Self-evaluation

In the past few weeks, I have been working on evaluating myself in different areas (work, personality, personal, etc). Analyzing oneself is really impressive, it is like watching those old pictures from your box, and thinking on how do you want to drive yourself for the future. It is maybe a lot about regreting, but not as much as enjoying the good moments.

I just wanted to write below a couple of thoughts that I came out with when doing some self-evaluation in regards to some competencies fostered by AIESEC. First you will find the definition of the competency, then an explanation on how I feel I have developed it in myself. The point is: we evolve, we must do so. What do you think?

Empathy -The ability to identify with and understand another person's feelings or difficulties
Due to my personality, in the past it was quite difficult for me to fully understand the state of mind and emotions of others. However, I did my best for feeling more connected with people and I am glad to see how much I learned from human nature... and from me!

Adaptability - To be able to adjust easily to changes and new conditions
I consider myself very flexible in regards to general conditions, particularly since I have been passing through my @ XP in very different environments (Germany-Cameroon-Peru-Egypt). However, this is also related to self confidence, since I think that everything is easier to handle and adapt, as far as we know what we want.

Self Confidence: confidence in oneself and ones own abilities. Managing and continually improving one's own performance
As said before, this is related to my adaptability for change, and this through the different environments I have been working in. The more environments I have experienced, the less difference I find within people's feelings and capabilities. Therefore, performance is an inner thing, rather than a consequence of the current facilities.

Negotiation: Working with others in order to reach an agreement. A successful negotiation is one where all parties are satisfied with the agreement
I do believe on a win-win negotiation, but it was not so easy to convince the others that I was following this. Therefore, negotiation competencies must come together with social inclusiveness, so people in our circle can understand our main objectives and agree on the common welfare.

Self Awareness - Having a balanced and honest view of your own personality, and often an ability to interact with others frankly and confidently
Again, my experience in different environments have enhanced this competency on me. Particularly, I have noticed that I can be better on individual discussions rather than energizing a big amount of people at the same time. This is linked more to my personality as well.

Communication - Clearly conveying and receiving messages to meet the needs of all
For example, I tend to take 'a bit more' on writing an email, since I a want to make sure that the message is clear and written in a simple way. I have also proven to myself that better lay-outs and visuals also increase the capacity for transmitting the message, and that's something I also want to learn more (through stronger IT skills for example).

Innovation and Creativity - Taking risks, adapting quickly to change, leading the change process Innovation is the creation of new solutions for current challenges or a new approach to an old situation
Yes, I do take risks, but I aim to get feedback from parties involved, when possible. In order to feel confident about taking those actions, I also aim to get a good level of understanding of the situation, therefore I like to discover effective ways of gathering information. I learned a lot to manage knowledge!

Aprendiendo a hablar

De manera cotidiana vengo todas las manhanas a la biblioteca publica de Damieta, para trabajar en las labores administrativas y de disenho del proyecto de turismo en esta ciudad. Pero algo mas, esta biblioteca se ha convertido en mi nuevo centro del saber.

Copada de cientos de volumenes, dozenas de empleados y gente ocupando las computadoras, fue dificil pasar desapercibido al comienzo. Y claro, una de las principales razones era mi increible nivel de Arabe que se asemeja al de un ninho de 7 anhos. Frases tan complejas como 'quiero 1 hora de internet', 'como estas sadiki (amigo)', 'aqui esta mi carnet', etc, despiertan el interes de la gente. Y mi timidez tiene que quedarse de lado para responder al flujo de preguntas inquisidoras.

Durante algunas tardes, regreso a la biblioteca para recoger algunos libros que leer antes de dormir. Mi objetivo es bien claro "Seccion Ninhos"... me siento y mi mundo se convierte en imagenes de animales, plantas y oficios, todos plasmados en libros coloridos y con muchos dibujos. Para asi aprender las palabras nuevas que me permitiran algun dia coger los libros de filosofia e Islamismo ubicados un piso mas arriba. Algunos otros ninhos se sientan a mi costado, y de vez en cuando me quieren ofrecer sus crayolas para ayudarlos.

Estoy pasando por un ejemplo claro de 'educacion continua'.

A highlight about my current home Ras El Bar

Thanks Abdo for the great job!

