Today Johanna accompanied me again and while I was busy tuning my presentation for tomorrow and writing diary entries for the last 3 days she went through a bunch of old AIESEC files that we found in the cupboard. Basically she agreed to focus on the eXchange part of AIESEC because she already did an internship with AIESEC and joined the incoming exchange team in our local committee.
We had Chinese lunch again and now I am pretty sure that the restaurant adjusted its services to the local needs… MEAT!!!
Really in Germany I would sue the cook for calling this bunch of rice, cabbage, 2 carrots and 3 mushrooms a Chop Suey. No kidding, I mean usually I expect that I can’t even pronounce half of the vegetables on my suey!
Faith a very good friend of Johanna studying at WITS came along and was bullied by an Afrikaaner when she tried to enter UJ. She thinks he’s an Afrikaaner and so a racist ass but I think he’s a racist ass and an Afrikaaner. (which turned out to be true because tomorrow he was very nice to her^^)
Together we had an EBM and fixed the last details for tomorrow.
It ended in along discussion whether I could use a taxi on my own or not and the conclusion was that I’d rather not and wait for Johanna’s brother to take me to the MC house.
While we were waiting for him we were sitting on a romantic spot on the campus and tried to look as corny as possible : -)
And now the fun started the girl that wanted to meet me (Simphiwe) in the MC house didn’t pick her phone anymore so I called Nadia, she didn’t reach her so I called Nyalla the MCP who explained the way to the MC house and once I was there then Simphiwe called and said that she won’t come anymore. Ahh yes that is Africa, really don’t bother to plan too much and get spontaneous than you’ll be fine.
So I enjoyed the rest of the evening with the other people in the MC house and it was really a very nice. We talked loads about AIESEC and how to help AIESEC UJ and I even met the Alumnus Aubrey who’ll replace Lawrence tomorrow. He’s hell of a nice guy and I’m very curious to see and hear his talk.
One of the best parts of the MC house is REAL INTERNET!!!!WLAN!!NOTHING BLOCKED! … this means it’s finally time for … NARUTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And eventually the filler episodes were over,too and the manga is also about to reach a new peak. I’m happy.
But before I took a ride to Nerdvana I practised my PP in front of the people and they gave me quite positive feedback.
After we talked about social entrepreneurship they advised me to check out ted.com and I’ll do so soon.
But now it’s time nerd, shower and go to bed. I forgot a razor, crap.
Sonntag, 28. März 2010
DAY 20
On our way to the university I started to work on my slides and finished all the text in the car already so only pics were missing.
I really hate overstuffed slides and I’m a friend of pictures because as you know one picture can sometimes say more than a thousand words that’s why I needed to get loads of ‘em and really the internet in this university is a pure pain in the arse!!!
Slow, sites blocked, browser crashes because we have to use IE in a very old version, did I mention that it is slow? ARGHHH!!!
To get things done a little quicker I asked some AIESEC friends to send me cool pictures of conferences and one of my team and they replied pretty fast.
All in all it took me about 3.5 hours to prepare my presentation and most of the time I was looking for pictures.
It is basically about the stuff that I did in AIESEC and should inspire people to join AIESEC and use the great opportunities that it provides.
Therefore you can download it here and take a look but unfortunately you won’t have me there to speak to all the pictures which makes most of it.
I added a guide that I once wrote for our newsletter giving basic information on how to create a PowerPoint.
After the slides were finished I was supposed to meet with the MC (member committee being the national executive board of AIESEC) but the meeting was delayed and we’ll meet tomorrow.
So I had plenty of time and watched a little more of Chuck till Nyasha came along and showed me the international office.
There we enjoyed some pictures of his trip (including exchange students) to Swaziland showing a feast where the people celebrate the arrival of the rain and where the king usually picks an additional wife. (I think he’s got 13 so far)
The enjoyable part were the female dancers who’re all half naked!!! and try to look nice to be picked by the king and I can tell you there’re about thousand hot ladies!
Not so arousing are the bazillion sons of the king who’re all well fed, I mean very well fed, okay let’s say they are fat but that’s part of the tradition, too. (gotta show that they can afford an expensive lifestyle)
Here is a very critical blog post about it and I agree a lot but I've also seen the pictures and it is not as super negative she described it. Still I feel pretty bad now that I've talked to Johanna and seen some pics were the women really don't seem happy to be there.
At 3pm we had an EBM (executive board meeting) where we went through the agenda of the induction once more and discussed the material that we’ll need for the braai.
One Chuck later I was on my way back home and I red a security manual that Nyasha gave me with the headline: Stay alert today – Be alive tomorrow
And son-of-the-guy-that-I-don’t-believe-in, in the part ‘What to do when you get attacked?’ it says to ‘use a pen or your finger and ram it into the aggressors eye sockets’ or to ‘slam both palms of your hands on the enemies ears!’ …aehm …yes that would definitely hurt. I was a little shocked when I read this but it mentioned just to fight if it is unavoidable and I think than it’s okay to use such dangerous methods.
After dinner I started to practise my PP and went to bed quite early as usual.
I really hate overstuffed slides and I’m a friend of pictures because as you know one picture can sometimes say more than a thousand words that’s why I needed to get loads of ‘em and really the internet in this university is a pure pain in the arse!!!
Slow, sites blocked, browser crashes because we have to use IE in a very old version, did I mention that it is slow? ARGHHH!!!
To get things done a little quicker I asked some AIESEC friends to send me cool pictures of conferences and one of my team and they replied pretty fast.
All in all it took me about 3.5 hours to prepare my presentation and most of the time I was looking for pictures.
It is basically about the stuff that I did in AIESEC and should inspire people to join AIESEC and use the great opportunities that it provides.
Therefore you can download it here and take a look but unfortunately you won’t have me there to speak to all the pictures which makes most of it.
I added a guide that I once wrote for our newsletter giving basic information on how to create a PowerPoint.
After the slides were finished I was supposed to meet with the MC (member committee being the national executive board of AIESEC) but the meeting was delayed and we’ll meet tomorrow.
So I had plenty of time and watched a little more of Chuck till Nyasha came along and showed me the international office.
There we enjoyed some pictures of his trip (including exchange students) to Swaziland showing a feast where the people celebrate the arrival of the rain and where the king usually picks an additional wife. (I think he’s got 13 so far)
The enjoyable part were the female dancers who’re all half naked!!! and try to look nice to be picked by the king and I can tell you there’re about thousand hot ladies!
Not so arousing are the bazillion sons of the king who’re all well fed, I mean very well fed, okay let’s say they are fat but that’s part of the tradition, too. (gotta show that they can afford an expensive lifestyle)
Here is a very critical blog post about it and I agree a lot but I've also seen the pictures and it is not as super negative she described it. Still I feel pretty bad now that I've talked to Johanna and seen some pics were the women really don't seem happy to be there.
At 3pm we had an EBM (executive board meeting) where we went through the agenda of the induction once more and discussed the material that we’ll need for the braai.
One Chuck later I was on my way back home and I red a security manual that Nyasha gave me with the headline: Stay alert today – Be alive tomorrow
And son-of-the-guy-that-I-don’t-believe-in, in the part ‘What to do when you get attacked?’ it says to ‘use a pen or your finger and ram it into the aggressors eye sockets’ or to ‘slam both palms of your hands on the enemies ears!’ …aehm …yes that would definitely hurt. I was a little shocked when I read this but it mentioned just to fight if it is unavoidable and I think than it’s okay to use such dangerous methods.
After dinner I started to practise my PP and went to bed quite early as usual.
DAY 19
Today we had a very cool meeting concerning the agenda of the Induction at 7:30am and we decided that I’ll have a slot where I’ll present my experience with AIESEC. This meeting lasted for 3 hours but in the end we had an overview including order, time and goals of the various sessions.
After that we had lunch (Chinese food) and met up with Nyasha who’s also working for the international office, an organization dealing with exchange students.
And you wouldn’t believe it, the interfaces with AIESEC are huge.
For instance he raised money and prizes from companies and organized a city tour for the new students, he organizes the international festival at university where over 20 nations have booths and present their country including a stage for dances, songs and speeches from e.g. various deans, Walter and the chancellor of the university so basically a huge and professional Global Village with over 400 students visiting and having fun (I saw the pictures). Furthermore he is in charge of the buddy system and really AIESECers that is a fucking advanced buddy system, I mean he’s responsible for 60 buddies giving reports every month of what they did with the exchange students and organizing big and funny events, just his birthday party included 70 people from all over the planet!!!.
Besides his profession we talked about some scary and some funny stories that he or some of the students experienced e.g. one time 3 dudes from Germany and a girl from Sweden were using a taxi late in the evening instead of calling Kenny a driver for students, and it ended up with two other guys entering the taxi. (one in the front and one in the back) After a while the guy in the back pulled out a gun and the other guy a knife and they forced the students to get under the seats, unfortunately the girl from Sweden was too tall so they beat her up a little, then they had to remove all they jewellery, watches, mobiles and wallets and stopped at an ATM. Now one after the other they were forced to withdraw as much money as possible and then they left ‘em there without nothing. The girl from Sweden is still in therapy because of that and I hope that it doesn’t happen to me but I also somehow think that I could cope with such a situation because crime is a business here and there are some simple rules: avoid dark spots, no taxis in the night, stay in a group, don’t look like a tourist, wear your money around your neck, don’t take your bank card with you, stay calm and give them everything because usually muggers don’t want trouble (like having to hurt some one). Best would be to attend a safety course that the international office provides. (these guys are really great)
Back home I took a nap and after that I started to prepare my slides for the induction.
After the outline was finished, we went to bed.
After that we had lunch (Chinese food) and met up with Nyasha who’s also working for the international office, an organization dealing with exchange students.
And you wouldn’t believe it, the interfaces with AIESEC are huge.
For instance he raised money and prizes from companies and organized a city tour for the new students, he organizes the international festival at university where over 20 nations have booths and present their country including a stage for dances, songs and speeches from e.g. various deans, Walter and the chancellor of the university so basically a huge and professional Global Village with over 400 students visiting and having fun (I saw the pictures). Furthermore he is in charge of the buddy system and really AIESECers that is a fucking advanced buddy system, I mean he’s responsible for 60 buddies giving reports every month of what they did with the exchange students and organizing big and funny events, just his birthday party included 70 people from all over the planet!!!.
Besides his profession we talked about some scary and some funny stories that he or some of the students experienced e.g. one time 3 dudes from Germany and a girl from Sweden were using a taxi late in the evening instead of calling Kenny a driver for students, and it ended up with two other guys entering the taxi. (one in the front and one in the back) After a while the guy in the back pulled out a gun and the other guy a knife and they forced the students to get under the seats, unfortunately the girl from Sweden was too tall so they beat her up a little, then they had to remove all they jewellery, watches, mobiles and wallets and stopped at an ATM. Now one after the other they were forced to withdraw as much money as possible and then they left ‘em there without nothing. The girl from Sweden is still in therapy because of that and I hope that it doesn’t happen to me but I also somehow think that I could cope with such a situation because crime is a business here and there are some simple rules: avoid dark spots, no taxis in the night, stay in a group, don’t look like a tourist, wear your money around your neck, don’t take your bank card with you, stay calm and give them everything because usually muggers don’t want trouble (like having to hurt some one). Best would be to attend a safety course that the international office provides. (these guys are really great)
Back home I took a nap and after that I started to prepare my slides for the induction.
After the outline was finished, we went to bed.
DAY 18
The usual get up was spiced up with some black tea because I wanted to be awake in university.
The reason for that was that today the important check-up meeting was supposed to happen which means that the whole EB should present their responsibilities, how
they want to document stuff, how they wanna track their members, reward & recognition of the members and how they’ll decide things in their teams.
But before the meeting started an Alumni called Lawrence dropped by and he was soooo awesome!
He just wanted to check whether AIESEC UJ still exists but instead we got him into some serious talking and believe me he knows some amazing stories.
Like when AIESEC UJ was almost on the top of AIESEC and they raised almost 100000€ every year and they were competing for the coolest audit of their annual reports.
‘Our report was audited by KPMG, what do you’ve got?!’
‘We sent 50 people abroad and raised one bazillion YEN!!!’ ^^
Or a story when they went for a conference in Munich and the whole plane was stuffed with AIESECers only and then they tried to get the plane shaking by moving all people to one side…AIESECers are CRAZY!!!
