I am Gabriel
from Bielefeld in Germany. My last semester holidays I spent in Santarem in
Brazil. I did this, even I never really had the plan to go abroad, but it seems
to be the right for me at this time. And it was clear for me to only go abroad
with AIESEC, because AIESEC was the only reason, why I planned to do this.
Since last summer I am part of this organization and it became an important
part of my life. The mass of people I connected with there and the unique work atmosphere
make me want to take every opportunity it would give to me. And of course on of
the biggest opportunity you have in an organization sending students abroad is
to go abroad. It started out of curiosity but in the end, I went abroad because
I was way too convinced of AIESEC and what we are doing to not go.
So in the end it
was going abroad for the sake of going abroad and it took me a long time to
choose the country. The decision was mainly between Taiwan, India and Brazil.
Of course I can’t say how my story would have gone if I would have chose
another option but at least I can not imagine to go somewhere else than Brazil.
The decision was lastly a very spontaneous one, it wasn’t necessarily the most
interesting project or country but I was always a friend of Latin American
country and the Amazonas is of course a legendary place all over the world. What
I heard about the project and the Committee there seemed nice and so I said: Yeah, why
not. Sometimes it just feels right. And I couldn’t choose better with any
rational reasons.
I have to admit
that I had a huge lack of preparation when I came to Santarem. Due to my work
in AIESEC and that I (like I said) took every single opportunity this
organization offered me I was far too busy to think too much about my exchange.
As I came to Brazil I wasn’t ready for anything, neither mentally nor
physically. For example, one of the most popular jokes about me (despite my
non-german unpunctuality) was that I did not brought any shorts for a stay in a
tropical country. I maybe was realizing that I actually go on exchange not
before I left the plane in Santarem.
Santarem is not a huge city and not a huge Committee. As I am from a small Committee of AIESEC, this is exactly the way I like it. Familiar, flat hierarchies and all in all
work based on friendship. When I arrived we were about 10 trainees which is a
perfect amount, its enough to have cool intercultural exchanges and
nevertheless you still can know everyone. I experienced so much, it sometimes
was simple way too much. In the first days it was like a little kid going to
the movies for the first time and seeing a new world inside the old one.
Everything was different, the color, the smell, the noises and looking back to
it from now it feels like a dream. Its interesting to see myself under constant
challenge, how I deal with the changes everyday and also how awesome little
things like going to a bar with the other trainees can become under those right
circumstances. The last half year I was constantly working about those kinds of
experiences as I was working with AIESEC trainees. But seeing the impact of
this work and the feeling of those kind of experiences right in front of me was
totally different and something complete unbelievable.
In my daily job
I was working with children. Children of course do not speak English. As this
frustrated me in the beginning it became more and more super fun over the time.
Regular communication can be so boring if you once tried to communicate with
people who don’t understand a single word of you saying and have never thought
that there might be people who don’t understand their words. When people ask me
now how I communicated I can not answer them. But in fact: I did communicate.
Somehow. Its maybe something we can call an AIESEC-miracle. Same thing is for
me finding my home every time even if I got lost every single time I got out of
the door. (Also something that contributed to my legendary unpunctuality). But
I could see the excitement about meeting some foreigners for the first time in
de faces of the kids and after they realized that they could tell me everything
because I would not understand it anyway the stopped being shy and started
talking like a waterfall.
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