The Big Time
Hey Everyone,
After reading back through my last few posts I see that I have been being a baby. I was going through what amounted to the most mentally difficult time of my entire life, but it was because I was letting the little things pile up on me. Being so far away from everything that I knew and having little to no contact back with the people and things that I love was more difficult than I could have prepared myself for. In all actuality I truly appreciate the comments I have been getting, regardless of how random, because it makes me realize things about myself that I couldn’t see without bouncing ideas off of other people, regardless of how little said people actually know about me. Besides, I wouldn’t put it out there if I didn’t want people to read it and think about it.
Last night kicked ass, in fact nearly everything is starting kick ass. Work is really starting pick up as I start to prepare for the pioneers conference and actually begin having meetings here in Nairobi to start getting the ASK project in line. Ever since I have gotten into the house it seems like things have started fall into place.
Now that I am feeling in control and the sanest I have felt in ages, I think it is time to start concentrating on the great, amazing, truly life-changing experience that it has been here in Kenya. Instead of concentrating on venting frustrations, I will return to writing things that will remind me of the good things long after I leave this country.
To begin, let’s talk a bit more about the coast trip, which was amazing in both experience and weather.
The first stop was Mombasa for about a week. Let me start by saying that the coast is HOT. More hot and humid than any other place I have ever been in my life. Being that it is on the equator it is easy to understand why, but words can’t describe the sort of feeling it is to be hot and sweaty even at 2 in the morning. We are talking 2 showers a day, dripping hot both on and off the beach area. For a walking furnace like me it was an experience in moisture that I will not forget. You really find yourself losing your self-consciousness about the sweat and just learning to live with the fact that despite the showers you will still feel like you are the community rag at a downtown gym.
The beaches themselves in Mombasa were a bit dirty, but it was good to see the police were out making sure people weren’t littering to their usual capacity. Possibly the biggest polluters were not even human. The beach featured about 17 camels who gave people a rocky ride along side the ocean. So that means you could grab a towel, push aside the camel feces and have a nice relaxing rest in the pounding sun. No man with a towel serving mohitos, but it definitely hit the spot!
Malindi featured a snorkel trip in a national reserve park where I got to see types of fish and marine like that I had only seen on Finding Nemo. Being that I was recovering from the sunburn that was mentioned in the past blogs it was a shirt-required affair, but I still hopped in the water to be surrounded by Zebra fish and various other species. While sharks are not very common in the shallow areas by the coral reefs, some fisherman did manage to catch what appeared to be a great white shark the next day. They hung it from a giant hook and began to disassemble it. The girls managed to get a few pictures of the shark hanging, which I will try to get up on the blog as soon as I can.
The last stop was to Lamu, of which I have written about a bit in previous posts, so be sure to check those out after you finish up on this one.
AIESEC Updates:
So much has been happening here I will just briefly head into the details and then touch more on exactly what the impact of AIESEC is here in Kenya.
With Pioneer’s conference only 3 days away I have been FRANTICALLY trying to get sessions drawn up in 2 days of work. This will be the first time I have not had ample time to really put into sessions (as we just got the outline for the conference on Saturday afternoon) but I am really looking forward to the challenge. I get to run the first session with the newbie’s which will really just involve a lot of energy and cheering, something that my peeps in Canada know I can throw down.
ASK is really starting to pick up as I said with meetings nearly everyday with locals looking for advice on budgets, fundraising and coordination, which is awesome. I should be able to get everything in line nationally in two weeks, which means that I can hand off this project to the LC’s and see that they know how to create a sustainable program after I am gone. Next week I will be meeting with companies attempting to raise partnerships and internships for HIV/AIDS like a good little boy.
Promotional activity for AIESEC Canada and interns looking to head out to Africa will be done in about 4 hours, which means that I can start looking into direct matching some interns as soon as I hear the word that interns are in the system! So things are really starting to come together.
It is amazing to see the impact that AIESEC can really have in a country like Kenya.