Another cool thing they did in UJ was that when an intern arrived they organized a high jacking to pick him up from the air port, I mean I would have probably shit my pants ^^
He also helped us to organize a project about ‘the youth and economy’ and gave very cool ideas how to raise more money and offered contacts to people who could give talks there.
Furthermore he tries to be at our induction of the new members on Saturday and give a session about ‘how AIESEC influenced his life’ and it really did e.g. he had 4 jobs so far and only one job interview, that’s what I call networking combined with skill.
It was very cool to meet him and I’m definitely going to stay in touch with him because he can help us a lot to get UJ back on its feet.
And without his visit today it would have been a really shitty because except one member no one filled out the preparation sheet as I expected so we still don’t know what we can, should and want to do but I’ll try to fix this next week.
One of the reasons why the commitment is not on its peak might be that the EB didn’t have a cool team building and their communication definitely needs a review, too but guess what? Lawrence offered a team building session!...did I mention that I l@#e this guy?
Another cool thing that cheered me up was the visit of my footbag-pal Nyasha (this guy is a pure gentleman but still funny and super open and super skilled) because we had a cool talk and went for a very late lunch together. There we met with Walter an older guy who speaks 54 languages (including a little Chinese, a little Arab and all 11 official languages of SA fluently) and we had a chat in German which was really impressive.
When I had to leave for my ride, Walter accompanied me and he showed me some of his books (yes that he wrote) about renewable energy and he even watched the 2nd Zeitgeist ^^ Later I found out that he’s a professor of nuclear medicine and we exchanged contact data, he was really damn nice and if you ever can, talk to Walter^^
Back home I had dinner and wrote 2 mails, one for Lawrence and one for Peter, a guy from Botswana who wants to go to Germany on an exchange.
After that was finished I fell asleep but I got up again when some high pitched girly screams announced the arrival of my beloved Johanna:
‘Hiiiiiiiii, how are you?’ ‘Fiiinnneee, and how are you?’ …so I moved my lazy bum and said hello, too.
I was really damn happy to see her after over a week but still I managed to talk some bullshit that got us into a fight, really why do I have to be such an ass sometimes?
Things are fine again and it’s time to sleep.
The reason for that was that today the important check-up meeting was supposed to happen which means that the whole EB should present their responsibilities, how
they want to document stuff, how they wanna track their members, reward & recognition of the members and how they’ll decide things in their teams.
But before the meeting started an Alumni called Lawrence dropped by and he was soooo awesome!
He just wanted to check whether AIESEC UJ still exists but instead we got him into some serious talking and believe me he knows some amazing stories.
Like when AIESEC UJ was almost on the top of AIESEC and they raised almost 100000€ every year and they were competing for the coolest audit of their annual reports.
‘Our report was audited by KPMG, what do you’ve got?!’
‘We sent 50 people abroad and raised one bazillion YEN!!!’ ^^
Or a story when they went for a conference in Munich and the whole plane was stuffed with AIESECers only and then they tried to get the plane shaking by moving all people to one side…AIESECers are CRAZY!!!
Another cool thing they did in UJ was that when an intern arrived they organized a high jacking to pick him up from the air port, I mean I would have probably shit my pants ^^
He also helped us to organize a project about ‘the youth and economy’ and gave very cool ideas how to raise more money and offered contacts to people who could give talks there.
Furthermore he tries to be at our induction of the new members on Saturday and give a session about ‘how AIESEC influenced his life’ and it really did e.g. he had 4 jobs so far and only one job interview, that’s what I call networking combined with skill.
It was very cool to meet him and I’m definitely going to stay in touch with him because he can help us a lot to get UJ back on its feet.
And without his visit today it would have been a really shitty because except one member no one filled out the preparation sheet as I expected so we still don’t know what we can, should and want to do but I’ll try to fix this next week.
One of the reasons why the commitment is not on its peak might be that the EB didn’t have a cool team building and their communication definitely needs a review, too but guess what? Lawrence offered a team building session!...did I mention that I l@#e this guy?
Another cool thing that cheered me up was the visit of my footbag-pal Nyasha (this guy is a pure gentleman but still funny and super open and super skilled) because we had a cool talk and went for a very late lunch together. There we met with Walter an older guy who speaks 54 languages (including a little Chinese, a little Arab and all 11 official languages of SA fluently) and we had a chat in German which was really impressive.
When I had to leave for my ride, Walter accompanied me and he showed me some of his books (yes that he wrote) about renewable energy and he even watched the 2nd Zeitgeist ^^ Later I found out that he’s a professor of nuclear medicine and we exchanged contact data, he was really damn nice and if you ever can, talk to Walter^^
Back home I had dinner and wrote 2 mails, one for Lawrence and one for Peter, a guy from Botswana who wants to go to Germany on an exchange.
After that was finished I fell asleep but I got up again when some high pitched girly screams announced the arrival of my beloved Johanna:
‘Hiiiiiiiii, how are you?’ ‘Fiiinnneee, and how are you?’ …so I moved my lazy bum and said hello, too.
I was really damn happy to see her after over a week but still I managed to talk some bullshit that got us into a fight, really why do I have to be such an ass sometimes?
Things are fine again and it’s time to sleep.
Dienstag, 23. März 2010
DAY 17
1pm!!! AHHH, this feels sooo nice. Finally a reasonable time to get up and do …almost nothing. I took 3 hours to write my diary entries for the past 3 days and then I started to watch Shigurui once more because this anime is just super awesome.
A little footbagging, a little talking and finally calling my parents which I didn’t do since I am in SA (I know that this was really, damn bad) and that’s it.
Dinner, TV, bed!
A little footbagging, a little talking and finally calling my parents which I didn’t do since I am in SA (I know that this was really, damn bad) and that’s it.
Dinner, TV, bed!
DAY 16
We had to leave the rooms by 9.30 and did what loads of people do at the end of a super nice, mega cool, ultra amazing and supra stunning experience … take as much pictures as we can in any possible combination and in any situation.
After breakfast we met some AIESECers from Botswana for our last session where we shared our experiences and what we’ll take home from the last day.
Time to say goodbye, to take group pictures and after several minutes of hugging and exchanging facebook data we drove towards SA again.
This time no house but Sunday-slow-jam the typical after party, love music in Africa…annoying and relaxing at the same time.
Issues on our way back were laws against gays in Uganda, sexuality in Africa and Europe (in Africa you don’t kiss or even hold hands in front of your parents and elder people), is sex always connected to dignity? (I recommend watching the movie ‘9 to 5 days in porn’) and is it okay to sell your values to become rich and do good stuff once you are?
Close to JoBurg we passed a street sign saying ‘Hijack hotspot for 2km’ and I had to take photo of it because it was just so formal. (unfortunately I had to take another camera)
It would have been very ironic if I got hijacked while I was taking the picture… kind of ‘dark humor’. (hehe, dark humor)
AHH, and good news for AIESEC in WITS University FAITH is running for LCP!!!!!
So please give her a big hand.
At about 6.30pm we arrived in JoBurg and Johanna’s brother plus wife picked me up.
Back home I had a nice vegetarian pizza and a cool talk about geniuses like ‘the assistant of Chris Barner, Hamilton Naki’.
I’m almost dead now so see you tomorrow.
After breakfast we met some AIESECers from Botswana for our last session where we shared our experiences and what we’ll take home from the last day.
Time to say goodbye, to take group pictures and after several minutes of hugging and exchanging facebook data we drove towards SA again.
This time no house but Sunday-slow-jam the typical after party, love music in Africa…annoying and relaxing at the same time.
Issues on our way back were laws against gays in Uganda, sexuality in Africa and Europe (in Africa you don’t kiss or even hold hands in front of your parents and elder people), is sex always connected to dignity? (I recommend watching the movie ‘9 to 5 days in porn’) and is it okay to sell your values to become rich and do good stuff once you are?
Close to JoBurg we passed a street sign saying ‘Hijack hotspot for 2km’ and I had to take photo of it because it was just so formal. (unfortunately I had to take another camera)
It would have been very ironic if I got hijacked while I was taking the picture… kind of ‘dark humor’. (hehe, dark humor)
AHH, and good news for AIESEC in WITS University FAITH is running for LCP!!!!!
So please give her a big hand.
At about 6.30pm we arrived in JoBurg and Johanna’s brother plus wife picked me up.
Back home I had a nice vegetarian pizza and a cool talk about geniuses like ‘the assistant of Chris Barner, Hamilton Naki’.
I’m almost dead now so see you tomorrow.
DAY 15
DAY 15
Knock! Knock! Knock!!!
‘We’ll leave for breakfast in one hour so I’ll be back to wake you up in half an hour, okay?’
(Nyasha and I) ‘hwaahaa, tm, tm… Yes!’
(But if he’ll wake us up in half an hour why did he wake us up right now?!!?!!!!?!!!!)
So we tried to sleep again but 10 minutes later a girl knocked:
‘Guys get ready!’
I gotta admit I was close to transfom into the fearsome half-asleep-bastard and kill the next person to knock and I planned mean responses in my enraged head but the next person (10minutes later) was Thibose so I restrained myself and now it was to late to sleep again anyway.
A little good-morning-footbagging and some nice ‘oh my god elephant’ and I was cool again.
By the way I wanted to advertise this blog about cool alternative music for quite a while anyway so check it out and delete the music after a day ^^
Usually an AIESEC conference starts at 9am but at that time we arrived at the university canteen and started to wait for our breakfast.
10 o’clock, we left for the conference room but still had to get speakers.
10:30, now we had speakers but neither an audio nor a laptop-to-projector cable nor AIESECers from Botswana.
I started to think ‘Hmm, this is not as well prepared as I would expect it from a LEADERSHIP conference prepared by the LEADERs of Botswana and South Africa.’
11 o’clock, eventually the first session starts aaaaannnnddd it was NOT about leadership but AIESEC basics which was a little disappointing for me but very good for the rest because most of them were Newies.
Session 2, again AIESEC bacics and still just frontal training which means no splitting up in groups, no discussions, no real interaction but reading aloud like in 4th grade.
I was angry! This was not what I came here for: lame sessions and barely getting to know any new AIESECers because they were just not here, I mean what is a conference with 10 people?
And then the nuke dropped during session 2: ‘…and as this conference was cancelled turned in a seminar…’
(AIESEC UJ) ’WHAT?! Why did no one tell us?! We drove the whole way to Botswana for a SEMINAR?!!!...’
That was one of the biggest lacks of communication I’ve ever experienced but now we were here and the only thing we could do was to enjoy it to the max and that’s what we did. Sure we first were quite pissed but after addressing our anger and hearing the explanations from the MCs, we cooled down and decided to do it the AIESEC WAY: stay positive and rock.
Rati the MCP (MC president) said something very true: ‘In real life you’ll experience way harder disappointments and fuck ups and it is up to you whether you learn from it and give your best to turn into something good or whether you just give up and complain like a kiddo.’
We finished the still poor session and headed for lunch (even so we were 3 steps behind the agenda) and then a wonderful thing happened…
180 DEGREE TURN!!!!!!!!
Once back in the conference room the technical stuff was set up, one bazillion AIESECers from all over Botswana were all over the place and the quality of the sessions improved dramatically.
It started with a very professional session from the former MCP and now representative of JCI about team management, continued with various role calls to get us energized again, this was followed by a session about competency based management, got deeper with a session about different management styles and values and ended with an inspiring video talk of Steve Jobs.
I was more than just happy, I was really amazed how the whole atmosphere just changed and felt a little bad for being so angry at the beginning but this change was just unbelievable.
After the agenda was finished, we had dinner and drove to David’s place to party hard.
I drank some very nice tea at the party and experienced a typical African dance circle because in Africa dancing turns pretty often in a competitive performance where you try to show your amazing skills.
Unfortunately I don’t have any of these but the crowd started to yell:
‘Go Christian! Go Christian!’
So I did the only reasonable thing and made a quick and funny fool out of myself jumping in the middle and showing my whitey-shakin’^^
They laughed their asses off and I did, too, it was really cool to be with so many nice people.
Later I saw another typical hip hop dance called grinding which looks like sex with cloth on and I discussed with Faith whether this is still dancing or already offence to the boy- or girlfriend already.
The conclusion was that I can’t decide it on the spot, I wish I could say it’s just dancing but maybe I’d be pissed, too if Johanna would be grinding another guy like this girl did.
Back in the motel I just wanted to sleep and so did I.
Knock! Knock! Knock!!!
