Four Years

September 18^th I left Arequipa, Peru for my adventure in Europe, I got elected MCVP in AIESEC Macedonia for the term 2007-2008.

September 19^th I arrived to a beautiful country called Macedonia for an original idea of spending 8 months and then returning home, 4 years later I’m writing from Germany somehow celebrating, my 4^th year in the old continent, my 4^th year away from my family.

Looking backwards they were 4 amazing years that brought me many learning experiences in every aspect of my professional, personal and spiritual life.

I learned to say I LOVE YOU to a very special person who shared 3 years of her life with me but, sadly and painfully, life showed me to say GOOD BYE to her (the hardest thing I did in my life). But again, looking backwards, those were good years, she was the best thing that happened to my life until now, and to her I’ll be eternally grateful.

I discovered that you can never be granted of having everything ensured such like job, money, relationship, health, friends, etc. A good friend passed away in 2010, but leaving me the most inspirational message that I could have ever imagined. Figuratively speaking he gave me a slap in my face for a wake-up call, since then I can really notice I’m different for good.

I learned to deal with my fears and solve every complicated situation face to face. This one was very hard to deal with because I rather avoid things than face them. 2011 was the year where I faced many challenges in the professional and, specially, personal side.

I’m connecting the dots and almost everything makes sense, every decision I made or every situation the destiny drop me let me to something really good; there is only one thing that I still can’t understand and trying to find out the sense of it, I believe this means there is still a string waiting to be connected to that dot, we will see, life is life and my lead performance in the play is still waiting for me.

4 years in Europe, don’t know how many more, I just know there is still time.

Just for closing this post, THANK YOU to all of you who shared your life with me in this past 4 years; It was an almost __________ experience :) (if you know me a bit, you might be able to complete the blank space :P )

With love and respect,

Yoelinho
Bonn, Germany

4. Following my heart: When giving is more than receiving

My best friend studied Business Administration; he got a specialization in Economics; and like him most of my closer friends. During those years in the university I’ve been involved in several conversations about business, profit, investments, etc, jumping from micro to macroeconomics concepts, and even planning our own consulting company. However my mind was in the other side of the coin.

Started volunteering five years ago, and by then of course I was the “black sheep” of my group of friends, having out of the box opinions about working without salary or spending my time, for them, in “useless things”. During those years their opinions did not change and neither mine, in fact I can say those friends gave me the strength to continue and for that I’m very grateful to them.

Why my opinion didn’t change? — Is a question that was present in my friend’s minds. Young students are energetic, looking for a passion to follow, and mostly they want to change the world. And that is what keeps me going. Doing volunteering I found the opportunity to do something I believed, and I still do, that can create an impact which can not only change my life, but also can provide positive change in others. And this is what made the difference.

Years have passed and I found my self in another country, leaving, learning and enjoying in a different culture, far different than mine; but at this point those two year’s investment of my life in Macedonia brought me the best and most exciting experience I had until now. However two years seem to be too short for making bigger changes, there is still too much to do in this country and too much opportunity that are not been used properly, specially now and in the coming years under the context of the EU integration.

Is needed to find young volunteers to continue the work done in Macedonia, and to spread the impact that can be done, for that objective we need to attract and retain the right people into our organizations. From my specific experience in the past years working with university and high school students I can mention the following learning points.

- The presence of the international young specialists brings a whole new dimension to the projects. The teams are formed by young people from different nationalities and allow learning from other countries’ experiences and initiatives around the topic we are interested to approach.

- Providing the opportunity to put the theory into practice brings the motivation to young individuals to prove themselves what they have learned and what is left to learn, which also provides the motivation to continue supporting as volunteers for the future.

- Programs for young people should be also be run and by young people. The involvement of young individuals provides the trust and energy to the project to be executed from the beginning to the end, which is reflected by the learning of the team members and results of the project.

Over everything we have to be aware that volunteers are the most powerful energy that can create meaningful impact in the society. With a clear vision and common understanding of what we want to create, support or change, they will be able to do it. I can openly share this because I started as volunteer in AIESEC and it changed my life bringing me the most beautiful experience I've ever had.

Thank you AIESEC.

My first Month in Macedonia :) (1st part)

My first perspective…

Almost two months ago I made an important decision… I decide to apply for an international leadership position after my term as MCP, the country where I applied was The Republic of Macedonia.

Currently, on my first month living in Skopje, I want to share my first impression of the country, the MC, and me itself as AIESECer working as MC abroad.
Lest start with the cultural shock… is one the things I’m dealing all the time, ok, let’s see behind… I’m coming from a Latin culture, Spanish speaking; a guy who loves salsa, merengue, cumbia, and almost all rhythms in South and Central America, and now in Central Europe with people who loves electronic music… is funny! I fact last weekend I went a to open public concert of drums and bass… once I heard something about that, but now I experienced… hahaha, I really wanted to have my camera and capture everything I saw and send it to my friend in Peru, hehe, they surely would enjoy that.



