Invisible Paths
30 June 2006
presidents, football, and Bucaramanga
Bucaramanga is great: a constant warm breeze, sun, a wonderful host (thanks Jessica!), and of course Presidents Meeting!!
After a few days of preparation in the Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga we kicked off PM this morning... with a few external challenges. No, not missing beamers, frozen ppts, lost handouts or dried-up flipchart markers. I am of course referring to the game Alemania - Argentina! Disciplined and diligent - we managed to continue through jubilant shouts (goal Argentina) and droaning screams of "puuuuuuuutaaa!!!!" (goal Germany)... until penalties: I found myself in the middle of Argentina-supporting Colombians (normally Colombians do NOT go for Argentinians in football, but against los Alemanes the Latinos have to stick together of course)... jumping up and down, and exchanging triumphant glances with Iván - today my boss and I were enemies.
Ahhhh, I wish I was in Germany right now, the photos and video clips I see online speak of unlimited joy and party! And, which is even better, business confidence is on its high since reunification. Without the World Cup we would also suffer terribly from the current political gloom and stress. I love football!
So. Now for the Italians... those clued in on my personal life can imagine that Tuesday next week will be a fun day - if only I was in London!!
And yes, I got the below from him :)
After a few days of preparation in the Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga we kicked off PM this morning... with a few external challenges. No, not missing beamers, frozen ppts, lost handouts or dried-up flipchart markers. I am of course referring to the game Alemania - Argentina! Disciplined and diligent - we managed to continue through jubilant shouts (goal Argentina) and droaning screams of "puuuuuuuutaaa!!!!" (goal Germany)... until penalties: I found myself in the middle of Argentina-supporting Colombians (normally Colombians do NOT go for Argentinians in football, but against los Alemanes the Latinos have to stick together of course)... jumping up and down, and exchanging triumphant glances with Iván - today my boss and I were enemies.
Ahhhh, I wish I was in Germany right now, the photos and video clips I see online speak of unlimited joy and party! And, which is even better, business confidence is on its high since reunification. Without the World Cup we would also suffer terribly from the current political gloom and stress. I love football!
So. Now for the Italians... those clued in on my personal life can imagine that Tuesday next week will be a fun day - if only I was in London!!
And yes, I got the below from him :)
26 June 2006
about to...
...leave for Bucaramanga, to prepare final things for PM-NATS which will start at the end of this week in San Gil...
Finally starting the travels!
Finally starting the travels!
22 June 2006
21 June 2006
all over... again
This is how it looked in Switzerland last year...
...and this is the Colombian version:
...and this is the Colombian version:
15 June 2006
planned
yes... indeed. Planned our hearts out.
In love with using the balanced score card of @Colombia, gives me the structure I was craving last year. Impressive how aligned it is with the @2010 BSC, the coming year will be seamless.
Term 0607 here we come!
In love with using the balanced score card of @Colombia, gives me the structure I was craving last year. Impressive how aligned it is with the @2010 BSC, the coming year will be seamless.
Term 0607 here we come!
10 June 2006
that day
It started normal: cereal and watermelon, coffee. Walk to the office, emails - check. Transition session: Trip around the Local Committees (LCs) part II. Lots and lots of focus on the development of our LCs this year, identified trends and particularities.
Lunch and some football of course.
Then - trip to La Presidencia. Meeting with Luis Alfonso Hoyos Aristizábal, who is the right hand of the President when it comes to Acción Social, the social programs run by the Colombian government. The plan was ready: Juli was to present AIESEC in Colombia, I was then to explain Explora , then the Project Based on Exchange (PBoX) "Alcance Social" with which AIESEC in Colombia wants to support NGOs involved in work with "desplazados" - people who had to leave their homes because of the internal conflict of Colombia. The goal: get feedback on our proposal, gain Acción Social as institutional supporter, link to NGOs with relevant high quality programs, to find specialists to participate in online and physical learning circles, and a project mentor.