‘We’ll leave for breakfast in one hour so I’ll be back to wake you up in half an hour, okay?’
(Nyasha and I) ‘hwaahaa, tm, tm… Yes!’
(But if he’ll wake us up in half an hour why did he wake us up right now?!!?!!!!?!!!!)
So we tried to sleep again but 10 minutes later a girl knocked:
‘Guys get ready!’
I gotta admit I was close to transfom into the fearsome half-asleep-bastard and kill the next person to knock and I planned mean responses in my enraged head but the next person (10minutes later) was Thibose so I restrained myself and now it was to late to sleep again anyway.
A little good-morning-footbagging and some nice ‘oh my god elephant’ and I was cool again.
By the way I wanted to advertise this blog about cool alternative music for quite a while anyway so check it out and delete the music after a day ^^
Usually an AIESEC conference starts at 9am but at that time we arrived at the university canteen and started to wait for our breakfast.
10 o’clock, we left for the conference room but still had to get speakers.
10:30, now we had speakers but neither an audio nor a laptop-to-projector cable nor AIESECers from Botswana.
I started to think ‘Hmm, this is not as well prepared as I would expect it from a LEADERSHIP conference prepared by the LEADERs of Botswana and South Africa.’
11 o’clock, eventually the first session starts aaaaannnnddd it was NOT about leadership but AIESEC basics which was a little disappointing for me but very good for the rest because most of them were Newies.
Session 2, again AIESEC bacics and still just frontal training which means no splitting up in groups, no discussions, no real interaction but reading aloud like in 4th grade.
I was angry! This was not what I came here for: lame sessions and barely getting to know any new AIESECers because they were just not here, I mean what is a conference with 10 people?
And then the nuke dropped during session 2: ‘…and as this conference was cancelled turned in a seminar…’
(AIESEC UJ) ’WHAT?! Why did no one tell us?! We drove the whole way to Botswana for a SEMINAR?!!!...’
That was one of the biggest lacks of communication I’ve ever experienced but now we were here and the only thing we could do was to enjoy it to the max and that’s what we did. Sure we first were quite pissed but after addressing our anger and hearing the explanations from the MCs, we cooled down and decided to do it the AIESEC WAY: stay positive and rock.
Rati the MCP (MC president) said something very true: ‘In real life you’ll experience way harder disappointments and fuck ups and it is up to you whether you learn from it and give your best to turn into something good or whether you just give up and complain like a kiddo.’
We finished the still poor session and headed for lunch (even so we were 3 steps behind the agenda) and then a wonderful thing happened…
180 DEGREE TURN!!!!!!!!
Once back in the conference room the technical stuff was set up, one bazillion AIESECers from all over Botswana were all over the place and the quality of the sessions improved dramatically.
It started with a very professional session from the former MCP and now representative of JCI about team management, continued with various role calls to get us energized again, this was followed by a session about competency based management, got deeper with a session about different management styles and values and ended with an inspiring video talk of Steve Jobs.
I was more than just happy, I was really amazed how the whole atmosphere just changed and felt a little bad for being so angry at the beginning but this change was just unbelievable.
After the agenda was finished, we had dinner and drove to David’s place to party hard.
I drank some very nice tea at the party and experienced a typical African dance circle because in Africa dancing turns pretty often in a competitive performance where you try to show your amazing skills.
Unfortunately I don’t have any of these but the crowd started to yell:
‘Go Christian! Go Christian!’
So I did the only reasonable thing and made a quick and funny fool out of myself jumping in the middle and showing my whitey-shakin’^^
They laughed their asses off and I did, too, it was really cool to be with so many nice people.
Later I saw another typical hip hop dance called grinding which looks like sex with cloth on and I discussed with Faith whether this is still dancing or already offence to the boy- or girlfriend already.
The conclusion was that I can’t decide it on the spot, I wish I could say it’s just dancing but maybe I’d be pissed, too if Johanna would be grinding another guy like this girl did.
Back in the motel I just wanted to sleep and so did I.
DAY 14
Today we left a little earlier to make sure that I’ll be in university in time and it is really strange because if you leave one minute to 6 you can make it in 30-45 minutes but if you leave 5 minutes past 6 then it’ll take 1 to 2 hours to get there.
We left 1 minute to 6 which means my arrival in UJ was quarter to 7 implying loads of extra time for me because our journey to Botswana should start at 8 am.
So I went to the computer pool and wrote the diary entry for yesterday.
At 7.30am I met with Thoko and Simphiwe and we walked to the place where a small bus would pick us up.
There we joined also the rest of the AIESECers from SA except one: Lena, Manti, Precious, Thibose, Nyasha, Mbali, Faith and our driver Sfiso.
This super funny bunch left at about 9am for Botswana (just one short stop to pick up Nadia) and I can tell you this meant a hell lot of African House.
The Van was stuffed with an extraordinary Pioneer sound system which made your feet and belly shake, no kidding and I’ve gotta admit after a while I was a little board by the beats because you were bound to listen and couldn’t dance.
The closer we got to Botswana the hotter the weather and we couldn’t travel at full speed because of our trailer but I didn’t care much because I had loads of amusing talks for instance about my nice-bum-on-the-cover magazine Vice issuing Brazil (and what would Brazil be without awesome butts?) and I played footbag with Nyasha in almost every minute during the breaks.
We also used the breaks to prepare our role call the Diski-Dance which will become the SA pendant to the Mexican wave so you’ll better learn it to for the world cup ^^.
Our teacher was my precious Precious and really she can dance!!! (and she’s very sweet, too but I think everybody who’s in talent management is
Once in Botswana Sam and Rati from the Member Committee of Botswana (MC, that’s the national executive board) guided us to the university and our Motel.
I told you about the full speed problem but to illustrate it a little more, we left at 9am and arrived at about 7pm which means 3 hours later than planned and because of that we went for dinner immediately. More AIESECers from Botswana joined us (the Don, David, Orlando, Koba, MOX …) and I talked for quite a while to the history student ‘the Don’ who knew (which was quite embarrassing) a lot more about German history than I did. One of the #1 issues was me being vegetarian (by the way I didn’t meet a single one in Africa yet) and it was very funny to hear, how much Africans love meat.
‘When I was sick, I couldn’t taste anything but when I swallowed meat than I just started to feel happy inside and I regained my power and …and it felt sooo good and warm and I needed it sooo much!’
This is just usual meat wait until you ask for chicken^^
Back in our Motel and loaded with some booze we sat down and some got boozed.
It was a wonderful warm and clear night so you could see the stars and sit outside with shorts and t-shirt only.
I had a super cool talk with my lovely, little Manti and the always-relaxed Orlando (also in talent management) about Movies and tea and somehow we toppled over ‘Irreversible’ a movie you should definitely watch but not more than once. (DON'T read the summary, it'll mess up the whole movie. the first part of the wiki article is enough)
Before I got to bet, I saw the final scene of ‘Once upon a time in Mexico’ and it was better than I remembered it so maybe I’ll watch it again.
And then I had an argument with ‘the Don’ because he sad that the trilogy is:
Desperados I, Desperados II, Once upon a time in Mexico
And I think it is:
El Mariachi, Desperados, Once upon a time in Mexico
So I’ve gotta look it up but I’m afraid ‘the Don’ is right again, I mean he’s ‘the Don’!^^
Nighty, night!
We left 1 minute to 6 which means my arrival in UJ was quarter to 7 implying loads of extra time for me because our journey to Botswana should start at 8 am.
So I went to the computer pool and wrote the diary entry for yesterday.
At 7.30am I met with Thoko and Simphiwe and we walked to the place where a small bus would pick us up.
There we joined also the rest of the AIESECers from SA except one: Lena, Manti, Precious, Thibose, Nyasha, Mbali, Faith and our driver Sfiso.
This super funny bunch left at about 9am for Botswana (just one short stop to pick up Nadia) and I can tell you this meant a hell lot of African House.
The Van was stuffed with an extraordinary Pioneer sound system which made your feet and belly shake, no kidding and I’ve gotta admit after a while I was a little board by the beats because you were bound to listen and couldn’t dance.
The closer we got to Botswana the hotter the weather and we couldn’t travel at full speed because of our trailer but I didn’t care much because I had loads of amusing talks for instance about my nice-bum-on-the-cover magazine Vice issuing Brazil (and what would Brazil be without awesome butts?) and I played footbag with Nyasha in almost every minute during the breaks.
We also used the breaks to prepare our role call the Diski-Dance which will become the SA pendant to the Mexican wave so you’ll better learn it to for the world cup ^^.
Our teacher was my precious Precious and really she can dance!!! (and she’s very sweet, too but I think everybody who’s in talent management is
Once in Botswana Sam and Rati from the Member Committee of Botswana (MC, that’s the national executive board) guided us to the university and our Motel.
I told you about the full speed problem but to illustrate it a little more, we left at 9am and arrived at about 7pm which means 3 hours later than planned and because of that we went for dinner immediately. More AIESECers from Botswana joined us (the Don, David, Orlando, Koba, MOX …) and I talked for quite a while to the history student ‘the Don’ who knew (which was quite embarrassing) a lot more about German history than I did. One of the #1 issues was me being vegetarian (by the way I didn’t meet a single one in Africa yet) and it was very funny to hear, how much Africans love meat.
‘When I was sick, I couldn’t taste anything but when I swallowed meat than I just started to feel happy inside and I regained my power and …and it felt sooo good and warm and I needed it sooo much!’
This is just usual meat wait until you ask for chicken^^
Back in our Motel and loaded with some booze we sat down and some got boozed.
It was a wonderful warm and clear night so you could see the stars and sit outside with shorts and t-shirt only.
I had a super cool talk with my lovely, little Manti and the always-relaxed Orlando (also in talent management) about Movies and tea and somehow we toppled over ‘Irreversible’ a movie you should definitely watch but not more than once. (DON'T read the summary, it'll mess up the whole movie. the first part of the wiki article is enough)
Before I got to bet, I saw the final scene of ‘Once upon a time in Mexico’ and it was better than I remembered it so maybe I’ll watch it again.
And then I had an argument with ‘the Don’ because he sad that the trilogy is:
Desperados I, Desperados II, Once upon a time in Mexico
And I think it is:
El Mariachi, Desperados, Once upon a time in Mexico
So I’ve gotta look it up but I’m afraid ‘the Don’ is right again, I mean he’s ‘the Don’!^^
Nighty, night!
Donnerstag, 18. März 2010
DAY 13
Today was the first day when i felt somehow awake once i arrived in university but still it took almost 2 hours two write the diary entries for yesterday and the day before.
After i had finished those, I started to watch 'Dude, Where's My Car?' and i laughed my ass off.
I know this movie is silly but I guess that I'm too and that's probably the reason why I like it.
Anyway, after half an hour I went to the computer labs to do some research on job descriptions for the VPs (vice presidents) of the different teams and I found loads of interesting material but before I was allowed to enjoy the pleasure of the world wide web, I had to wait for about 20 minutes because there was a huge queue in front of the labs.
This was also the reason why I didn't find JDs for everyone before I had to leave for our EB meeting, where we wanted to prepare a shout and a role call for the conference starting tomorrow.
Because of a lack of attendance (just 3 people) we were not able to complete the role call but at least we've got a shout and they wanted to meet at 6pm once more to figure out a dance.
I briefly explained the rest of the session of yesterday to a girl witch had to leave early and went back to the labs to finish my work. Guess what I had to wait again but this time it was just 15 minutes and I don't regret it at all because once I sat down a computer scientist took seat next to me and we had an awesome talk. This guy is programming opera widgets for Vodafon and we talked about plenty of nerd stuff which was quite a relieve because almost everybody I met so far studies something boring and useless as marketing or market research or accounting or what not :-)
After all the necessary material was gathered, I attached it to mail and sent it to all EB members.
I hope that everybody is going to read their part and prepare the sheet I created on Tuesday because otherwise it'll be hard to get an overview of what we are able to do and what we should do as AIESEC UJ.
Back home I finished the movie and played with my beloved devilish witch-princess from next door until she tried to stab my eye was one of the Algiers spoons that we took before we left for SA.
I took some great photos from her wearing my acid-glasses and really this 3 years old knows how to give an angry face and a fake smile, you wouldn't believe it.
Dinner was great even if a small piece of chicken sliped into my food which I tasted immediately.
Once my stomach was stuffed I helped Johanna's cousin programming Visual Basic stuff for school which I've never done before.