Una conversacion a orillas del Nilo

Al final del dia regresaba pasivamente a casa, luego de haber comprado algunos viveres (verdura para los desayunos, dulces y una riquisima botella de agua helada), pero antes de pisar la casa, decide darme un pequenho paseo por el Cornige ('Cornich', calle principal colindante al Nilo). El ambiente era muy agradable: gente caminando por todas partes, algunos sentados en las bancas, todos mirando al Nilo, como esperando que nos diga algo.

En medio de la caminata encontre a un senhor de tercera edad sentado pasivamente en una de las bancas de madera. Se le veia muy tranquilo observando al rio, como si estuviera ensimismado en sus pensamientos (o recuerdos?).

Decidi tomar la pequenha aventura y me acerque a el:

- Perdon, tal vez…?
* Claro! Sientate! (dejandome la mitad de la banca libre)
- Gracias… que tal?
* Bien, gracias a Dios
- …

- … la ciudad al otro lado del Nilo, tambien es Damieta?
* Por supuesto! Si tomas esa calle, te llevara a Damieta nueva, y mas al norte a Ras El Bar, conoces?
- Si, si conozco.
* Meshi ('esta bien'), Damieta es grande, la ciudad se abre por todas partes
- (yo pensando: pero solo tiene 500 000 habitantes jeje)
* Y manhana seguiran renovando la ciudad, van a mover el Puente metalico al lado de la biblioteca.
- Ah! Es por la visita de alguien importante, no?
* Bueno, si, el primer ministro…
- Entonces va a haber una gran fiesta
* Jaja, si, por que no?
- Usted es de Damieta?
* Si, si, soy de aca
- Y su familia?
* Mi familia vive aca, todos vivimos juntos en Damieta, mi casa esta al norte de la ciudad, cerca a la mezquite, la ves? Por ahi vivo, si, yo voy siempre a esa mezquita para los rezos, la ves?
- Que bien… si, si la conozco, por ahi hay un mercado grande
* Y tu? De donde eres…?
- Soy del Peru
* (?)
- America Latina, Sudamerica…
* Ahhh! En Sudamerica se juega buen futbol! Si, Brasil, Peru, Argentina…
- Exacto (yo pensando: aunque yo no veo el futbol, pero bueno…)
* Bienvenido!
- Gracias
* Bienvenido, bienvenido! Que haces en Damieta?
- Trabajo en una organizacion que da educacion a los jovenes de por aca… (por ahora dificil de aprenderme una frase mas inteligente en Arabe)
* Que bueno, que bueno…
- …

- … bueno, estoy un poco cansado, me voy a casa…
* Meshi, la paz sea contigo!
- La paz contigo tambien…

Y asi se cerro uno de tantos dias rutinarios en Damieta, cerca al Nilo, cerca de la gente... mas cerca a mi...

My new job: Branding Ras El Bar

As a matter of fact, I could say that I luckily found a job in Egypt (for the next 3 months) around the topic that passionates me the most: responsible tourism.

And I can really feel being lucky, because it was unexpected for me that a new initiative directed by AIESEC in the city of Damietta would run this. Maybe currently the single tourism project in the whole AIESEC MENA region. So I decided to take this chance (as H4TF for the people that know the @ terminology) and jumped to the north of the country, in the last resort close to the Mediterranean Sea, in the town where one of the Nile's arm meets the sea...

The town 'Ras El Bar' is located in a very interesting geographical location, it is a small peninsula where the 'Damietta Nile' has its last path before flowing in the sea. Thus, when being there, you have the impression of being surrounded by water. On the right you meet the Nile, on the left the Sea... no more than 500 mts to reach each of them when located in the center of the town. When going to the point where these 2 Gods meet, there is a light turm that invites people to dream about what to find on the other side of the Sea.

Ras El Bar is a well known typical summer resort for Egyptians, and not for foreigners that may hear more about the big beach resorts on the Red Sea. Thus, I am once again so glad to be able to be in close contact with locals, to enjoy local daily life, to speak with them, to hear their weird impressions about Peru (most guys may know about it just because of football) and once in a while, young business men asking me to speak about what type of commerce to run between our countries.

As said, the town is very local designed, and so are the houses... beautiful small colorful buildings (no more than 4 floors, and this is by law in order to keep the harmony of the place), a couple of small chaotic markets, loads of people jumping to the beach, complete families coming in caravans to spend some weeks away from Cairo, and of course lot of fish for lunch. One of the couple of things that I don't like though is that most of the places become extremely dirty at the end of the day. The level of awareness for keeping the town in a good state (clean, organized) is very low, especially you can see lots of cans and bags all over the place (this is one of the main reasons why I condemn this new era of industrial food) ... most of the visitors belong to the medium-low economic class, but should this be an excuse?