Well, so far the plan.
It turned out that Señor Alfonso Hoyos thinks at 3'000 km/h, loved the project, picked up his phone and got us a quick chat with Diego Andrés Molano Aponte, ex-MCP of AIESEC in Colombia, ex-AIESEC International in the 1990s, who is the "Director of Presidential Projects" (in other words he has all social projects under him). Leandro (the National PBoX Manager of "Alcance Social") and I will meet with him properly again this week, and he asked us to prepare a proposal to support the project as partner over and above mentoring the project and giving advice! Needless to say that Juliana and I left the Presidencia with a big grin across our faces.
But the afternoon had only started! We set out to meet the rest of the two MC teams in the spot where Bogotá was founded, in the Candelaria. Besides an open space that was used for public gatherings back in the day and has colonial looks, there is also a cozy old café. We got a space to sit in the attic, right under the slanting roof, on the floor with cushions and candles and were served hot chocolate with cheese. Yes, you drop entire slices of cheese in the sweet chocolate, wait until it is melted, and then enjoy... It was to be an incredibly motivating and moving afternoon up there in the semi-darkness, with the Member Committee 2005-06 sharing what they have learned, what the year driving AIESEC in Colombia means to them as individuals. Team 2006-07 even received symbolic presents: something the "salientes" wished they had had at the beginning of the year, and something to symbolise what they see in us that will help us in our year. In the first round Juliana gave me a bracelet in Colombian national colours (bienvenida!) and for the second round I got a pack of traditional Bocadillos - incredibly sweeeeeeeeet blocks made from fruit and sugar - to symbolise my way with people...
We then sat around, in campfire mood, sharing stories from our elections in January, which I was only living from afar in Catto up in the Alpes of Ticino (while selecting my own successor for the Swiss team...)
The magic cannot be recreated, the motivation that permeated that attic, the emotion of both teams.
Thank you Vivi, Juli, Davo, Martis, Juraj, Paulis and Caro, I am proud to take over from you.
Ivancho, Jenn, Pipe, Juank, Sergio, Aleja... we are the Dream Team!
Lunch and some football of course.
Then - trip to La Presidencia. Meeting with Luis Alfonso Hoyos Aristizábal, who is the right hand of the President when it comes to Acción Social, the social programs run by the Colombian government. The plan was ready: Juli was to present AIESEC in Colombia, I was then to explain Explora , then the Project Based on Exchange (PBoX) "Alcance Social" with which AIESEC in Colombia wants to support NGOs involved in work with "desplazados" - people who had to leave their homes because of the internal conflict of Colombia. The goal: get feedback on our proposal, gain Acción Social as institutional supporter, link to NGOs with relevant high quality programs, to find specialists to participate in online and physical learning circles, and a project mentor.
Well, so far the plan.
It turned out that Señor Alfonso Hoyos thinks at 3'000 km/h, loved the project, picked up his phone and got us a quick chat with Diego Andrés Molano Aponte, ex-MCP of AIESEC in Colombia, ex-AIESEC International in the 1990s, who is the "Director of Presidential Projects" (in other words he has all social projects under him). Leandro (the National PBoX Manager of "Alcance Social") and I will meet with him properly again this week, and he asked us to prepare a proposal to support the project as partner over and above mentoring the project and giving advice! Needless to say that Juliana and I left the Presidencia with a big grin across our faces.
But the afternoon had only started! We set out to meet the rest of the two MC teams in the spot where Bogotá was founded, in the Candelaria. Besides an open space that was used for public gatherings back in the day and has colonial looks, there is also a cozy old café. We got a space to sit in the attic, right under the slanting roof, on the floor with cushions and candles and were served hot chocolate with cheese. Yes, you drop entire slices of cheese in the sweet chocolate, wait until it is melted, and then enjoy... It was to be an incredibly motivating and moving afternoon up there in the semi-darkness, with the Member Committee 2005-06 sharing what they have learned, what the year driving AIESEC in Colombia means to them as individuals. Team 2006-07 even received symbolic presents: something the "salientes" wished they had had at the beginning of the year, and something to symbolise what they see in us that will help us in our year. In the first round Juliana gave me a bracelet in Colombian national colours (bienvenida!) and for the second round I got a pack of traditional Bocadillos - incredibly sweeeeeeeeet blocks made from fruit and sugar - to symbolise my way with people...