By the way in English you don't call it 'Code Slave' but 'Code monkey'.
Before I was about to go to sleep I packed my bag for tomorrow and switched on 'Joan of Arc'
(my favorite band) giving me a nice bunch of dreams.
After i had finished those, I started to watch 'Dude, Where's My Car?' and i laughed my ass off.
I know this movie is silly but I guess that I'm too and that's probably the reason why I like it.
Anyway, after half an hour I went to the computer labs to do some research on job descriptions for the VPs (vice presidents) of the different teams and I found loads of interesting material but before I was allowed to enjoy the pleasure of the world wide web, I had to wait for about 20 minutes because there was a huge queue in front of the labs.
This was also the reason why I didn't find JDs for everyone before I had to leave for our EB meeting, where we wanted to prepare a shout and a role call for the conference starting tomorrow.
Because of a lack of attendance (just 3 people) we were not able to complete the role call but at least we've got a shout and they wanted to meet at 6pm once more to figure out a dance.
I briefly explained the rest of the session of yesterday to a girl witch had to leave early and went back to the labs to finish my work. Guess what I had to wait again but this time it was just 15 minutes and I don't regret it at all because once I sat down a computer scientist took seat next to me and we had an awesome talk. This guy is programming opera widgets for Vodafon and we talked about plenty of nerd stuff which was quite a relieve because almost everybody I met so far studies something boring and useless as marketing or market research or accounting or what not :-)
After all the necessary material was gathered, I attached it to mail and sent it to all EB members.
I hope that everybody is going to read their part and prepare the sheet I created on Tuesday because otherwise it'll be hard to get an overview of what we are able to do and what we should do as AIESEC UJ.
Back home I finished the movie and played with my beloved devilish witch-princess from next door until she tried to stab my eye was one of the Algiers spoons that we took before we left for SA.
I took some great photos from her wearing my acid-glasses and really this 3 years old knows how to give an angry face and a fake smile, you wouldn't believe it.
Dinner was great even if a small piece of chicken sliped into my food which I tasted immediately.
Once my stomach was stuffed I helped Johanna's cousin programming Visual Basic stuff for school which I've never done before.
By the way in English you don't call it 'Code Slave' but 'Code monkey'.
Before I was about to go to sleep I packed my bag for tomorrow and switched on 'Joan of Arc'
(my favorite band) giving me a nice bunch of dreams.
DAY 12
‘Which one was the Hitler side?’
Asked a girl on my first day and I had to explain that there was no Hitler side but first of all I had to laugh.
No Mick today so getting up and to the university was quite relaxed compared to the last days.
In the university I met with Thoko and we got the markers and tape that I needed for the session.
Now that I had all the materials I prepared the flipcharts and the homemade moderation cards.
Ahh, I forgot to mention that they have a mall in this university including two banks, 3 different kinds of ATMs, several shops and restaurants and what not.
I’ve never seen such variety of shops on a campus before but here it ain’t something special. It’s good that we don’t have it at our university ‘cause I’d spend too much money, I guess.
This morning I also sent a short message to the potential trainers that we figured out yesterday and I hope for loads of replies ‘cause we need ‘em so much.
Johanna’s brother prepared me already for low attendance rates at meetings so I was not surprised when 2 guys didn’t show up at all and 2 had to leave early due classes.
The session itself was quite cool and the 4 people who joined till the end participated actively.
After the exercise was over the VPER showed us a logo that he’s been working on for AIESEC UJ and it looks pretty cool, maybe I’ll get a pic later.
The last thing for today was to get me a student card so I could enter the university alone and this turned out to be a funny experience.
First we paid a visit to the lady being responsible for all student organisations and
we had a funny talk about AIESEC, Germany and Afrikaans. She told us the criteria to become the best student’s organisation and they’re definitely not impossible to fulfil.
After we got a letter from her explaining what I’m doing at UJ we headed of for the registration office to get me a card but there a woman told us to get a certified copy of my passport.
So we headed back to the mall, into a bank and asked for it.
The woman at the desk just asked me whether I have an account at this bank or not and when I denied she said she can’t certify it and I should ask the bank where I have an account. I explained her that this bank is in Germany and that I pay a fee to use the ATMs in Africa. Now she asked her boss if it is possible to certify it even if I don’t have an account and the boss said no. But then the boss asked me which team I’m going to support during the world cup and I replied South Africa for sure.
‘Okay you can certify his copy.’
Really I would be so happy if that’d be happening in Germany but here people are so friggin obsessed with rules that they won’t do you favour even if it’d mean no extra trouble or work at all.
I mean this was just great because otherwise I had to go a police station and get my copy certified there and now I could just go back to the registration office and within a blink of an eye I had my card. Great!
10 minutes later Johanna’s brother picked up and I was almost falling asleep on our way home.
Once we arrived I could hold back and went straight to bed (6pm!!!), I dunno why I was so bloody tired but I couldn’t help it.
Asked a girl on my first day and I had to explain that there was no Hitler side but first of all I had to laugh.
No Mick today so getting up and to the university was quite relaxed compared to the last days.
In the university I met with Thoko and we got the markers and tape that I needed for the session.
Now that I had all the materials I prepared the flipcharts and the homemade moderation cards.
Ahh, I forgot to mention that they have a mall in this university including two banks, 3 different kinds of ATMs, several shops and restaurants and what not.
I’ve never seen such variety of shops on a campus before but here it ain’t something special. It’s good that we don’t have it at our university ‘cause I’d spend too much money, I guess.
This morning I also sent a short message to the potential trainers that we figured out yesterday and I hope for loads of replies ‘cause we need ‘em so much.
Johanna’s brother prepared me already for low attendance rates at meetings so I was not surprised when 2 guys didn’t show up at all and 2 had to leave early due classes.
The session itself was quite cool and the 4 people who joined till the end participated actively.
After the exercise was over the VPER showed us a logo that he’s been working on for AIESEC UJ and it looks pretty cool, maybe I’ll get a pic later.
The last thing for today was to get me a student card so I could enter the university alone and this turned out to be a funny experience.
First we paid a visit to the lady being responsible for all student organisations and
we had a funny talk about AIESEC, Germany and Afrikaans. She told us the criteria to become the best student’s organisation and they’re definitely not impossible to fulfil.
After we got a letter from her explaining what I’m doing at UJ we headed of for the registration office to get me a card but there a woman told us to get a certified copy of my passport.
So we headed back to the mall, into a bank and asked for it.
The woman at the desk just asked me whether I have an account at this bank or not and when I denied she said she can’t certify it and I should ask the bank where I have an account. I explained her that this bank is in Germany and that I pay a fee to use the ATMs in Africa. Now she asked her boss if it is possible to certify it even if I don’t have an account and the boss said no. But then the boss asked me which team I’m going to support during the world cup and I replied South Africa for sure.
‘Okay you can certify his copy.’
Really I would be so happy if that’d be happening in Germany but here people are so friggin obsessed with rules that they won’t do you favour even if it’d mean no extra trouble or work at all.
I mean this was just great because otherwise I had to go a police station and get my copy certified there and now I could just go back to the registration office and within a blink of an eye I had my card. Great!
10 minutes later Johanna’s brother picked up and I was almost falling asleep on our way home.
Once we arrived I could hold back and went straight to bed (6pm!!!), I dunno why I was so bloody tired but I couldn’t help it.
DAY 11
Mick was very polite today and waited till 10 to 5 before his beautiful voice got me up. After a short breakfast we started our daily journey to university, school and work which was really stressful because of loads of traffic jams.
But then the good fairy from yesterday came up with some really relaxing music ‘romanza’ which made driving way more comfortable until we had to drop of her sisters and Johanna’s cousin.
Oh my god! They directed us and I promise it was the worst navigation I’ve ever experienced so far.
‘Take the first lane!’ (lane on the very right), ‘No! Take the first lane!’ (lane on the very left) ‘Should I turn here?’, ‘YES!’ (they wouldn’t have told us without asking and this happened quite often) …
Once we dropped them off, we were lost in JoBurg but fortunately Johanna’s brother got the most incredible photographic memory I’ve ever experienced.
He directed us through this small village called joBurg on a phone!!! (I experienced this twice already)
I mean we called him and he just asked ‘What can you see?’ and it was really like
‘There’s a Chinese restaurant on my left and a green bench on my right.’
‘Okay, turn right as soon as you can, drive towards the red tower and turn left once you passed a bridge!’
And boom we were on our way again!
So in university I worked on a sheet which all members of the EB are supposed to fill out. This sheet should help us to gather information about our resources and our abilities to perform so it basically contains questions like:
-How many members are in your team?
-How many of these are reliable?
-Which processes belong to your department?
-Which are the most important?
-How will you document your work?
…
Most of the stuff can’t be filled out because all AIESECers but one are new to AIESEC and there are no teams, yet. But these are basic questions that every team leader should be aware of.
After that I started working out the Agenda for the first session with the EB which will be about the vision, way and values of AIESEC because I think a team can just work effectively if all members head into the same direction.
Once the agenda was settled and the LCP had approved it, I wanted to find an English version of a buddy booklet and I needed internet to do so.
Unfortunately I couldn’t lock in so I started watching ‘Munich’ being a great movie so far.
Why just so far? Because one stupid, incompetent bastard of a rapidshare user forgot to download the second CD!!!! I was really damn angry but it was time to meet the LCP again, anyway.
So we tried to figure out who could help to overcome the knowledge gap and train at least the EB and maybe even the new members. We created a list and I’m gonna contact these persons tomorrow.
Back home I immediately started footbagging and doing my belly exercise ‘cause sun was about to set.
After dinner I just went to bed, it seems I’m still not used to my new get-up-rhythm.
But then the good fairy from yesterday came up with some really relaxing music ‘romanza’ which made driving way more comfortable until we had to drop of her sisters and Johanna’s cousin.
Oh my god! They directed us and I promise it was the worst navigation I’ve ever experienced so far.
‘Take the first lane!’ (lane on the very right), ‘No! Take the first lane!’ (lane on the very left) ‘Should I turn here?’, ‘YES!’ (they wouldn’t have told us without asking and this happened quite often) …
Once we dropped them off, we were lost in JoBurg but fortunately Johanna’s brother got the most incredible photographic memory I’ve ever experienced.
He directed us through this small village called joBurg on a phone!!! (I experienced this twice already)
I mean we called him and he just asked ‘What can you see?’ and it was really like
‘There’s a Chinese restaurant on my left and a green bench on my right.’
‘Okay, turn right as soon as you can, drive towards the red tower and turn left once you passed a bridge!’
And boom we were on our way again!
So in university I worked on a sheet which all members of the EB are supposed to fill out. This sheet should help us to gather information about our resources and our abilities to perform so it basically contains questions like:
-How many members are in your team?
-How many of these are reliable?
-Which processes belong to your department?
-Which are the most important?
-How will you document your work?
…
Most of the stuff can’t be filled out because all AIESECers but one are new to AIESEC and there are no teams, yet. But these are basic questions that every team leader should be aware of.
After that I started working out the Agenda for the first session with the EB which will be about the vision, way and values of AIESEC because I think a team can just work effectively if all members head into the same direction.
Once the agenda was settled and the LCP had approved it, I wanted to find an English version of a buddy booklet and I needed internet to do so.
Unfortunately I couldn’t lock in so I started watching ‘Munich’ being a great movie so far.
Why just so far? Because one stupid, incompetent bastard of a rapidshare user forgot to download the second CD!!!! I was really damn angry but it was time to meet the LCP again, anyway.
So we tried to figure out who could help to overcome the knowledge gap and train at least the EB and maybe even the new members. We created a list and I’m gonna contact these persons tomorrow.
Back home I immediately started footbagging and doing my belly exercise ‘cause sun was about to set.
After dinner I just went to bed, it seems I’m still not used to my new get-up-rhythm.
Dienstag, 16. März 2010
DAY 10
A long time ago there was the unbeaten Lord of Sleep Baloo and his reign over dreams was never questioned but one day the mighty sleep-rapist and incarnation of all nightmares Mick started to overthrow his kingdom with chaos and woke him up at 4.30 in the morning.
Baloo’s mighty will started to shake and madness started to grow in his mind resulting in the urge to eat meat again and kill the invader Mik.
Fortunately Mick’s mother (Johanna’s brother’s wife) being a good fairy talked to the all mighty Lord of Sleep and banned the madness from his mind.
Then we headed for the University of Johannesburg where she dropped me and continued to drive to her own work.