Over the weekend AIESEC Kenya hosted a golf tournament that brought out more CEOs than Saskatoon could bring out in 10 golf days. Around 150 people were out supporting AIESEC and the ideals that the organization has and helped to raise some much needed funds for the National office. High level sponsorships and high-profile attendees seemed to roll in all at the last second in a phenomenon that I would like to call the “Kenya Puzzle Piece Process”. That is, they have a project that would normally involve months of planning (take for instance a conference) and they start thinking about it about a month before the even takes place. The planning is done over the first two weeks and then in one magical week things seem to fall together like pieces of a puzzle. Money, support and people seem to come out of the wood work all at once and despite of how dismal the outlook looks initially in terms of planning and organization things just come together. Amazing really. A cultural difference that is unnerving at best for long term planners like me, but it seems to work brilliantly for the people here in Kenya.
It is also very easy to see the impact here that internships have on individuals. It is very, VERY difficult for the educated students of Kenya to leave their country and find work else where. For us in the Western world most countries are excited to receive us and therefore visas and permissions are easy to get. However with a government whose concern surrounding brain drain is increasing with every student who leaves the country and an extremely bureaucratic system for visa processing it is nearly impossible to take on an international experience. While AIESEC is doing a good job in some countries in speeding visa processing along, it seems that our governmental ties are letting people in the developing countries down giving them little option but to stay waiting for 8 months in their country for the visa process to finish. This absolutely pisses off every employer looking to get interns in the foreseeable future, an issue that I personally have dealt with back in Saskatoon. Despite the fact we are non-governmental, I would really encourage more government involvement by the national teams to start making headway in shorting visa wait times. It is a serious bottleneck for countries like Kenya to get interns in and out and through that directly affects the level of impact that AIESEC can have in countries like Kenya.
Things are going well over all here; I am really looking forward to making my first real positive impact here in Kenya over this next week. So stay with me, updates (both on this one and on the leadership page) will be coming on Monday of next week!
Have a great one everyone and try to stay warm!
Devan
After reading back through my last few posts I see that I have been being a baby. I was going through what amounted to the most mentally difficult time of my entire life, but it was because I was letting the little things pile up on me. Being so far away from everything that I knew and having little to no contact back with the people and things that I love was more difficult than I could have prepared myself for. In all actuality I truly appreciate the comments I have been getting, regardless of how random, because it makes me realize things about myself that I couldn’t see without bouncing ideas off of other people, regardless of how little said people actually know about me. Besides, I wouldn’t put it out there if I didn’t want people to read it and think about it.
Last night kicked ass, in fact nearly everything is starting kick ass. Work is really starting pick up as I start to prepare for the pioneers conference and actually begin having meetings here in Nairobi to start getting the ASK project in line. Ever since I have gotten into the house it seems like things have started fall into place.
Now that I am feeling in control and the sanest I have felt in ages, I think it is time to start concentrating on the great, amazing, truly life-changing experience that it has been here in Kenya. Instead of concentrating on venting frustrations, I will return to writing things that will remind me of the good things long after I leave this country.
To begin, let’s talk a bit more about the coast trip, which was amazing in both experience and weather.
The first stop was Mombasa for about a week. Let me start by saying that the coast is HOT. More hot and humid than any other place I have ever been in my life. Being that it is on the equator it is easy to understand why, but words can’t describe the sort of feeling it is to be hot and sweaty even at 2 in the morning. We are talking 2 showers a day, dripping hot both on and off the beach area. For a walking furnace like me it was an experience in moisture that I will not forget. You really find yourself losing your self-consciousness about the sweat and just learning to live with the fact that despite the showers you will still feel like you are the community rag at a downtown gym.
The beaches themselves in Mombasa were a bit dirty, but it was good to see the police were out making sure people weren’t littering to their usual capacity. Possibly the biggest polluters were not even human. The beach featured about 17 camels who gave people a rocky ride along side the ocean. So that means you could grab a towel, push aside the camel feces and have a nice relaxing rest in the pounding sun. No man with a towel serving mohitos, but it definitely hit the spot!
