet a group of Dutch musicians in Basel. Over coffee in a bar I see that unlike I had assumed so far I'm not as alone in my interests: There are others who see these things the same way.

NOVEMBER 1995: Journey to Madagascar. My first immersion in other living conditions changes the way I see the world. I have read the guide books but no one prepares you for the thigh-high holes in the roads, the smell of the market and the enormous eyes of the children.

JUNE 1996: The world briefly stands still and then suddenly spins very quickly till I find out her name.

APRIL 1999: I come home from the hospital early in the morning and take a shower. On each leg I have a patch that stings; only now do I realise that my wife had been supporting her heels on them while our daughter was born.

SEPTEMBER 2005: My second child, a son, is sick and dies after one year. I fall into a deep hole. And I'm tired, never-endingly tired.

NOVEMBER 2005: My wife tells me she is pregnant again. I can't contain my happiness.

AUGUST 2007: I receive an offer to leave the place of work which I don't like at all, and throw myself into this new adventure.