I was waiting in the visitors lounge until Thoko the Local Committee President (lcp) of AIESEC UJ picked me up and showed me around.
We talked about loads of different things which are somehow connected to AIESEC and started to create an overview of the state of the art.
Oh my god! The situation is almost 100% the same as the one that our executive board (eb) faced when we started our term on the 15th of March in 2009.
-different understandings of what AIESEC is about
-some members seem to have joined just for fun
-the transition from the old to the new eb could’ve been loads better
-no one of the current members joined a trainer seminar
-almost no documented knowledge
-BUT a motivated eb which wants to bring CHANGE ^^
Unfortunately facebook and more important youtube are blocked on most computers on the campus. That sucks because loads of videos about management, goal setting and stuff like that are stored on youtube and hell lot of friends who could help us here are on facebook.
By the way I can understand why facebook is blocked. This is the most fanatic facebook nation I’ve ever seen. Some people write almost everything on facebook who they are in love with, who cheated on who and who’s gonna get beaten up for that. It’s just crazy!!!
After a while more members of the eb joined us and I had loads of interesting talks with ‘em. (their names are sooo cool but I’m gonna reveal the nicknames once I know all of them. Sounds like a bunch of superheros believe me)
Later in the afternoon Thoko and I decided on the key points on which I’m gonna work on:
eb:
-prepare a small session about the goals and values of AIESEC which should help us to set our focus on the organisations purpose
-gather information about the current state in all teams including members, processes, responsibilities, goals and what not
-help to develop SMART goals for AIESEC UJ
talent management:
-get an English version of a buddy booklet
-create a SWOT of the recruitment campaign
-give support with induction, selection and allocation of the new members
Furthermore I’ll be probably joining an AMAZING Leadership conference (NaLDS)
in Botswana the upcoming weekend!!!!!
I’m really looking forward to be working with the local AIESECers and to rock that conference.
Back home in the evening I finally remembered to call Johanna and apologized for my rudeness yesterday but she is still a little pissed which means I must really have been a total bastard while I was half asleep.
And now prepare yourself… my skin is finally turning brown!!!
YES, Arab 1 : German 0!
Baloo’s mighty will started to shake and madness started to grow in his mind resulting in the urge to eat meat again and kill the invader Mik.
Fortunately Mick’s mother (Johanna’s brother’s wife) being a good fairy talked to the all mighty Lord of Sleep and banned the madness from his mind.
Then we headed for the University of Johannesburg where she dropped me and continued to drive to her own work.
I was waiting in the visitors lounge until Thoko the Local Committee President (lcp) of AIESEC UJ picked me up and showed me around.
We talked about loads of different things which are somehow connected to AIESEC and started to create an overview of the state of the art.
Oh my god! The situation is almost 100% the same as the one that our executive board (eb) faced when we started our term on the 15th of March in 2009.
-different understandings of what AIESEC is about
-some members seem to have joined just for fun
-the transition from the old to the new eb could’ve been loads better
-no one of the current members joined a trainer seminar
-almost no documented knowledge
-BUT a motivated eb which wants to bring CHANGE ^^
Unfortunately facebook and more important youtube are blocked on most computers on the campus. That sucks because loads of videos about management, goal setting and stuff like that are stored on youtube and hell lot of friends who could help us here are on facebook.
By the way I can understand why facebook is blocked. This is the most fanatic facebook nation I’ve ever seen. Some people write almost everything on facebook who they are in love with, who cheated on who and who’s gonna get beaten up for that. It’s just crazy!!!
After a while more members of the eb joined us and I had loads of interesting talks with ‘em. (their names are sooo cool but I’m gonna reveal the nicknames once I know all of them. Sounds like a bunch of superheros believe me)
Later in the afternoon Thoko and I decided on the key points on which I’m gonna work on:
eb:
-prepare a small session about the goals and values of AIESEC which should help us to set our focus on the organisations purpose
-gather information about the current state in all teams including members, processes, responsibilities, goals and what not
-help to develop SMART goals for AIESEC UJ
talent management:
-get an English version of a buddy booklet
-create a SWOT of the recruitment campaign
-give support with induction, selection and allocation of the new members
Furthermore I’ll be probably joining an AMAZING Leadership conference (NaLDS)
in Botswana the upcoming weekend!!!!!
I’m really looking forward to be working with the local AIESECers and to rock that conference.
Back home in the evening I finally remembered to call Johanna and apologized for my rudeness yesterday but she is still a little pissed which means I must really have been a total bastard while I was half asleep.
And now prepare yourself… my skin is finally turning brown!!!
YES, Arab 1 : German 0!
DAY 9
I hate cocks!!!
Really this guy is driving me crazy!
Every morning he starts of kikikeriing at about 5am when I’m still fast asleep and he ain’t singing but yelling one and the same note for about 20 times and after 15 min he starts again! AHHHHHHH, it’s driving me nuts!
Anyway I watched the rest of Zeitgeist which I didn’t finish yesterday and finally got to see the newest Naruto episodes. Furthermore I eventually got a SIM for my mobile so I can call around and be called.
Remember the pick pocket guid? I recommend you to read it because it’s damn interesting, short and makes you aware of certain tricks.
In the afternoon I was training my footbag skills and helped out in the garden picking weeds.
My belly is still trying to resist my efforts and tries to stay fat but I’m gonna beat him definitely.
We had a very tasty dinner with the lovely neighbours and after that I went to bed when it was just about 8pm!!! I couldn’t believe it myself that I’d ever go to bed this early but I was damn tired and work starts tomorrow meaning I’ll have to get up at 5am!!!
While I was sleeping Johanna called me from East London and unfortunately I was still half asleep when I picked up the phone. Unfortunately, because sometimes when I’m half asleep I turn into a real bastard becoming mean and rude and this happened today.
So tomorrow I’ll have to call her and apologize to her big time.
Really this guy is driving me crazy!
Every morning he starts of kikikeriing at about 5am when I’m still fast asleep and he ain’t singing but yelling one and the same note for about 20 times and after 15 min he starts again! AHHHHHHH, it’s driving me nuts!
Anyway I watched the rest of Zeitgeist which I didn’t finish yesterday and finally got to see the newest Naruto episodes. Furthermore I eventually got a SIM for my mobile so I can call around and be called.
Remember the pick pocket guid? I recommend you to read it because it’s damn interesting, short and makes you aware of certain tricks.
In the afternoon I was training my footbag skills and helped out in the garden picking weeds.
My belly is still trying to resist my efforts and tries to stay fat but I’m gonna beat him definitely.
We had a very tasty dinner with the lovely neighbours and after that I went to bed when it was just about 8pm!!! I couldn’t believe it myself that I’d ever go to bed this early but I was damn tired and work starts tomorrow meaning I’ll have to get up at 5am!!!
While I was sleeping Johanna called me from East London and unfortunately I was still half asleep when I picked up the phone. Unfortunately, because sometimes when I’m half asleep I turn into a real bastard becoming mean and rude and this happened today.
So tomorrow I’ll have to call her and apologize to her big time.
Sonntag, 14. März 2010
DAY 8
7 am … ring, ring!!!
Yeah had to wake up early because super-dad and I wanted to go swimming in the early morning and I still needed a photo to prove that I did so.
So we met up with a friend and drove to a lagoon at Nahoon-Beach.
It was a cloudy but beautiful morning and the water was pretty warm. (and stuffed with small snails)
Super-dad and I were swimming across a small river leading to the ocean when we realized that the water was only 40cm deep which was a little embarrassing and hell lot of funny. Really we could hardly stop laughing about the ridiculous sight of to grown-ups swimming in knee deep water that we were exposing to the world.
Back home we had another awesome, early lunch and I packed the last stuff in my suit case so we could head for the airport.
On our way we stopped by at Johanna’s dad before it was eventually time to say goodbye to these super nice people and enter the plane back to JoBurg.
Arrival was about 2:10 pm and Johanna’s oldest brother plus wife picked me up from the airport and got me back to the Bahai centre.
There I planed to take a nap but instead I started watching this samurai-anime called ‘Shigurui’ which is excellent drawn, quite brutal and has a stunning story -> AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I watched all episodes in a row ‘cause I just couldn’t stop.
In between it was time for dinner and Johanna’s cousin prepared a monster tasty meal containing boiled pumpkins which were afterwards covered with sugar being caramelized in the oven -> supra delicious!!!
Because I felt a little like nerd-day, I downloaded this interesting book about pick pocketing and started watching another documentary ‘Zeitgeist:Addendum’ and it is really a must see, no kidding people who don’t watch this suck :-)
Giving me quite an insight how money is created and used to exploit people by the FED and World bank, I realized that loads of the ideas and values proclaimed in this movie correlate with the goals and values of AIESEC and still our partners are not these guys and people who think alike but banks and corporations like ‘Nike’, ‘Lufthansa’ and so on so basically the bastards who’re working against a world free of exploitation, peace and human beings who can make use of their potential.
After seeing this I felt bad because this movie is quite old and if you follow the news then you’ll see that most of the stuff definitely true just check out this story about Ethiopia posted on blog.fefe.de.
So watch it and leave comments about stuff that was presented wrong in the documentary.
Night!
Yeah had to wake up early because super-dad and I wanted to go swimming in the early morning and I still needed a photo to prove that I did so.
So we met up with a friend and drove to a lagoon at Nahoon-Beach.
It was a cloudy but beautiful morning and the water was pretty warm. (and stuffed with small snails)
Super-dad and I were swimming across a small river leading to the ocean when we realized that the water was only 40cm deep which was a little embarrassing and hell lot of funny. Really we could hardly stop laughing about the ridiculous sight of to grown-ups swimming in knee deep water that we were exposing to the world.
Back home we had another awesome, early lunch and I packed the last stuff in my suit case so we could head for the airport.
On our way we stopped by at Johanna’s dad before it was eventually time to say goodbye to these super nice people and enter the plane back to JoBurg.
Arrival was about 2:10 pm and Johanna’s oldest brother plus wife picked me up from the airport and got me back to the Bahai centre.
There I planed to take a nap but instead I started watching this samurai-anime called ‘Shigurui’ which is excellent drawn, quite brutal and has a stunning story -> AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I watched all episodes in a row ‘cause I just couldn’t stop.
In between it was time for dinner and Johanna’s cousin prepared a monster tasty meal containing boiled pumpkins which were afterwards covered with sugar being caramelized in the oven -> supra delicious!!!
Because I felt a little like nerd-day, I downloaded this interesting book about pick pocketing and started watching another documentary ‘Zeitgeist:Addendum’ and it is really a must see, no kidding people who don’t watch this suck :-)
Giving me quite an insight how money is created and used to exploit people by the FED and World bank, I realized that loads of the ideas and values proclaimed in this movie correlate with the goals and values of AIESEC and still our partners are not these guys and people who think alike but banks and corporations like ‘Nike’, ‘Lufthansa’ and so on so basically the bastards who’re working against a world free of exploitation, peace and human beings who can make use of their potential.
After seeing this I felt bad because this movie is quite old and if you follow the news then you’ll see that most of the stuff definitely true just check out this story about Ethiopia posted on blog.fefe.de.
So watch it and leave comments about stuff that was presented wrong in the documentary.
Night!
Samstag, 13. März 2010
DAY 7
‘We should laugh at every aspect of life even if we go through hardships because that laughing will make someone go on tomorrow.’ [Super-Dad]
DAY 6
Today I woke up because the super-nephew was screaming pretty loud and happy through the whole house.
The reason for that was the arrival of his father who’s been visiting his sick father (super-nephews other grandfather) and they love each other so much.
(once his dad left he didn’t wanna eat properly anymore)
After breakfast we drove to a shopping mall where I tried to fetch some money from an ATM and this was the first time I almost got robbed.
That gangsta asked me: ‘How much do you wanna withdraw?’ and I answered ‘1200 Rands!’ then he gave me quickly a receipt saying:
Withdrawal – 1200 Rands
Sorry but this ATM ain’t working no more, please call/mail for help.
I hope the whole transaction didn’t work but if it did then this bank stole my 120€!
Dunno why but I love driving without an unfastened seatbelt and so I did again once we looked for a junk food restaurant for lunch.
Eventually we stopped at a place where they sell pizzas and burgers (2 chains share one building) and everybody wanted a burger except me being vegetarian so I asked the pizza guy ‘What kind of vegetarian pizza do you have?’ and he answered: ‘Well, the ‘Vegetarian’!’ so I took that one (pineapple, olives, onions, mushrooms, garlic, green pepper and extra cheese) and it was really damn tasty.
