“Listen, Marcel!” Shlomi took a deep breath, the kind a man takes before delivering news so devastating it might as well come with a condolence letter. I braced for impact, already wondering if it was too late to fake a medical emergency or hurl myself out of a conveniently placed window. “You see, don’t let this rub you the wrong way, but… you are useless.”
Silence. Not just any silence. The kind of silence that precedes a catastrophic explosion. The sort of stillness where you briefly hear your own pulse thudding in your ears as your brain scrambles to process the audacity that just landed in your lap.
I blinked. Useless? Useless? Had he really just said that? Out loud? With his whole chest? To me? My brain struggled to process this nuclear insult disguised as friendly advice. I was about to respond with a measured, sophisticated counterpoint—something along the lines of “Go shove a cactus where the sun don’t shine”— but before I could, he plowed ahead, apparently eager to ensure that if my ego was going down, it would go down in flames.
“Let me explain.” Oh, please do.
At this point, I was actively looking for a blunt object to brain him with—a chair, a bottle, a potted plant—whatever was closest. But my friend was already in full TED Talk mode.
“All you do is sit in your travel agency making money, and in your spacetime, all you do is finding ridiculous ways to spend it.”
He paused, possibly for dramatic effect, or maybe just to watch my ego crumple like a cheap lawn chair. I had a sinking feeling that what followed would make me want to launch myself into the sun.
“You have three cars, two other business operations, seven employees, fancy suits, and expensive watches. Your camera equipment alone costs more than the war in Afghanistan, even though you don’t even want to make money out of your photography. You do race trips to the Nurburgring and drive flash sports cars in circles, and that’s it. You’ve essentially perfected the art of going nowhere—at high speed.”
He wasn’t finished yet.
An opening excerpt from this chapter remains available here.
The full manuscript is currently reserved for submission and publication.
Marcel Romdane
—off the rim and into the abyss of aviation, fuelled by delusion, haunted by purpose, and held together with zip ties, unresolved childhood issues, and just enough lift to clear the wreckage behind.
Life was just excess and ego—race tracks, overpriced toys, and blissful ignorance—until I snapped and thought saving elephants was my job. Would I do it again? Only if a lobotomy came first. I should’ve stuck to donations and designer guilt. But I jumped into the abyss—and it didn’t blink. No regrets, but never again
Egypt, 2009 — The Good Life.
Money was still flowing. Spirits were dangerously high.
And Nicole still believed she’d bagged herself a prince — not a future bush pilot with a God complex and a tendency to mistake aviation fuel for problem-solving juice.
Marcel, grinning in an elephant t-shirt like a walking NGO ad, had just stumbled out of Kibera and straight into a delusion.
He thought he could fix Africa. Or at least the elephants.
He couldn’t even save his bank account. Or his propeller. Or basic structural integrity.
He should’ve stayed on that couch.
She should’ve married someone with less ambition, more beigeness, fewer grenades, more mental stability, and absolutely no talent for bureaucratic warfare.
True story. Unfortunately. Recklessly funny. Pathologically real.
Switzerland — Audi Drift Course, Pre-Collapse Edition.
This was before the bush planes.
Before Kibera.
Before elephant-saving became a personality disorder.
Marcel Romdane, strutting across an ice track like the world was his playground — back when Nurburgring racing and sponsored snow drift courses were considered valid hobbies for a man with more ambition than brakes.
Life was fun.
Life was fast.
And life, tragically, was not yet aware of what he was about to do next.
🧨 From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part V – Where Sanity Stalls and Delusions Take Flight.
True story. Unfortunately.
Recklessly funny. Diagnostically unwise.
Switzerland, 2009 — The Face of Control (Briefly).
Marcel Romdane, mid-turn in an Audi, still under the illusion that life was about speed, symmetry, and good steering.
Moments like these felt like purpose:
Sponsorships. Engine purrs. Ice tracks lined with yellow precision.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well.
Everything.
This was before the Super Cub.
Before elephant diplomacy, Nairobi traffic, and shouting at aviation authorities through clenched teeth.
Just a man, a wheel, and the fleeting illusion that grip would last.
🧨 From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part V – Where Sanity Stalls and Delusions Take Flight.
Recklessly funny. Chronically misguided. True story. Unfortunately.
Germany, 2010 — Scenic Flight, Catastrophic Aftermath.
This is the exact aircraft Nicole Romdane invited Marcel into for a casual Sunday joyride — the kind of wholesome gift you'd expect to trigger some peace, reflection, or perhaps a nice dinner reservation in Venice.
Instead, it detonated a midair existential chain reaction that led to bush pilot ambitions, elephant war declarations, and more burned Euros than a southern European debt crisis.
Somewhere over the potato fields of rural Germany, Marcel Romdane decided he would save the African continent — using aviation fuel, blind optimism, and emotional damage disguised as leadership.
Cue the thunder. Cue the narrator whispering:
He had no idea what he was doing.
🧨 Read the full disaster in
From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part V – Where Sanity Stalls and Delusions Take Flight.
True story. Unfortunately.
Recklessly funny. Biblically unwise.
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