Life for rent

Have you ever felt that all of a sudden a loads of random things around you just start making sense? Like if you saw the sky for the first time... You come to understand things you've never understood, or have never even cared about.

Well, I'm on this stage at the moment. I've just got lightened up about myself, and about the world around me. It's freaky, but a really good feeling. Freaky, because now I can consciously determine many many things, but good, because of the same point. And now I know what I want and how I want to reach there.

The MC office nowadays has changed so much. Juliet and Sly has been in Rwanda since last week, Phil is rarely in the office as well, he has been traveling from one side of the country to the other for LC transitions, but then the Dinner and Magazine OC teams are always there making some noise and entertaining us, as well as the MC elect... And now my desktop-slavery has ended, I'm also out of the office much times for different matters, especially for meetings.
Even my job has changed a lot. Instead of doing my job itself, I'm now doing only some supportive stuff, like matching (hehehe, my favourite part, and funny enough, during transition time I can do that!!!), and I'm coaching an mentoring Emma and Fiona, and sometimes Kaisha and Winnie as well. Then in addition to that we have a lovely NTT elect (National Trainers Team - Nash, Esther, Maureen and Renee) and an NST elect (National Support Team - Carol and Carol) and Quincy (MCVP X&Projects elect for South Africa) - who all need transition, so as to make sure am not getting bored :)

It hasn't hit me yet that I'm leaving in 4 weeks... It's rather like a vision only, that I'll board my flight and from my beloved Kenyan world it'll take me to a strange new Hungarian world. I'm saying world, coz I feel the two places being worlds apart. It is exciting and scary at the same time. I'm curious but my heart is breaking that I have to leave for now. Luckily I can say: "for now".

I realized something about the traffic lights on Kenyatta avenue: now that they have been there for like 2 months, people are kinda getting used to them. But they have been set wrongly, and that is messing up the traffic a lot! For instance there is one light, which is green for both cars and pedestrians at the same time...

Yesterday I had a really interesting and inspiring experience. I've just finished my lunch with Leah at Wasanii when an AIESEC Nairobi alumni (whom I've never seen before) joined us. We started talking, then he asked me which country I was from, and then we started joking that yeah am from Hungary but after 11 months I've become a Kenyan. Then he was telling us, that he had had his first exchange to Hungary, for 4 months! Then stories came up about getting on in the cold as an African, trying to cook ugali, and so on... Then after the Hungarian stories he told us about some other ones, about his internship in Nigeria and his life after. Apparently, he had met a Dutch guy there in Naija, who later went to Zimbabwe and wanted to start up a tourism business. So they went to the Netherlands to buy tracks, then to reduce the costs, they decided to run a rally from the Netherlands to Zimbabwe for some crazy tourists - so that basically the tourists would had brought the tracks to Zimbabwe, driving! Shockingly enough, the journey lasted for 7 months finally, with many crazy adventures...

Amazing what lives some people have been living.

Besides all this, something else is in the air as well... I'm not very sure yet how to describe it, I don't want to make the same mistake again and again that I'm getting into pink clouds and then in a few weeks I jump back to the "real world" - but it's good. I think I've found something, someone I've been always looking for :)

Random photo, still from Ghana... :)

We are one

A few photos from Ghana... not much tho, my internet connection is too slow for more, haha. Anyways, enjoy :)

7 days

17th April 2008


I'm sitting in the middle of a mess in my room, playing spider solitaire on the laptop and listening to Nigerian music... It is addictive, I swear, I cannot get enough! And what's worse, it makes me feel something is missing... Haha, that energy Nigerians have, I guess.

We've just got back from MC transition week today afternoon. We left on Friday last week, and found ourselves finally in Limuru, in a beautiful place in the middle of nowhere. It was the house of a member's grandmother - literally speaking in the middle of nowhere, I think the closest human activity was done at a tea plantation somewhere nearby...
The week itself was really fine. 10 of us (the current and the elect teams) got together, and besides (and during) the sessions we had so much fun. I remember, the first day we played "I have never ever" (again!!! argghhh), then next evening - with the help of some lovely alumni, Gathu, Martin and Alex - we managed to drink ourselves silly while playing "Non-stop nonsense". Man, that game is just too much fun! You are shooting stupid questions to each other, and answers and emotions on the face are not allowed.
Just some small note about the sessions: I realized again, how much I love Juliet's sessions about financial management, ang anything around finances - she is the one person on Earth that has been able to make me excited and interested about financial management!
Then yesterday night we went into long-term national planning - heated debates and crazy counting, Phil was just laughing at us. I have never had such a serious calculation session before setting goals for growth in terms of Exchange numbers and so on :)