Packed with food we went to the beach and it was again super beautiful, we were collecting even more shells so now I should have enough to provide a friend of mine and me as well.
On our way back we stopped at a small shop to buy some ‘Matoke’ which are bananas used for a traditional African meal, I love that stuff so much and it’s a shame that it’s not available in Germany.
Right in front of the shop someone put a huge sticker on a trash bin saying: ‘Real penis enlargement! Works 100%! … Call 7732whatever!’ which made me laugh because usually you get spam mails with that stuff but here they’ve got real-life-spam because internet is rare:-)
Immediately after we arrived at home again, I joined super-dad to pick up his colleague living next door and on our way we saw those real home made shacks (just some pieces of metal) which made me remember that I still didn’t visit these places but I probably will on Saturday when I’m back in JoBurg. (Soweto which includes District 9)
Before dinner I visited another guy living close by and checked out a local tea called ‘Swazi’ and this stuff is really great:
-tastes like whiskey, no kidding
-gets u awake
-fairly strong
-organic
-made me talk even more resulting in laughing even more, too
-nice feeling around my eyes, forehead and temples
I would drink it every day if I could :-)
Dinner was awesome once more and after that I started writing the journal for yesterday but during a break I watched a small documentary about two gay kids being smacked from their teachers for that particular reason.
The whole case is being investigated right now because the South African constitution guarantees that no one is discriminated but this is still a nice illusion because there’s loads of homophobia throughout the whole of Africa.
Johanna just told me that a women who admitted to being gay were gang-raped to turn them ‘normal’ again which is just sick but on the other hand side South Africa was the first country allowing gay marriage. I’m hoping that progress will catch up and people will realize that sexual orientation is really just a private thing which shouldn’t affect the relation to a person at all.
Fell asleep before I managed to start writing today’s entry, too :-)
The reason for that was the arrival of his father who’s been visiting his sick father (super-nephews other grandfather) and they love each other so much.
(once his dad left he didn’t wanna eat properly anymore)
After breakfast we drove to a shopping mall where I tried to fetch some money from an ATM and this was the first time I almost got robbed.
That gangsta asked me: ‘How much do you wanna withdraw?’ and I answered ‘1200 Rands!’ then he gave me quickly a receipt saying:
Withdrawal – 1200 Rands
Sorry but this ATM ain’t working no more, please call/mail for help.
I hope the whole transaction didn’t work but if it did then this bank stole my 120€!
Dunno why but I love driving without an unfastened seatbelt and so I did again once we looked for a junk food restaurant for lunch.
Eventually we stopped at a place where they sell pizzas and burgers (2 chains share one building) and everybody wanted a burger except me being vegetarian so I asked the pizza guy ‘What kind of vegetarian pizza do you have?’ and he answered: ‘Well, the ‘Vegetarian’!’ so I took that one (pineapple, olives, onions, mushrooms, garlic, green pepper and extra cheese) and it was really damn tasty.
Packed with food we went to the beach and it was again super beautiful, we were collecting even more shells so now I should have enough to provide a friend of mine and me as well.
On our way back we stopped at a small shop to buy some ‘Matoke’ which are bananas used for a traditional African meal, I love that stuff so much and it’s a shame that it’s not available in Germany.
Right in front of the shop someone put a huge sticker on a trash bin saying: ‘Real penis enlargement! Works 100%! … Call 7732whatever!’ which made me laugh because usually you get spam mails with that stuff but here they’ve got real-life-spam because internet is rare:-)
Immediately after we arrived at home again, I joined super-dad to pick up his colleague living next door and on our way we saw those real home made shacks (just some pieces of metal) which made me remember that I still didn’t visit these places but I probably will on Saturday when I’m back in JoBurg. (Soweto which includes District 9)
Before dinner I visited another guy living close by and checked out a local tea called ‘Swazi’ and this stuff is really great:
-tastes like whiskey, no kidding
-gets u awake
-fairly strong
-organic
-made me talk even more resulting in laughing even more, too
-nice feeling around my eyes, forehead and temples
I would drink it every day if I could :-)
Dinner was awesome once more and after that I started writing the journal for yesterday but during a break I watched a small documentary about two gay kids being smacked from their teachers for that particular reason.
The whole case is being investigated right now because the South African constitution guarantees that no one is discriminated but this is still a nice illusion because there’s loads of homophobia throughout the whole of Africa.
Johanna just told me that a women who admitted to being gay were gang-raped to turn them ‘normal’ again which is just sick but on the other hand side South Africa was the first country allowing gay marriage. I’m hoping that progress will catch up and people will realize that sexual orientation is really just a private thing which shouldn’t affect the relation to a person at all.
Fell asleep before I managed to start writing today’s entry, too :-)
DAY 5
Fortunately we’re still alive and able to write down this weird story from yesterday when one of those small, green, super poisonous snakes was in our room.
Just kidding :-) Really I didn’t see a single snake outside, anyway they can be avoided easily by simple see’n’run and the mosquitoes were repelled by a, yeah mosquito repellent, just the heat, dude you can’t hide from the heat, nowhere and not even for a second. This means getting up early (something before 8 am) and being barely able to move so I spent most of the morning playing with the super-nephew and drinking tea.
Oh my god! this small dude really is hell lot of fun and he can speak tremendously good for a three year old: ‘I’m not sleeping! I’m chilling!’ just one of the many great quotes.
But I felt a little jealous once he grabbed Johanna’s breast and didn’t let go for quite a while. I mean do you know any guy who’d be allowed to do so to his girlfriend in public? Gotta be a 3 years old, I guess.
And that’s not all of it, his grandfather, grandma, Johanna and another girl called Sarah, they all fight for his love so they secretly get him sweets and help him when it comes to finishing the plate or going to bed. I envy him sometimes a lot :-)
but I can understand because he is really damn cute, smart and a hell lot of fun to play with. (I wanna be his #1-friend!!!)
The above mentioned woman + Johanna’s sister and I had a very funny conversation about churches (NOT religion) in the afternoon and it started off with the following quote (not me!): ‘Evil starts in the church!’
It was mainly about those Nigerian churches where the people praise the priest as Jesus himself and buy him any shit he likes, like one who just mentioned the car (Jaguar)which God showed him in his sleep and that he should get for his birthday and the people collected money and bought it. Another one slept with almost every woman attending his church and the priest who sold Johanna’s sister the house is the head of the local gambling association, no kidding.
People knowing me know that I enjoyed this bashing a lot ‘cause it shows how easily people get influenced once you tell ‘em you’ve got Jesus on your side.
In the early evening Sarah (the current #1) took us to one of the beautiful beaches in East London (you’ll love the pics) and we spent there quite a while relaxing, jumping through the waves and collecting pretty nice shells.
On our way back we stopped by at ‘Windmill’ to fetch some ice cream and that was when we realized that ‘No, thanks!’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘No, thanks!’ because
asking super-nephew whether he’d like more ice cream resulted in that answer while he was longing for more with his hand :-)
We’re not sure yet whether he just doesn’t know the meaning or is playing dumb to get even more spoiled, you know small kids are really damn smart and evil ^^
After we returned I checked out the place of the super nice guy next door who’s running a design company with the husband of Johanna’s sister. It’s called blackcolourbash (.com) and they’ve created loads of pretty cool brands so check ‘em out. (homepage will be launched at the end of March)
After dinner we talked about various stuff and it was the 5th time or something that
some one told me to watch the second part of Zeitgeist (addendum) so I’ll watch it as soon as I can.
Nighty, night.
Just kidding :-) Really I didn’t see a single snake outside, anyway they can be avoided easily by simple see’n’run and the mosquitoes were repelled by a, yeah mosquito repellent, just the heat, dude you can’t hide from the heat, nowhere and not even for a second. This means getting up early (something before 8 am) and being barely able to move so I spent most of the morning playing with the super-nephew and drinking tea.
Oh my god! this small dude really is hell lot of fun and he can speak tremendously good for a three year old: ‘I’m not sleeping! I’m chilling!’ just one of the many great quotes.
But I felt a little jealous once he grabbed Johanna’s breast and didn’t let go for quite a while. I mean do you know any guy who’d be allowed to do so to his girlfriend in public? Gotta be a 3 years old, I guess.
And that’s not all of it, his grandfather, grandma, Johanna and another girl called Sarah, they all fight for his love so they secretly get him sweets and help him when it comes to finishing the plate or going to bed. I envy him sometimes a lot :-)
but I can understand because he is really damn cute, smart and a hell lot of fun to play with. (I wanna be his #1-friend!!!)
The above mentioned woman + Johanna’s sister and I had a very funny conversation about churches (NOT religion) in the afternoon and it started off with the following quote (not me!): ‘Evil starts in the church!’
It was mainly about those Nigerian churches where the people praise the priest as Jesus himself and buy him any shit he likes, like one who just mentioned the car (Jaguar)which God showed him in his sleep and that he should get for his birthday and the people collected money and bought it. Another one slept with almost every woman attending his church and the priest who sold Johanna’s sister the house is the head of the local gambling association, no kidding.
People knowing me know that I enjoyed this bashing a lot ‘cause it shows how easily people get influenced once you tell ‘em you’ve got Jesus on your side.
In the early evening Sarah (the current #1) took us to one of the beautiful beaches in East London (you’ll love the pics) and we spent there quite a while relaxing, jumping through the waves and collecting pretty nice shells.
On our way back we stopped by at ‘Windmill’ to fetch some ice cream and that was when we realized that ‘No, thanks!’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘No, thanks!’ because
asking super-nephew whether he’d like more ice cream resulted in that answer while he was longing for more with his hand :-)
We’re not sure yet whether he just doesn’t know the meaning or is playing dumb to get even more spoiled, you know small kids are really damn smart and evil ^^
After we returned I checked out the place of the super nice guy next door who’s running a design company with the husband of Johanna’s sister. It’s called blackcolourbash (.com) and they’ve created loads of pretty cool brands so check ‘em out. (homepage will be launched at the end of March)
After dinner we talked about various stuff and it was the 5th time or something that
some one told me to watch the second part of Zeitgeist (addendum) so I’ll watch it as soon as I can.
Nighty, night.
DAY 4
Today we also got up late and it was time again to comb my hair, really that is a huge pain in the ass because I always loose a handful of my precious fur.
Because there was no shaving cream we did it the African way and used Johanna’s facial cream which worked surprisingly nice so maybe you should give it a try as well.
At 1pm her brother fetched us to take us to the airport. On the way he shared a funny story showing cultural diversity at it’s best but first let me give you some background information:
In Persia it is a matter of politeness to offer all you’ve got to a guest and the guest is supposed to say ‘No, thanks!’ then you’ll ask him again and he’ll say again ‘No!’ so you’ll ask again and eventually he might answer ‘Okay, but just one piece.’ now you’ll give him one piece and then the game starts again ‘Do you want one more?’…
In traditional African culture on the other hand side it is rude to decline an offer so
You should always say ‘Yes!’ and you’re also supposed to finish whatever is offered to you.
Now the story begins:
There is a Bahai couple from Iran and once they arrived in Africa they didn’t have much money but still they bought some very expensive chocolates for special occasions.
One day they had a visitor from Nigeria and as their tradition commands they pulled out all the expensive chocolate they had and put it in one bowl to offer it to their guest.
‘Do you want a piece of chocolate?’
Now as the African tradition recommended their guest said ‘Yes!’ and started to eat immediately but it was so much chocolate that he struggled to finish the bowl so he stuffed his pockets and ate really fast.
In the meanwhile the couple sat there with big open eyes looking puzzled ‘cause this
never happened in their place.
End of the story: All sweets are gone and just because both parties tried to be super polite:-)
On our flight to East London we passed the Lesotho mountains which just looked awesome because they cover a huge strip of the countryside.
Furthermore I love seeing the clouds, it’s just so beautiful and makes me believe that a lost tribe of humans is probably living inside of them and maybe one day I’ll discover ‘em while flying by.
In East London Johanna’s mother, father, sister and the mystical super-nephew have been waiting for us so we enjoyed a very happy and warm welcome.
Once at home we had delicious food and an interesting talk about food in general.
Because here some people are really desperate and get their food from the trash fighting with various kinds of flies about it and in our society we throw away everyday more than enough to feed all of them just check out the movie we feed the world.
