The Ephemeral Life

So, back where I left off. This is almost 2 weeks ago now, hahaha! In fact, I’m using a calendar to remember what I did ><

So yes, the following day I went to the Apartheid Museum with fellow CEEDer Colin! It was a beautiful place. So much to learn and read about the history of SA and their freedom from apartheid. The beginning of the museum approximated 1.5 hours to look through the whole museum. After reading everything and watching all the sit in movies (I didn’t watch all the random movies/clips that were showing throughout the museum) we were out in 4.5 hours (with lunch). Needless to say there was a lot of learning and reading! However, while I was in the museum I ran into something that was highlighted to me once more by Emily with one of our talks. She said that there was much distrust by the older generation to the current youth (our age-ish) in SA and I completely understood what this meant after this museum. There was a high school group that caught up to me while I was looking around. I didn’t mean to listen in on their conversations, but they were pretty loud and distracting my reading. Let’s just say some of the more common phrases where “Why do I care about this?” or “This isn’t on the worksheet (there were filling out answers on some paper with questions on it), let’s move on.” etc. etc. I guess maybe a generalization from this one event wasn’t too good of an idea, but later when I spoke to a lot of different people it really is a common belief that the youth in SA don’t seem to realize how much the older generation here suffered and how much work and dedication and pain and loss had to happen for them to have the freedom that they have. Apartheid was only abolished officially in SA in 1994, less than 15 years ago, yet people our age seem to disregard it as something that doesn’t concern them. It’s funny though, as a conversation that came up today with Elrine was the fact that many Black people (including the youth) have a strong sense of entitlement to things just because they were marginalized in the past. Here, most youth’s don’t care about getting high GPA’s, or doing things even outside of what they need to do to get a degree as when they graduate (or even before), B.E.E. pretty much guarantees them a job. But I guess I should give some background to B.E.E. Long story short (a VERY long story cut VERY short. Do your own research people!), B.E.E., Black Economic Empowerment was a government move to try to empower the marginalized black (and coloured) people of SA by ensuring them jobs and economic prosperity. The general idea is the get a proportioned amount of Black people into the work force that is the same as their population in SA, ie. if 70% of the population is Black, it would be ideal that 70% of the work force is black. This is NOT what the basic premise is exactly, but it’s the general idea. See, there’s nothing wrong with this situation. Where everything is equal, this is most likely what will happen. However, there have been many disagreements with this from what I heard from the locals here. The general idea is great, and to provide empowerment to people who have been disadvantaged for almost half a century is also commendable, however, their implementation isn’t. The current system is a quota system. A certain amount of your workers has to be black/coloured. What does this mean? It means that there are a lot of under qualified people working for businesses just so they can balance out their quota. People who add no value to the organizations they work for, and in the end actually brings down the potential and power of SA as a whole (as said by many people, no idea if this is true statistically, but it sounds right logically). In a world where most organizations are searching for talent, SA companies are stuck looking for the right mix of racial attributes. Hence the dilemma, as well as the current situation with black people in SA as highlighted above.

But yeah, after the museum, Colin and I got hit with another dose of African Time. We were first told that we would be picked up at 5pm. We then get a phone call saying that we will be picked up “later”, which was defined as 7-9pm. Firstly, thats 2 hours later than the initial specified time. Secondly, that is a 2 hour gap, a very long time to be asked to wait for! Anyways, TIA right? Luckily there was a casino right across the street. Unluckily for us neither of us had the cash or the will to gamble, so since we got out of the Museum at 3pmish, we had a lot of time to kill. We ended up being picked up at around 9:15ish, which was surprisingly on time.

The next week was uneventful in the fact that I didn’t do much other than work on the upcoming conference and create my CEED agenda with the LCP of the LC I was going to end up working in. Up until now I was pretty bored at the house doing nothing. However, at this point it got pretty hectic, as the conference was a week away and I had to prepare sessions for it as well as prepare materials for the conference as well as my LC CEED later. Luckily I only had around 4-5 hours in total of session preparation, but it still took a long time when I had near nothing to work with. But I somehow managed and I ended up finishing without too much of a problem! Thank you SO MUCH to the people who helped with all my preparation and materials. Props to my LCP Ruby, Cindy, Hao, as well as the new MCVPTM of @CA Layial! I hope to get to know you better when I get back!

During this whole week, I went out a few times to watch football games and once to go clubbing. Once more, R100 cover to a club that was cool, I guess. I mean cover is pricey (I know it’s only like $15CND but still) but the beer and drinks inside is dirt cheap compared to Canada. It would be around R10-R20, a drink, so that would vary from $1-$3. Also, again, the club was 23+ but we got in somehow! Damn this area for being so high class.

ATTENTION NON-AIESECers! Skip to the next line unless you want to read about things you probably aren’t interested in

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Anyways, moving right along to the conference. Sorry for the speed but I’m trying to catch myself up to the present time and I’m still around 1.5 weeks behind. Wow, and I mean wow. Unsurprisingly the conference had it’s ups and downs. The content, venues, food sponsors and other things were confirmed REALLY late so it was pretty hectic and tense. Also, there was no OC for the conference so we had to pretty much Facilitate as well as act as OC. Content wise…we improved A LOT from the beginning. I really want to emphasize the difference so I will go piece by piece.