What am I doing there for God's sake?

As part of the tourism initiative, the people there have decided to improve the image of Ras El Bar, through for example better information (look for the town in internet and tell me if you find something worthy) and marketing materials. In the near future, people from abroad should come to the town for doing internships around building capacity in local organizations and providing awareness and trainning to local youth around tourism marketing and environmental issues, isn't this exciting?

Yeah, I am very happy to be here and to try something new, without loosing my essence: continuous discovering, challenges and being positive...

Visiting a big garden: the Nile Delta

In the middle of pharaoh temples, huge mosques and mass tourism summer resorts, the Nile Delta actually receives poor attention from most travelers coming to Egypt (and tour operators). Maybe because one of the world's largest river deltas only offers green areas, agriculture and daily life experiences with locals?

I had a dream... I could imagine a network of youth hostels spread all over those dozens of towns in the Delta, which were inter-connected by several roads and train rails, each one offering beautiful green areas and local people always looking forward to meet the visitors. In reality, almost everything is on place, except from the youth hostel networks. But still in order to discover this area, I decided to prepare a small backpack and my camera, and went out together with two friends (Mallory and Amr). Before I continue this story, and for the purposes of 'ambiance', let's call these 3 guys: Biero (Arabic pronunciation for Piero), Moleria (Mallory) & Omar (Amr).

The initiation: keep it simple and local

On Saturday at 8am, Biero woke up at 8am, then blamed at the fact of waking up early, took a shower and had a quick breakfast (fruits from the fridge). After 15 minutes walk, he arrived to the Metro station and drove till 'Mubarak' Station, as usual he was delighted watching people talking with themselves and a couple of sellers offering newspapers and magazines.

By 9:30am he arrived to the train station, both Moleria and Omar blamed at him for coming some minutes late, anyway the three of them went obviously to pick up the... microbuses located outside the train station. After Piero completed his breakfast with a fat 'taameya' (falafel) and a cup of 'asab' (sugar can), these 3 adventurous agreed on following the microbus inviting to 'Mansoura, Mansoura... Mansoura!'. The first couple of hours showed a magnificent piece of the Delta: green and canals everywhere, farmers riding their donkies, etc (like a Netherlands without rain). On a sad note, I witnessed couple of guys throwing their cans of soda through their windows.

By the time they arrived to Mansoura, they had some snacks and decided to have a small lemons juice before leaving the city and start backpacking. However, their taxi driver seemed not to get the motto 'keep it simple, interact with locals', since he drove them to a hotel called '4 seasons' (written in English). No problem, Omar just repeated the magic words 'akhua' and then the guy took the to a right local cafe. Afterwards, they made a walk to the microbus stop and they took one to Ras El Bar. This small town located in the Mediterranean Sea was the next objective.

The Delta opened its arms again and showed them an incredible landscape, adorned by mosques every 5 minutes' ride and some other farmers leading their sheeps to the other side of the highway. Some kilometers before arriving to Ras El Bar, the microbus kindly dropped them in an agricultural area, so Moleria took the lead and started getting inside one of the fields. Some pictures were taken, including some of a young guy that suddenly 'joined' them and followed them for the next 30 minutes.

This picture was taken when meeting a family in one of those farms. They invited our 3 travelers for having lunch, but they rather continued walking (the civil status of Moleria would have been in risk, if one of the guys would have shown interest in her!).

The way also showed them a small canal (see pic), and they decided to make a walk closer to that 'smelling lake' (they realized afterwards that it was a zone of water treatment). It was nice, but dangerous, a couple of them got stucked into the mood. By 5pm, they decided to arrive to Ras El Bar, so they captured the attention of a pick-up and the guy drove them to their destination. Without doubts, what a beautiful landscape! full of farms, a canal beside the road, a couple of small canoes in there, the fresh wind touching their faces...

Ras El Bar welcomed them with a small meeting of the AIESEC local chapter there, in the night, they went out with some local friends and had some fish, fatir. The night was spent sitting in front of the beach, having some relaxing talks and a glass of wine. Moleria was surprising the others with her stories about US driving regulations (there is a rule for almost every action, and a fine if you don't accomplish it!), so much different from the free, chaotic regulations in the Peru and Egypt...

The way back: check out the same path but with other eyes...