I want to find out more about those very poor living conditions so I asked Johanna’s father to take me to the township where he teaches children and show me around.
Do you remember the cases of fired employees because they ate some food of their company in Germany?
This happened in East London as well: A woman working in a restaurant where the employees are allowed to eat the fucking leftovers was fired because a higher manager saw her doing so. The difference to Germany is that she was treated as a real thief, meaning police arrived, handcuffed her in front of the guests and put her in prison for one night. Can you believe that? Going to prison for eating the leftovers of the people you served? Hell, no! and really we should watch out because Germany seems to head in the very same money-means-everything direction.
By the way I’m not that sure anymore whether you should be jealous or not because it is sooo friggin hot that you can barely sleep, there are loads of insects and some snakes wander around too so lets see how I’m doing tomorrow.
Because there was no shaving cream we did it the African way and used Johanna’s facial cream which worked surprisingly nice so maybe you should give it a try as well.
At 1pm her brother fetched us to take us to the airport. On the way he shared a funny story showing cultural diversity at it’s best but first let me give you some background information:
In Persia it is a matter of politeness to offer all you’ve got to a guest and the guest is supposed to say ‘No, thanks!’ then you’ll ask him again and he’ll say again ‘No!’ so you’ll ask again and eventually he might answer ‘Okay, but just one piece.’ now you’ll give him one piece and then the game starts again ‘Do you want one more?’…
In traditional African culture on the other hand side it is rude to decline an offer so
You should always say ‘Yes!’ and you’re also supposed to finish whatever is offered to you.
Now the story begins:
There is a Bahai couple from Iran and once they arrived in Africa they didn’t have much money but still they bought some very expensive chocolates for special occasions.
One day they had a visitor from Nigeria and as their tradition commands they pulled out all the expensive chocolate they had and put it in one bowl to offer it to their guest.
‘Do you want a piece of chocolate?’
Now as the African tradition recommended their guest said ‘Yes!’ and started to eat immediately but it was so much chocolate that he struggled to finish the bowl so he stuffed his pockets and ate really fast.
In the meanwhile the couple sat there with big open eyes looking puzzled ‘cause this
never happened in their place.
End of the story: All sweets are gone and just because both parties tried to be super polite:-)
On our flight to East London we passed the Lesotho mountains which just looked awesome because they cover a huge strip of the countryside.
Furthermore I love seeing the clouds, it’s just so beautiful and makes me believe that a lost tribe of humans is probably living inside of them and maybe one day I’ll discover ‘em while flying by.
In East London Johanna’s mother, father, sister and the mystical super-nephew have been waiting for us so we enjoyed a very happy and warm welcome.
Once at home we had delicious food and an interesting talk about food in general.
Because here some people are really desperate and get their food from the trash fighting with various kinds of flies about it and in our society we throw away everyday more than enough to feed all of them just check out the movie we feed the world.
I want to find out more about those very poor living conditions so I asked Johanna’s father to take me to the township where he teaches children and show me around.
Do you remember the cases of fired employees because they ate some food of their company in Germany?
This happened in East London as well: A woman working in a restaurant where the employees are allowed to eat the fucking leftovers was fired because a higher manager saw her doing so. The difference to Germany is that she was treated as a real thief, meaning police arrived, handcuffed her in front of the guests and put her in prison for one night. Can you believe that? Going to prison for eating the leftovers of the people you served? Hell, no! and really we should watch out because Germany seems to head in the very same money-means-everything direction.
By the way I’m not that sure anymore whether you should be jealous or not because it is sooo friggin hot that you can barely sleep, there are loads of insects and some snakes wander around too so lets see how I’m doing tomorrow.
DAY 3
Today I did something that I wanted to do for quite a while:
Big-Time-Nothing!!!
Really getting up at noon and watching some series on the laptop was damn nice.
In the evening it got a little exciting when I was playing hide and seek with the 3 years old neighbour’s girl and yes I beat her like hell :-)
After dinner Johanna and I started watching ‘Boondocks’ being a funny anime about a black family but I’m not allowed to watch it anymore ‘cause I’m a bloody whitey not being meant to laugh about black stereotypes.
That’s it for today, quite short huh? Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be flying to East London to visit Johanna’s sister, mum, dad and beloved nephew. (the best child in the world she thinks but I’m not convinced yet, still I have to pretend ‘cause otherwise she’ll kill me)
Ahhh, almost forgot there’s a beach in East London so I’ll be swimming even if I don’t like it that much just to make you jealous :-)
Big-Time-Nothing!!!
Really getting up at noon and watching some series on the laptop was damn nice.
In the evening it got a little exciting when I was playing hide and seek with the 3 years old neighbour’s girl and yes I beat her like hell :-)
After dinner Johanna and I started watching ‘Boondocks’ being a funny anime about a black family but I’m not allowed to watch it anymore ‘cause I’m a bloody whitey not being meant to laugh about black stereotypes.
That’s it for today, quite short huh? Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be flying to East London to visit Johanna’s sister, mum, dad and beloved nephew. (the best child in the world she thinks but I’m not convinced yet, still I have to pretend ‘cause otherwise she’ll kill me)
Ahhh, almost forgot there’s a beach in East London so I’ll be swimming even if I don’t like it that much just to make you jealous :-)
Sonntag, 7. März 2010
DAY 2
This Sunday I joined the praying circle of the Bahais (but I didn’t pray ‘cause I’m not religious) which was quite interesting because they accept any kind of religion and prayer and there’ve been people from at least 6 different countries. The reason for that is that they believe in progressive revelation meaning every prophet (Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Bahá'u'lláh) had a message of god fitting their time and therefore the founder of their faith ain’t the last one but the one for this age.
Other cool things about this faith are no hierarchy (like priest, super priest and priest overlord), woman and man are 100% equal, they’ve got a principle saying you’ve gotta think (not just believing), they don’t claim absolute truth and there is no hell. (but you’ll get punished for you’re sins until you’re pure enough for heaven)
So basically they’ve removed all these damn flaws of other religions which make it so easy to influence, control and oppress people…and now guess where it was founded? In IRAN!!! I couldn’t believe it.
Anyway I’m not planning to go there again because it still feels strange, like you just don’t fit in but I’m definitely meeting ‘em again to discuss philosophical aspects and to go to the townships to play and teach the children there.
The kids we met today were really small and so funny. They smiled the whole time and they all wanted to get a goodbye hug esp. one small girl called Shila she was sooo sweet. (hope I can get you a picture)
But then I also experienced a little that living in these poor areas must be pretty tough ‘cause one of the small boys I was playing footbag with just came over when we were about to leave and said in a surprisingly rough way: ‘ Borrow me that ball!!!’
And it really sounded like gangsta style the only thing missing was ‘Don’t scream and don’t try anything funny!!!’
Still I wanna talk to the guys my age next time even if they might be real gangstas to find out a little more what is going on in these townships and maybe to think about ideas how you could empower the youth there to do something useful.
On our way back I had been talking to a woman who actually converted from Islam to be a Bahai which you’ll probably won’t find often ‘cause leaving Islam is forbidden.
The reason why she left was that the Imam in her community told her that all Christians will go to hell and when your parents are Christians and you’re Muslim you’re not allowed to pray for their souls after they’ve died which she just couldn’t take (but her parents are Muslims)and I gotta admit that such stuff doesn’t make sense to me either but I probably should keep my mouth shut.
I don’t wanna run advert for the Bahai faith, they’ve got just so many principles which I like and which most of the other religions just lack.
So back in the Bahai centre we visited the Bahai clinic where private doctors of JoBurg being Bahais offer medical treatment for free. Most of the patients are HIV/Aids infected from the townships who can’t afford going to a doctor.
Some minutes ago I was playing footbag and doing sit-ups to get rid off my nerd-belly, really I couldn’t believe what smoking, pizza and endless anime nights could do to my stamina, power and shape -> baby crying: ‘I am fat!’
Coming to speak of anime Johanna’s bro just showed me a samurai anime which I didn’t know which I thought is impossible and it is called ‘shigurui’ and seemed dark and brutal (yeah!!!). Furthermore he showed me a nerd series called ‘Chuck’ so if you like Big Bang or IT-Crowd check it out and tell me wether it rocks or not.
Ah I almost forgot you should also watch docus of Louis Theroux quite interesting and funny because he makes people admit stuff they probably would never have said in front of a camera, I watched both about South Africa (one about violence in JoBurg and the other about Afrikaaners establishing whites-only-towns)
So now lets have dinner and after that a big bunch of sleep I’m really tired.
Other cool things about this faith are no hierarchy (like priest, super priest and priest overlord), woman and man are 100% equal, they’ve got a principle saying you’ve gotta think (not just believing), they don’t claim absolute truth and there is no hell. (but you’ll get punished for you’re sins until you’re pure enough for heaven)
So basically they’ve removed all these damn flaws of other religions which make it so easy to influence, control and oppress people…and now guess where it was founded? In IRAN!!! I couldn’t believe it.
Anyway I’m not planning to go there again because it still feels strange, like you just don’t fit in but I’m definitely meeting ‘em again to discuss philosophical aspects and to go to the townships to play and teach the children there.
The kids we met today were really small and so funny. They smiled the whole time and they all wanted to get a goodbye hug esp. one small girl called Shila she was sooo sweet. (hope I can get you a picture)
But then I also experienced a little that living in these poor areas must be pretty tough ‘cause one of the small boys I was playing footbag with just came over when we were about to leave and said in a surprisingly rough way: ‘ Borrow me that ball!!!’
And it really sounded like gangsta style the only thing missing was ‘Don’t scream and don’t try anything funny!!!’
Still I wanna talk to the guys my age next time even if they might be real gangstas to find out a little more what is going on in these townships and maybe to think about ideas how you could empower the youth there to do something useful.
On our way back I had been talking to a woman who actually converted from Islam to be a Bahai which you’ll probably won’t find often ‘cause leaving Islam is forbidden.
The reason why she left was that the Imam in her community told her that all Christians will go to hell and when your parents are Christians and you’re Muslim you’re not allowed to pray for their souls after they’ve died which she just couldn’t take (but her parents are Muslims)and I gotta admit that such stuff doesn’t make sense to me either but I probably should keep my mouth shut.
I don’t wanna run advert for the Bahai faith, they’ve got just so many principles which I like and which most of the other religions just lack.
So back in the Bahai centre we visited the Bahai clinic where private doctors of JoBurg being Bahais offer medical treatment for free. Most of the patients are HIV/Aids infected from the townships who can’t afford going to a doctor.
Some minutes ago I was playing footbag and doing sit-ups to get rid off my nerd-belly, really I couldn’t believe what smoking, pizza and endless anime nights could do to my stamina, power and shape -> baby crying: ‘I am fat!’
Coming to speak of anime Johanna’s bro just showed me a samurai anime which I didn’t know which I thought is impossible and it is called ‘shigurui’ and seemed dark and brutal (yeah!!!). Furthermore he showed me a nerd series called ‘Chuck’ so if you like Big Bang or IT-Crowd check it out and tell me wether it rocks or not.
Ah I almost forgot you should also watch docus of Louis Theroux quite interesting and funny because he makes people admit stuff they probably would never have said in front of a camera, I watched both about South Africa (one about violence in JoBurg and the other about Afrikaaners establishing whites-only-towns)
So now lets have dinner and after that a big bunch of sleep I’m really tired.
DAY 1
Guess what I did during my great sleep last night?
… I WAS SWEATING!!! So please be jealous once more.
The obvious reason for that would be the heat in South Africa but I think it is because I didn’t play guitar for more than 2 days which means my addiction kicked in.
Fortunately Johanna’s brother knows a second hand market where I spent almost all my money on a guitar and a tuner (still can’t tune even after 8 years of playing->LAME!) because in South Africa second hand stuff is still worth a lot, way more than second hand things in Germany.
After that we went home, picked up Johanna, one of the neighbours and a really old woman and went to Cosmo City one of the poor townships in Joburg.
There we met two other Bahais to teach the children and play with ‘em.
I just want to remind you that these are no religious fanatics but people who actually wanna help, I mean Johanna’s brother studied accounting, the old woman proclaimed equality in South Africa during apartheid, one of the Bahais is a professor for economics at university and the other one a doctor -> No freaks at all just some very inspiring people who didn’t loose their morals along the way.
Do you know that feeling after you’ve seen another documentary about pharma/military industries, stockbroker-cocaine-heads or even worse politicians and you ask yourself ‘but what the fuck can I do to make the world at least a little better?’ well I guess educating kiddies is quite a thing.