Malindi featured a snorkel trip in a national reserve park where I got to see types of fish and marine like that I had only seen on Finding Nemo. Being that I was recovering from the sunburn that was mentioned in the past blogs it was a shirt-required affair, but I still hopped in the water to be surrounded by Zebra fish and various other species. While sharks are not very common in the shallow areas by the coral reefs, some fisherman did manage to catch what appeared to be a great white shark the next day. They hung it from a giant hook and began to disassemble it. The girls managed to get a few pictures of the shark hanging, which I will try to get up on the blog as soon as I can.
The last stop was to Lamu, of which I have written about a bit in previous posts, so be sure to check those out after you finish up on this one.
AIESEC Updates:
So much has been happening here I will just briefly head into the details and then touch more on exactly what the impact of AIESEC is here in Kenya.
With Pioneer’s conference only 3 days away I have been FRANTICALLY trying to get sessions drawn up in 2 days of work. This will be the first time I have not had ample time to really put into sessions (as we just got the outline for the conference on Saturday afternoon) but I am really looking forward to the challenge. I get to run the first session with the newbie’s which will really just involve a lot of energy and cheering, something that my peeps in Canada know I can throw down.
ASK is really starting to pick up as I said with meetings nearly everyday with locals looking for advice on budgets, fundraising and coordination, which is awesome. I should be able to get everything in line nationally in two weeks, which means that I can hand off this project to the LC’s and see that they know how to create a sustainable program after I am gone. Next week I will be meeting with companies attempting to raise partnerships and internships for HIV/AIDS like a good little boy.
Promotional activity for AIESEC Canada and interns looking to head out to Africa will be done in about 4 hours, which means that I can start looking into direct matching some interns as soon as I hear the word that interns are in the system! So things are really starting to come together.
It is amazing to see the impact that AIESEC can really have in a country like Kenya.
Over the weekend AIESEC Kenya hosted a golf tournament that brought out more CEOs than Saskatoon could bring out in 10 golf days. Around 150 people were out supporting AIESEC and the ideals that the organization has and helped to raise some much needed funds for the National office. High level sponsorships and high-profile attendees seemed to roll in all at the last second in a phenomenon that I would like to call the “Kenya Puzzle Piece Process”. That is, they have a project that would normally involve months of planning (take for instance a conference) and they start thinking about it about a month before the even takes place. The planning is done over the first two weeks and then in one magical week things seem to fall together like pieces of a puzzle. Money, support and people seem to come out of the wood work all at once and despite of how dismal the outlook looks initially in terms of planning and organization things just come together. Amazing really. A cultural difference that is unnerving at best for long term planners like me, but it seems to work brilliantly for the people here in Kenya.
It is also very easy to see the impact here that internships have on individuals. It is very, VERY difficult for the educated students of Kenya to leave their country and find work else where. For us in the Western world most countries are excited to receive us and therefore visas and permissions are easy to get. However with a government whose concern surrounding brain drain is increasing with every student who leaves the country and an extremely bureaucratic system for visa processing it is nearly impossible to take on an international experience. While AIESEC is doing a good job in some countries in speeding visa processing along, it seems that our governmental ties are letting people in the developing countries down giving them little option but to stay waiting for 8 months in their country for the visa process to finish. This absolutely pisses off every employer looking to get interns in the foreseeable future, an issue that I personally have dealt with back in Saskatoon. Despite the fact we are non-governmental, I would really encourage more government involvement by the national teams to start making headway in shorting visa wait times. It is a serious bottleneck for countries like Kenya to get interns in and out and through that directly affects the level of impact that AIESEC can have in countries like Kenya.
Things are going well over all here; I am really looking forward to making my first real positive impact here in Kenya over this next week. So stay with me, updates (both on this one and on the leadership page) will be coming on Monday of next week!
Have a great one everyone and try to stay warm!
Devan
1 Comments:
At 11:35 AM, Steph said…
Glad to read things are looking up for you. One thing you mentioned I can really relate to is the fear of losing your identity...but I think this is a major opportunity to find out just what your identity actually is (one I wished I had taken better advantage of while I was away). You will find yourself, your views and your values challenged constantly...but hold true to what is most important to you and you'll be fine :) You may even find out that some things you've always assumed are wrong but that's what this whole thing is about, right? Take care!
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