Next day was spent to see the place where the Nile flows in the Sea, for enjoying the beach, for having fatir as breakfast, and for taking a microbus back to 'Mansoura, Mansoura!... Mansoura!'. They took the same way, some other farmers were riding horses and carrying fruits somewhere to the South. In Mansoura there was a break for lunch and afterwards, Omar, Moleria and Biero took any microbus which dropped them in any small town in the Delta: they realized its name was Meet Ghamr. By seeing the reaction of the people there, it was clear that they were not used to backpackers, since they were extremely fun and friendly. Our backpackers took a 'moto taxi' to one side of the Nile, got some shisha on the other side of the Nile (which now belonged to the town 'Zefta') and jumped into the Nile! Moleria and Omar went beyond and wanted to cross it! fortunately, an spontaneous rescue boat came to pick them up.

The way back to Cairo was very relaxing: driving in a public car, watching the sunset from the window, admiring the 'grey Delta' (downtown of Cairo) and enjoying a swimming pool in a friend's house. As they agreed: "in 2 days, we managed to be in the water of the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile and a pool". Isn't it a real meaning for diversity?

What is happening to the Delta now?

As part of the urbanization process, the Nile Delta also suffers from the increase of towns and main cities in its surroundings. I find it a bit sad, when I see that a meter of green area is converted into an unplanned house of cement. But on a more happy note, meeting people there overpassed my expectations. I have been convinced about the solidarity and pace mood of Egyptians since the first day I came here, and traveling in the Delta just proved it again. This big garden is definitively worthy to visit, and I still think that creating a network of youth hostels is a cool business to think about! (it is very easy to find transport from one place to the other). But if you do so, please be responsible and do respect the locals!

Transition in Holland, in all aspects...

Since last Thursday, I have been brought to Rotterdam for a working transition, which means that a new team for AIESEC in Africa has been selected. Therefore, as member of the outgoing team, I have been in charge to offer sessions for trespassing knowledge, experiences, gossips, and everything that can be relevant for the new team to rock the house on 07 08.

I had decided to pass through a personal transition as well. After 5 years of working actively in AIESEC, it has come the time to jump into the next adventure, it is time to come up with new dreams and to think about the things I like, the things I can do... about my future!

This may sound as a difficult phase to face, I don't feel it that much, and I hope that this is a good sign. Since many months, I had been asking myself several times, what? why? why not? and now I have decided that my future should be linked to tourism... an activity that will actually match with the current pillars of my philosophy of life (love coming back to basics, balance between me and earth, enlightenment and joy of senses), an activity that can be actually linked to my private life (I don't believe on the separation of 'work' and 'private life'), and something that I know I can be good at. Thus, my ideal working place looks as follows: leading a network of organizations working on the different stages and areas of a tourism cluster, but with the desire of run activities for the sake of the community, rather than individual revenue generation. In other words, I started challenging my mindset of what 'business' means, and I hope to put this other mindset on place. Of course I still need time, but it is going to be so much fun!

A bit of the fun descriptive part of this blog: after a quite normal flight Cairo-Amsterdam, I stepped into one of my favorite machines (a train) and traveled till Rotterdam, from its train station I walked 15 minutes to the East and I arrived to the AIESEC International office. Yeah! that one floor apartment, where the biggest amount of nationalities can be seen working together. It was so exciting to meet some old friends, and it was even more fun to spend the weekend through the 'AI transition party'. Good times! some drinks with the people, speaking about 'how has it been doing', 'how is it now', 'what's next' and many other less difficult questions. Some grilling during the day, a couple of parties, receiving the visit from Mari (muy lindo de tu parte, ich werde es nie vergessen!) and some fun making walks in this 'big city' of a bit more than 500,000 inhabitants.

Work started on Sunday evening and the last few days have showed me how much I have lived in Cairo! this whole meeting has given me some space for doing some 'transition' in my own life. I can not explain it so well, but it is a mix between turning the page and re-bringing the feelings in me. It is about coming back to the path, and celebrating the path achieved... it is time for realizing what has been done.

By tomorrow night I will be back in Cairo and from there I will spend 3 more months (or a bit more) in Damietta, a city located in the North of the country, by the Mediterranean Sea. From there I will work in a tourism project and at the same time, I will continue building things for starting up this actual dream of a Tourism Learning Network in Peru. This will not be the first time such an idea is implemented, but it will be very fun being me the one putting efforts on making it happen.

Now, I will come back home and meet the team, with whom I will enjoy my last dinner in Rotterdam...