It was such a strange feeling btw... I was watching the new team, bonding, getting to know each other, getting in their new roles pole pole - I'm really proud of them, I love them thiiiiiiis much, and at the same time I'm scared to leave, I would be more than happy to do another term here, and I'm super curious of what they are going to achieve. They are such a cool team, put together very well (haha, proudly selection panel member :)), and I know already, they'll be much better than we've been.
High level of energy, professionalism, amazing ideas, action-orientation... I'm just happy that we have a team like that taking over from us. I'm not afraid to leave AIESEC Kenya in their hands. And watching them growing up in front of our eyes, just makes me even more proud of them every day.

Haha, and I have shocked those people so much :) They were teasing me all along, that I have been here since when and I don't speak Swahili, and how bad that is. So all of a sudden I started to use Swahili words and sentences, asking and answering in Swa, they were so jazzed :) I couldn't stop laughing - though I surprised even myself how much I have picked up.

And at the same time I have been thinking about the future so much - how will my next term look like? With my new team? It's so weird btw, I still can't believe I'm going back to Hungary for another MC term... But it's funny, and it's challenging.

Oh, btw, some good news have reached us during the transition week: Rahab is getting matched to Pakistan, Juliet has been short-listed for an internship in Brasil, and Beryl has got selected for MC in Tanzania! I'm so happy for them all.

I feel being enriched by all that have been happening with me since I applied for AIESEC Kenya, I have got so much. We had a session called "Lay your cards on the table" and we gave feedback to each other with my current team. I have grown up - that was the main conclusion... And then today while driving back to Nairobi, then going home from town, and my small walk to Uchumi made me feel again how much I love this country. I have no doubt anymore: I will come back to live here. And last week I have just found my Dream Job at Wylde International, and Joram told me he really wants me to work there once I finish my AIESEC career, so it's basically a deal... :)
Last week I found some letters, notes and other documents from the time I arrived to Kenya. Haha, amazing how things are changing in such a short time.

I don't have internet again at home, hell knows why, but it's so annoying. I wanted to start checking my hundreds of unread emails at least, and do some other work, but it is impossible this way now. Argh, tomorrow morning it'll be an early wake-up. But at least am in Nairobi - the original plan was to go to Eldoret tonight and get back by Sunday, all this with Leah, for visiting LC Moi. Finally it seems I'm going there next week for a few days, together with Quincy hopefully (I don't want to go alone, 7 hours on the bus is boring).

Oh, photos are being uploaded to http://mailtovvik.spaces.live.com continuously. The ones from NLDS 2008 Tanzania, from February are already there, as soon as I have some faster internet connection, I'll upload some from Ghana and from this last week as well.

Savin me

5th April 2008

The 3 months rule so much working with me... I'm sitting in my room, counting my days, weeks and months. It's been 10 months I'm in Kenya, and only 7 more weeks are ahead. I can't believe, it's been passing so fast. I don't know how to handle this, I don't know where to put this feeling.
And meanwhile I'm just right in my regular quarterly " the world turning upside down with me" reflection period, after an unbelievable experience I've just had in Ghana, in confusions again with myself and with the whole world around.

Questions are running through my head, new and unknown feelings are shouting out loud from my heart, though my mind keeps telling me: focus. I still have work to do, people to coach and mentor, I have my successors to prepare for their upcoming roles, and I have a new role to learn and prepare for. Focus.

In the past few days I have been feeling I have failed. I have failed to fulfill my role here in Kenya, as a leader, when talking about our success factors. I haven't reached half of my goals, and I don't know right now what legacy I am leaving here. But then a question is popping up: what is success?Is that success if I reach the numeric goals we have set? Is that success if all processes and systems which I am supposed to manage in the organization are working in a smooth and healthy way? Or is success somewhere beyond this?

Am I an achiever? Am I becoming a better person? And is being an achiever helping me becoming a better person? What is MY ultimate measure of success?

What makes me get up each day in the mornings? Is it the responsibility I have? Is it called passion? Is it an ambition? Is it a hope about what each new day brings to me? Or is it just a habit? Am I getting up each morning cos I have to or cos I want to?

