Cairo welcomes me back

'This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life'. (Carl Rogers, 1961)

Contrary to the last part of my previous blog, I have to admit that it feels good to be back at 'home'. I have good food here (fruits!!! And delicious fish), and it was delightful to be last time in Downtown for a tea. Tonight I just had another 'sahla', which is kind of a white hot drink (mainly partially of milk and quite sweet). Now I am checking next cultural events and I am excited again about calling some friends.

I realized that most people from the conference in South Africa are in the middle of exams, but it was still very nice to read their emails, even if they were just for saying hi! Now it is ester, actually I am not joining the typical 'bacalao-fest-family' like usual, but fortunately my parents called me a couple of days ago.

So for now, I am just picking up some work and enjoying myself with the old guitar and chilling with my roommates.

AFROXLDS: 2 intensive weeks in South Africa

My travel to South Africa came in the right moment. For the past several months, I have been passing through lot of excitement, frustration, happiness, joy, etc. I have been asking myself if I had been taking the right decisions.

Not being selected as Director in the last applications of course decreased my motivation in general. I had to realize that I could still work on other parts of me, particularly the parts that deal with other people, indispensable thing for aiming to reach new leadership opportunities in the blue organization. So, the chance to come to South Africa just gave me this unique (but again at the same time) option to interact with people in the way I like the most: discussions, fun, reflection, and more fun.

I don't know yet how to describe all what happened during that conference. It was just too fast. Too many people, so many things to share, long sessions and funny parties. At the end I could not avoid that people related me as Latino search of women, but who cares? For the first time in a long time, I could open myself a bit more than just delivering good sessions, and actually the mood was quite cool within delegates. Somehow our typical logistical problems where compensated with the fun and crazy way we tried to manage things, a couple of times we over passed the limit (especially during games and roll calls related to sex). But it seems that in general the people had a good image about all of us. Like usually, I brought some music to the stage, this time there was no guitar, but I brought the small zamponha (which was loud enough).

I will miss it. Maybe a part of me is still insecure about what comes next, but this will happen anyway. So I guess it is now a matter of just a couple of weeks.

After 8 months and half, life in Cairo is now different. It is not that magic anymore, I am getting used to it. I don't get surprised for seeing women totally covered on black, and people interacting on the streets in a very 'aggressive' way (they are not, but it just look like so). But once again, I still remember some things that I wanted to do here, I still need to check them out! Music, arts, interesting discussions about the region, etc.
This time there are no pictures, but memories. I guess you gotta try to come to South Africa by your own if you want to realize (again) that we are all made from the same model! And finally, did I achieve what I want? Well, yes I did. I felt frankly closer to people than usual. But it is not a matter of a 7 days conference; I guess I have to learn to keep the momentum and to make it an ongoing attitude.