Unfortunately I couldn’t teach their stuff so I just joined the class and later on
played footbag with the kids which they really enjoyed ‘cause they’ve never even seen such a thing before and you know what? They almost learned a friggin trick which took me two weeks in about 2 minutes. (damn advantage of being an input-processing-super-beast called child)
I also taught ‘em a funny ice breaker which we usually use in AIESEC to refresh during long lasting soft skill seminars and now I’m trying to think of more games you could play with kids which (almost) don’t require material for the next time.
Does anyone of you know the rules for that game where two kids have a rubber band around their feet and a third kid has to do various jumps between the band without touching it?
After some hours we left and my head was about to burst ‘cause I didn’t drink enough water which you really shouldn’t do when you’re jumping around at 30 degrees.
At home we talked quite a while about the no-go-issue religion which is always very interesting to me because I’m not religious but I’m interested into the philosophical ideas which they promote. (but really no sex and no drugs! This won’t work in the age of rock’n’roll I am sorry
At dinner we talked a lot about funny martial arts movies like these with Steven Seagal and John Claude van Damme and like most of the people they didn’t know about this funny disorder above John’s eyebrow which you’ll look at all the time once you’ve found it so have fun watching this cool trash once more.
Another funny thing is that Africans mix languages sooooo fluently sometimes that it is impossible to follow. I mean really like 2-3 African ones in an English sentence is just too much to take.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to the township once more and this time meet the real young kids about 4-7 years old but really I cant think of a game for these ‘cause at this age I was always spacing out in my own fantasy world.
… I WAS SWEATING!!! So please be jealous once more.
The obvious reason for that would be the heat in South Africa but I think it is because I didn’t play guitar for more than 2 days which means my addiction kicked in.
Fortunately Johanna’s brother knows a second hand market where I spent almost all my money on a guitar and a tuner (still can’t tune even after 8 years of playing->LAME!) because in South Africa second hand stuff is still worth a lot, way more than second hand things in Germany.
After that we went home, picked up Johanna, one of the neighbours and a really old woman and went to Cosmo City one of the poor townships in Joburg.
There we met two other Bahais to teach the children and play with ‘em.
I just want to remind you that these are no religious fanatics but people who actually wanna help, I mean Johanna’s brother studied accounting, the old woman proclaimed equality in South Africa during apartheid, one of the Bahais is a professor for economics at university and the other one a doctor -> No freaks at all just some very inspiring people who didn’t loose their morals along the way.
Do you know that feeling after you’ve seen another documentary about pharma/military industries, stockbroker-cocaine-heads or even worse politicians and you ask yourself ‘but what the fuck can I do to make the world at least a little better?’ well I guess educating kiddies is quite a thing.
Unfortunately I couldn’t teach their stuff so I just joined the class and later on
played footbag with the kids which they really enjoyed ‘cause they’ve never even seen such a thing before and you know what? They almost learned a friggin trick which took me two weeks in about 2 minutes. (damn advantage of being an input-processing-super-beast called child)
I also taught ‘em a funny ice breaker which we usually use in AIESEC to refresh during long lasting soft skill seminars and now I’m trying to think of more games you could play with kids which (almost) don’t require material for the next time.
Does anyone of you know the rules for that game where two kids have a rubber band around their feet and a third kid has to do various jumps between the band without touching it?
After some hours we left and my head was about to burst ‘cause I didn’t drink enough water which you really shouldn’t do when you’re jumping around at 30 degrees.
At home we talked quite a while about the no-go-issue religion which is always very interesting to me because I’m not religious but I’m interested into the philosophical ideas which they promote. (but really no sex and no drugs! This won’t work in the age of rock’n’roll I am sorry
At dinner we talked a lot about funny martial arts movies like these with Steven Seagal and John Claude van Damme and like most of the people they didn’t know about this funny disorder above John’s eyebrow which you’ll look at all the time once you’ve found it so have fun watching this cool trash once more.
Another funny thing is that Africans mix languages sooooo fluently sometimes that it is impossible to follow. I mean really like 2-3 African ones in an English sentence is just too much to take.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to the township once more and this time meet the real young kids about 4-7 years old but really I cant think of a game for these ‘cause at this age I was always spacing out in my own fantasy world.
ARRIVAL
Today my girlfriend(Johanna) and me(Baloo) started our journey to South Africa where we’re about to meet up with her family, enjoy the country and work on the human resource processes of AIESEC.
OMG 7 am, get up!!! Really this ain’t a time to move your body consciously
but at least we had enough time to get the tickets to Berlin and change some money. Even if Johanna hates growling we were pleased by some ‘nice’ way-to-loud-music-on-crappy-earphones punk by one of their kind making travelling a little more comfortable for me…at least:-)
Arriving at air port Berlin-Tegel it even started to snow once more just to make you even more jealous of my wonderful warm time in Africa.(I’m writing this in Shorts and even had to put on some sun block…Nelson says: ‘HA, HA’)
On our flight to Heathrow I lost a little my temper talking about the spreading surveillance industry which some friends and me checked out at CeBit and said something like: ‘… and those British fuckheads are the worst!!! They’re really using
‘1984’ (must read/see) as a manual.’
Please don’t do this ever once you’re stuck in a plane going to London (in Britain) on a British Airways flight ‘cause the people really won’t appreciate it :-)
When I added (for fun only!!!): ‘You know what? We should ride this plane into something big to send a message!’ the people in front of us looked scared, Johanna was shocked( she’s black so she suffers repression even without such idiotic comments) and I was complaining about the fact that you really have to be afraid of such WORDS even if there’s freedom of speech just because some paranoid FUCKHEADS manipulate the majority of the people with their brainless media.
On our 12 hours!!! flight from Heathrow to Johannesburg I watched ‘Tsotsi’ and ‘Up in the air’ which are pretty, pretty cool… and the food was quite nice so if you wanna taste the best microwave stuff on this planet, check out British Airways :-)
Short summary of Johanna’s usual air port repression:
For my flight to Africa I needed (till now) a passport only, that’s it.
Johanna needs: a visa for a 2 hours break in England, a visa for South Africa (where she was born), a passport and way more time at the controls at the air port. Gosh she comes from that country so if there’s any suspicious person than it’s me, the bloody whitey from perverted Germany!!! ( yes Germans are internationally considered as perverts)
Any way we arrived at 7 in the morning which means we’ve travelled for almost 24 hours!!!
'Mc D quote' it’s true those bastards have no respect at all just read this story about the local restaurants close to the stadium and you’ll know why.
At the air port Johanna’s brother (he likes Sanurai Champloo! YEAH!!!!!!!!) picked us up and we went straight into the city.
It was so damn hot and nice and funny and cool.
Really her family is so open-minded and we had loads of cool talks already (3pm).
Right now I thought my mobile is broken ‘cause it didn’t turn on again but the old remove-battery-and-put-it-back-hack just solved the problem so I won’t be screwed if I’d get robbed -> no one likes to steal a broken mobile -> non one likes people with broken mobiles (and I needed it by the way as well) :-)
Forgot to tell you that we’re staying at Johanna’s brother in a Bahai centre which is pretty cool because it is off the usual JoBurg and surrounded by nature.
Another awesome aspect of staying in a Bahai community is that people really trust each other, visit each other, do community service together and stuff which means we had a dinner with over 10 people and had loads of fun especially with 2 small kids being around 3 years old (they’re so crazy).
After dinner Johanna, her two brothers and I got into some really cool talking which went from Freud’s anal expulsion over human rights to cool movies (e.g. Michael Clayton) and back
covering the issues unmentioned before.
Tomorrow I’ll join the community service and visit one of the townships where they provide education to children for free.
Gosh I’m so excited!!!
… dunno wether the upcoming posts will be as detailed as this one ‘cause it really takes hell lot of time but anyway JoBurg FTW!!!
OMG 7 am, get up!!! Really this ain’t a time to move your body consciously
but at least we had enough time to get the tickets to Berlin and change some money. Even if Johanna hates growling we were pleased by some ‘nice’ way-to-loud-music-on-crappy-earphones punk by one of their kind making travelling a little more comfortable for me…at least:-)
Arriving at air port Berlin-Tegel it even started to snow once more just to make you even more jealous of my wonderful warm time in Africa.(I’m writing this in Shorts and even had to put on some sun block…Nelson says: ‘HA, HA’)
On our flight to Heathrow I lost a little my temper talking about the spreading surveillance industry which some friends and me checked out at CeBit and said something like: ‘… and those British fuckheads are the worst!!! They’re really using
‘1984’ (must read/see) as a manual.’
Please don’t do this ever once you’re stuck in a plane going to London (in Britain) on a British Airways flight ‘cause the people really won’t appreciate it :-)
When I added (for fun only!!!): ‘You know what? We should ride this plane into something big to send a message!’ the people in front of us looked scared, Johanna was shocked( she’s black so she suffers repression even without such idiotic comments) and I was complaining about the fact that you really have to be afraid of such WORDS even if there’s freedom of speech just because some paranoid FUCKHEADS manipulate the majority of the people with their brainless media.
On our 12 hours!!! flight from Heathrow to Johannesburg I watched ‘Tsotsi’ and ‘Up in the air’ which are pretty, pretty cool… and the food was quite nice so if you wanna taste the best microwave stuff on this planet, check out British Airways :-)
Short summary of Johanna’s usual air port repression:
For my flight to Africa I needed (till now) a passport only, that’s it.
Johanna needs: a visa for a 2 hours break in England, a visa for South Africa (where she was born), a passport and way more time at the controls at the air port. Gosh she comes from that country so if there’s any suspicious person than it’s me, the bloody whitey from perverted Germany!!! ( yes Germans are internationally considered as perverts)
Any way we arrived at 7 in the morning which means we’ve travelled for almost 24 hours!!!
'Mc D quote' it’s true those bastards have no respect at all just read this story about the local restaurants close to the stadium and you’ll know why.
At the air port Johanna’s brother (he likes Sanurai Champloo! YEAH!!!!!!!!) picked us up and we went straight into the city.
It was so damn hot and nice and funny and cool.
Really her family is so open-minded and we had loads of cool talks already (3pm).
Right now I thought my mobile is broken ‘cause it didn’t turn on again but the old remove-battery-and-put-it-back-hack just solved the problem so I won’t be screwed if I’d get robbed -> no one likes to steal a broken mobile -> non one likes people with broken mobiles (and I needed it by the way as well) :-)
Forgot to tell you that we’re staying at Johanna’s brother in a Bahai centre which is pretty cool because it is off the usual JoBurg and surrounded by nature.
Another awesome aspect of staying in a Bahai community is that people really trust each other, visit each other, do community service together and stuff which means we had a dinner with over 10 people and had loads of fun especially with 2 small kids being around 3 years old (they’re so crazy).
After dinner Johanna, her two brothers and I got into some really cool talking which went from Freud’s anal expulsion over human rights to cool movies (e.g. Michael Clayton) and back
covering the issues unmentioned before.
Tomorrow I’ll join the community service and visit one of the townships where they provide education to children for free.
Gosh I’m so excited!!!
… dunno wether the upcoming posts will be as detailed as this one ‘cause it really takes hell lot of time but anyway JoBurg FTW!!!
GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA
heidi ho dear net punks,
I'm gonna trip to south africa and unfortunately I'll have almost no internet until the 16th of march and in case I'll get it, it is fucking expensive so I'll be blogging my journal without pics and links and add these later.
by the way this is really a personal journal so it might not interest you.
if you want to complain about that, fuck off!
I'm gonna trip to south africa and unfortunately I'll have almost no internet until the 16th of march and in case I'll get it, it is fucking expensive so I'll be blogging my journal without pics and links and add these later.
by the way this is really a personal journal so it might not interest you.
if you want to complain about that, fuck off!
Dienstag, 2. März 2010
MUST SEE - STORY OF STUFF
oh my gosh!!! you suck because you didn't make me watch this earlier and i suck because a friend of mine told me about this AWESOME short movie a long time ago and i still didn't watch it.
i'm talking about the 'story of stuff' explaining quite nicely why capitalism is soooo great.
especially interesting if you're studying economics ...haha...but i guess what she says is just not true...haha...we suck
i'm talking about the 'story of stuff' explaining quite nicely why capitalism is soooo great.
especially interesting if you're studying economics ...haha...but i guess what she says is just not true...haha...we suck
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