Yesterday during a long discussion I had with a friend, I realized something which I had known before, but just hit me now: there are some things in life, which you need to accept the way they are. It is just as simple as the sun is going down every night and gets up again in the morning. It seems so obvious but then something in the back of your mind tells you: "I wish..."

The way of life we choose always comes with things we loose - just because we have chosen this way. And that is the point I am at right now: I am making choices every day, I have made some choices about my life on the longer run... And then at the back of my mind someone keeps asking me: is that what you really want? Won't you miss this or that? "I wish..."

My way of life could be described basically with being in constant change in all sense of life. Places I live at, the food I eat, the work I do, people I know... This is what I have chosen. And when I'm getting into something new, am extremely excited and happy, I feel I really need those changes over and over again. The confusion comes usually when that voice is telling me: "Are you happy with being always on the way? I wish I could settle down for a little longer. I wish I could stay with the people I've just gotta know and love. I wish I could live in certainity instead of taking those risks every day."

Am I strong enough to take all this? Which is the bigger risk for ME: living in uncertainity and saying hello and goodbye all the time or getting stuck in one place? How can I handle all the heartburn when I have to leave again and again? What are my strengths and how can I use them to survive and be happy?

Well. An AHA experience is hitting me again. During the past few years I have always been thinking about my strengths as features that will help me succeed in my work. I think I have gained a new perspective now: my strengths are ultimately making me succeed and be happy in LIFE and work is just one part of it. Seems so obvious I know. But I have never tried to think this way before. I have never tried to link my strengths with the way of life I have chosen.
Wait a second ... I'm just checking my personality analysis, it says about me:

• Lack of systematic approach
• Fast decision making
• Fast in the volume of work
• Flexibility in terms of planning and organizing
• Need for change and variety
• High need for freedom and independence
• Low conventionality
• Low control
• Superhigh adaptability
• Naiv
• Questions status quo
• Ready to live and let others live
• Easily networking and making new relationships
  

Ok, I've got it. No rules, no getting-used-to, no traditions, no conventions. Belief in people. Fast-pace life. Adaptability and flexibility.

I think I'm prepared for the next few years of being on the move...

Dreams

30th March 2008

7pm Sunday, on my way back from Ho to Accra, in Ghana. My body is exhausted, my mind is inspired, energised, and is full of thoughts and reflection. I have only 20 minutes battery so I have to be really quick this time.

Never be the same again... I thought I have got used to this feeling - post-conference syndrome and the world turning upside down with me. Well, I'm getting to realize it is not something you can get used to. Sometimes the experience you go through is so powerful that it blows you off totally, you don't feel standing on your feet anymore.

Some magic is happening - whenever I feel I'm on the top of the world and it cannot be any better, and I reach a point when I learn to integrate the experience in myself, I get to new heights.

10 minutes remaining... it's very hard to put my thoughts into words right now. The conference is over, and I have very mixed feelings. I wish it lasted for at least 2 more weeks, or more. At the same time, I know it has to happen like this. This is how the world goes round and round, and learn how to make everyday just as powerful as this conference has been.

One more thing before my battery says goodnight - I will take Africa to the next level. I am a part of this continent now and it is my responsibility as well to make it grow. It doesn't matter anymore at which part of the world I will be from now on.


4th April 2008

Back in Nairobi... it's cold here. We landed at JKIA yesterday early morning, then got home by 9am, I was sleeping till late afternoon. I still have a strange jetlag, today morning at 10am I felt like 7am, and at noon I would tell you it was 9am... Ghana is in GMT, Nairobi is in GMT+3, haha.
I can't believe am back again... A dream has come true in the past 2 weeks. I have been part of something amazing.

I don't even know where to start.

We left on Thursday morning with Phil and Alexa from Nairobi. I almost missed the flight, due to a funny chain of events: Steve had promised to lend me his camera, but he was late, then I met Kent, he told me to wait and he'd call a cab, the cab was also late... Then I got to the airport by 10am (the flight was at 11.10) but then I had to queue to check in, then I was running to the gate, but I still had to change money cos I only had ksh with me and that is not used at all in Ghana... mammamia, Phil was looking at me like I was mad or something.

When we landed in Accra in the early afternoon, I felt like when I landed in Istanbul in last August... Extreme happy to finally being able to make it.

Let me tell first about Ghana. When we arrived, the first impression we had was how cool it is that Accra can keep its national identity, its culture, while becoming a modern capital. The country celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence from the UK, being the first country in Africa gaining independence from colonization. To add on the celebrations, Ghana was organizing the football Africa Cup at the beginning of this year, the excitement around this event is still tengible in the city. Africans love soccer. But they do it from their hearts, it's so lovely.