The other thing is the Language, hehehe, Spanish Speaking guy, who also speaks a little bit of English, trying to communicate in a country where most people just speaks Macedonian and other little bit of English as well, hahhaha, the first week was nice, curious and sometimes poetic, hehehe, both cultures trying to communicate with words, physical expressions and draws…

The food… well, I have no complaints related to this very important and sometimes crucial point in my life, hehe, as any trainee, ceeder, or visitor in other country, the aiesecer wants to share the best restaurants, bars, fast foods and other food stores and corners around the city, which is just perfect, in matters of this point, I’m starting to love Macedonia… the food is similar than the Latin food in several aspects.

The night life, also, I had the chance to been in different welcome, goodbye and birthday parties and also concerts; meanwhile I used to go parties, drink with friends and dance almost all the time, the difference is the music, electronic instead of salsa, vodka instead of pisco, … but now, this is what I really love the most… the girls, :):):):):):) sometimes I thing I’m in the paradise, hahahaha, they are just beautiful… I’m in love again, but ok, I have to admit, the latin girls have something special that I really miss, but I’ll spend one year here, so I need to use to my new way of life :)

... to be continued...

Harder than… buy tickets in Egypt!!!!

We went by metro to bus and train main station in el Cairo, the first shock was that when people wants to get out/in from the train people don’t wait for you, they just trying to do both things at the same time, that’s why we miss our first stop, hopefully we could take a train back without problems.

In the Train Station, only ask for information is very difficult, as I mencionate before, few people speaks English, well… we trying to get a ticket to Aswan (there are 13 hours by train) and spend the night in the train, we try to get the train for 00:30… we wanted to go in second class (50 LE) so is ok, almost 10 USD, however the guy who sales the ticket just didn’t want to sell any ticket just becouse other guy say something about him, so we were waiting almos 2 hours!!! Is weird, noone complains, not even when the ticket’s guy was smoking, resting, drinking coffee, and chilling out with others!!!... We were piss off and we decided to take first class ticket or any ticket…. but no free space there. L

It was almost midnight and we meet a guy who was trying to sells us a Tour to Luxor for 5 days, it sound cool, it was almost all covered (even cheaper than the IPM Study Tour)… the problem was that we haven’t enough money at the moment, we were specting have a bagpacker trip, but in a tour is different, you need to be prepared and travel more confortable… at the end we decide to not take de tour (just a hunch), and went back to Piero’s apartment… but the metro was closed…. About the prize… not even close of the real prize!!! But that history is for other post…

Going back home! Is totally an ISSUE. After, today I learn a lot of tips! As few people speaks or have a basic level of English in Egypt, is always necessary to have any main information translated in Arabic, for example… THE ADRESS!!!! And the NUMBERS!!!! The cab driver didn’t speak English at all, so I write the spected cost in my hand… the driver took my pencil and write the prize…. When I saw how much was the travel…. I saw two weird icons, it was in ARABIC!!! But the driver was a smart guy, he took two billets and shows us, and we just say yes! Let’s get out from here!!!! (midnight, downtown, no English speaking country…)

The second thing was the Adress, the guy just lost! How difficul could be find a place calle El Maadi! …. We figure out, that place was four times bigger than San Juan de Lurigancho! Hahahahaha…. The funny thing is when the driver asked for direction to one guy in the street, the guy just only hop in and went with us, and thanks to him we finally get back home… so also write the address in native language…. Now we are in home, but we will travel the next day… hahahaha this adventure is amazing!!!!!! (Hope my parents were not reading this…. :P)

A HARD decision!!! ... Traveling in Egypt!!!

We had almost 5 days off after IPM, so we had to make an important decision, we have three main turistic places we need to go, but only 5 days is no enough to know all of them…. The three top destinations are…. Luxor and Aswan is called the world greatest open air museum… we have Karnak and Luxor, Nile River, Necropolis, Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, this destination takes 5 days!!! …. The second one is Alexandria, were we can find the ancient civilization of greats ships! Lend of Romans, Persians or Greeks on the amazing land of….. Alexander the Great! And the Pharos is one the Seven Wonders of the World!!!... The third option is go to Sinai… we are taking about the oldest and most famous natural monuments on earth (Biblically Speaking) the St. Catherine’s Monastery, was constructed in 527. It’s built around what is thought to be Moses’ Burning Bush, which has a chapel built atop it.

It was a hard decision to make, so…. And now starts the Victor & Yoel Adventures in Arabic Lands…..