We then sat around, in campfire mood, sharing stories from our elections in January, which I was only living from afar in Catto up in the Alpes of Ticino (while selecting my own successor for the Swiss team...)
The magic cannot be recreated, the motivation that permeated that attic, the emotion of both teams.
Thank you Vivi, Juli, Davo, Martis, Juraj, Paulis and Caro, I am proud to take over from you.
Ivancho, Jenn, Pipe, Juank, Sergio, Aleja... we are the Dream Team!
09 June 2006
06 June 2006
for nomads
"How can" - she tried to stop, but the words burst involuntarily, in helpless indignant protest, whether against him, fate or the outer world, she could not tell - "how can she live through eleven months [of your absence] of thinking that you, at any moment, might be...?" She did not finish.
He was smiling, but he saw the enormous solemnity of that which he and his wife had needed to earn their right to this kind of smile. "She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it - and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life."
Excerpt of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand (p.696), an interesting book, which is currently challenging many believes I hold, and which reconfirms many others.
He was smiling, but he saw the enormous solemnity of that which he and his wife had needed to earn their right to this kind of smile. "She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it - and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life."
Excerpt of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand (p.696), an interesting book, which is currently challenging many believes I hold, and which reconfirms many others.
rain
Leaving the office I walk swiftly, just wished the guard at the door of the university entrance good night. Evening classes seem to have a break - students are standing everywhere, chatting, watching TV in the cafeteria.
An all too familiar sound on my blue umbrella: rain drops, slow, fat, lazy, like during those summer nights when my sister and I camped in the garden and a storm refreshed the same and tested our tent. I shiver slightly, and walk on, jumping over a puddle, crossing side streets, dodging taxis and buses whose drivers seem to have forgotten that their vehicles are (probably) equipped with indicators.
I feel like I am the opposite of those drops, there is nothing slow left in me, if there ever was.
An all too familiar sound on my blue umbrella: rain drops, slow, fat, lazy, like during those summer nights when my sister and I camped in the garden and a storm refreshed the same and tested our tent. I shiver slightly, and walk on, jumping over a puddle, crossing side streets, dodging taxis and buses whose drivers seem to have forgotten that their vehicles are (probably) equipped with indicators.
I feel like I am the opposite of those drops, there is nothing slow left in me, if there ever was.
03 June 2006
ahhhh, food!
breakfast:
arepa
(well I just grill it on the stove at home, some butter and salt on top...)
With it a glass of fresh orange juice and some fruit... mango, papaya, pineapple, or my favourite:
Granadilla
lunch:
normally at the university, arroz con arroz y arroz, but yesterday I had marvellous
sancocho
made with fish... bending morals is allowed...
dinner:
random... if I am in the mood I cook something with the spices Dhruv's mother brought with her to Switzerland last christmas... or with the tasty oils and pastes from China Town, London (ehem, yes, my suitcase was full of things to cook with...)
arepa
(well I just grill it on the stove at home, some butter and salt on top...)
With it a glass of fresh orange juice and some fruit... mango, papaya, pineapple, or my favourite:
Granadilla
lunch:
normally at the university, arroz con arroz y arroz, but yesterday I had marvellous
sancocho
made with fish... bending morals is allowed...
dinner:
random... if I am in the mood I cook something with the spices Dhruv's mother brought with her to Switzerland last christmas... or with the tasty oils and pastes from China Town, London (ehem, yes, my suitcase was full of things to cook with...)