Accra, btw, is on the coast of the Atlantic ocean - fish, of course, is a very important product in the city. I was amazed - you can even buy fish from your car, from the hoakers on the road. And very nice ones! Btw, hoakers and road... in Accra you can buy virtually speaking everything on the roads - boiled eggs, fried bananas, many many different gadgets (starting from sunglasses, but even nice small chairs for kids), water, everything. If you want to have a meal, you don't even have to get off your car.
The business district of Accra is really developed and modern, with nice roads and beautiful buildings. Though outside of the business area, the city becomes a rural town... the number of built roads is quite few, the traffic jam is a constant thing, and as much as the city seems to be well-organized and planned in the modern parts, it seems to be rather messy everywhere else.
But it's really lovely. Palm trees everywhere, just like in Tanzania and Mombasa, but the buildings are redish, and even the roads are somehow having a redish colour. And it's hot there, around 32 degrees daytime, and 28 degrees at night. I really enjoyed it.

The staple food is rice and chicken or fish. Instead of potato, they eat yams. I was laughing when I first saw the fried yams, but it's really good. And the fish, mmmmmmhhhh, I'm lovin it :) Though the regular chilly sauce makes it harder for an East African or an Eastern European, but I still have to say, their food is good.
My most impressive experience about food was the Ghanaian way of "take-aways" - if it's a breakfast, the egg is cooked on the streets at a small stand, put in between two pieces of bread, and you can even get some coffee in a plastic bag. If it's about a lunch or supper, you can get the rice, the chicken or anything else, also in a plastic bag, and you even get a plastic spoon to make your job easier :) I had fun time eating this way, I think i'll miss it a lot.

My other fave is the water in plastic bags - just like the 0.5 liter milk anywhere else. You can get it in different brands, I'd like to highlight one: "Heaven is Real - pure drinking water"



We spent 3-3 days in Accra before and after the conference, experiencing the daily life of the city, especially in terms of eating and drinking habits, wowowoooo :)

Now about AfroXLDS 08...

The best conference I have ever had, honestly. My toplist of 5 now is the following: AfroXLDS 08, ITC 06, NLDS Tanzania 08, IC 07 and SNP Hungary 05... Some old AIESECers know what I am talking about :)

My fellow facis were: Aditi (India), Alexa (Tanzania), Anisha (AIESEC International/Malaysia), Mary Anna (Ghana), JC (AIESEC International/Norway), Phil (Kenya), Kole (Nigeria), Niyi (Nigeria) and Vincent (Belgium). 5 girls and 5 boys, 5 Africans and 5 non-Africans... a balanced and happy team, with all the madness and fun life has ever given to a groups of people. I love all of them so much. During the 2 weeks spent together we have become brothers and sisters, friends, team mates, collegues - we have become the inspiration and madness for each other... It may sound strange, but I have found soulmates amongst them, and friends for a lifetime.

The bonding we had was just amazing - the first night in Accra, looking for a food place at 11pm, then drinking beer at around midnight or even later... the get-to-know game we had (introducing each other) and the "I have never ever" night with loads of Calypso (nice coconut drink from Naija) and laughing... the conference opening day with the endless story and Anisha's talkshow... Chicky Pepsi... the night stalk madness... Father father... the faci-room allocation (my beloved roomie gotta be Niyi, haha :)) ...

It's still very hard to put everything, especially my feelings in simple words. Thanks for all of you, my beloved faci team!!!!

In addition to all this, even the delegates were just amazing. Mostly West Africans though, with some "Kenyan spice" - 4 Kenyan girls were making it more interesting, besides the 120 West Africans. The proactivity and passion all these guys had was extremely inspiring.


woooooow. I feel now that I could talk about the whole experience throughout many many pages... I'm full of energy and inspiration right now. I feel I can start changing the world, and I'm not alone for that. I got to know again many many wonderful people, with some of who I know we're still crossing each others' roads in life again and again.

It's strange being back in Kenya, in the MC office, and getting back to my daily work and life. But I'm not even trying to get back to my "normal" life this time - I've learnt something very important:

"There is a time to wake up and face reality. Once you wake up, you have 3 choices:
1. Go back to sleep and keep on dreaming.
2. Get up and life your life as usual.
3. Get up and realise your dreams."