Firstly, the delegates. People here are spoiled rotten. At first, I was quite disgusted by how the delegation acted. I got over it later. They just never seemed to be ever satisfied with anything. I got the feeling that a lot of the delegates where there just to socialize, which is fair since a HUGE part of conferences is socializing. However, it is NOT the main part (and I will probably hear a lot of dissenting voices for saying this.). I totally agree with celebrating successes, and from what I have heard from the MC, these guys have gone a LONG way from where they were a year ago. However, while saying that, they seem to fail to realize that these national conferences seem to be the only real time where they can be trained by the MC and to gain valuable basic AIESEC knowledge that is otherwise ignored or unused by most LCs the rest of the year. Partying should be deserved (and it was deserved by the end of the conference! As I said before, the whole conference improved A LOT by the middle to the end) and they were failing at this. But yes, after talks with LCPs and some dealing, both sides pulled their weight and by the middle of the conference the members were more motivated in the sessions and partying was much more fun! But still, a lot more to rant about.

One thing I did kind of feel bad was the fact that a lot of the people in this conference were new-ish, but there was a lot of…emotion being thrown around. Quite a few times the invited alumni, or the AI LC Development Coach, or someone else would go on some long-winded rant directed at the plenary. I mean, a lot of what was said NEEDED to be said, but at the same time a majority of these delegates are new, and to blame them for not being able to perform, or not being as good as how AIESEC was in their time, etc. was unwarranted and misdirected. I felt like a lot of the time the members were being blamed for something that was not their fault. AIESEC as a whole organization has not seen the success it had in the 1990s, and it is true that @ in SA has a lot more going against it than for. Stigma against foreigners, the undermined value of international experience, B.E.E., etc. The list is endless. It was hard to watch the delegates have to be scolded and ranted too, especially when everything that was said was true. I just felt that sometimes it was too harsh, was misdirected, or was unnecessary.

As for the actual conference itself…I had quite a few disagreements with it. One was the fact that they were trying to use this conference as a leverage point for a 2 year strategic plan for @SA. See, there would be nothing wrong with this, but the fact of the matter is this seemed nothing short of a formality really. The MC, AI and some Alumni had already created a 3 year plan, but it was rejected by the fact that the local members were not involved, something I completely agree with. However, now it seemed like they were sticking this strategy session into a conference which should have focused on teaching and empowering the members with the skills they need to do the core work back into their LCs. The functional track part of this conference lasted 4 hours…in one night. How could anyone expect members to learn EVERYTHING they need to know in 4 hours!?!? Not only was it JUST 4 hours, it was 4 hours STRAIGHT! I was frustrated to say the least. The worst part was that the only reason was so they could have a day and a half of strategy, which I will rant about now.

As I already said, the strategy sessions was, to be honest, a complete formality at the end. Not the fault of the MC really, but fault on ALL sides. The first thing the Chair of conference questioned was the nature of the conference. Was this really an LDS? Why is there strategy in it then? And shouldn’t strategy take longer than a day and a half to make, to have solid, useful information? YES! And it was shown by the end of the conference. The output from the strategy sessions are…not the level needed to create a solid 2 year plan. It barely scratched the surface of what should have come out. Is it usable? Yes, and the already created plan will be amended to reflect what the members created in the output. Does it really add value? Yes, I guess. It highlights the kind of future action plans (EXTREMELY VAGUELY, however) that the members are willing to do. Could time have been better spent teaching the members practical functional skills and knowledge? HELL YES! The strategy sessions where, IMO, a waste of time. The only good that really came out of it was the involvement of the local plenary (as much of a formality as it was) and the fact that the members now understand the problems they face (superficially) and the gravity of @SA’s situation.

Anyways, as for the actual sessions themselves, I don’t believe they were done the best way possible. Who’s fault was it? Everyone’s of course. Firstly, the whole day and a half sessions were created by one person, 1 week before the conference. This is obviously not enough time and WAY too much work for one person. I commend him for all his hard work in the short amount of time, and the way it was structured was well done in light of these things, however the membership present in the conference was not experienced enough to analyze their reality at such a fast pace. As I said before, they were mostly new members, had limited @ knowledge, especially in a national level. The sessions could have gone well if the members were mostly EB with almost a year of experience. Unfortunately, they were not (and it is NOT their fault) so the output reflected that.

Now, since I’ve been ranting so much about the conference, it is time to highlight the good stuff, as there was A LOT of it! Firstly, I know I ranted about the delegation but they were actually really cool people! The people I will remember the most are ironically mostly other interns or international delegates but they were amazing! A lot of the @ SA members were cool too, but I must regretfully admit that I did not get to meet as many locals as I wanted too in the conference.

Another great thing about the conference was the site. Unfortunately it was managed by a crazy lady who…well for lack of a better word was crazy! But the site itself had a lot of potential and under better management would totally rock. Also, the people working there were really cool as well! I ended up making great conversations with a few of them and who I hopefully will meet again!

Another great thing was the food. I’m sorry for the people who didn’t enjoy the meals, but I loved them (except for 2 of them, which were the MacDonalds Lunch {they were a sponsor} and the braai where I ended up not getting any meat =[, {yeah I know}). I mean, hotel meals are great (wait no I lie they aren’t), but most of these meals were home made by Elrine’s sister so you can taste the authenticity.

Finally, the spirit! It was amazing to see the difference at the beginning of the conference where there was next to none, to the end of it, where everyone was pretty pumped!! I also enjoyed watching the sponsors do role calls and join the the dancing and cheering (PwC 4tw!).

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So yeah, that was the conference in a nutshell. Welcome back non-AIESECers! The next few days after the conference have been spent playing DotA and rest. Nothing has really been happening this past week as I’ve been hella tired and I just wanted to vege. But I had work to do so I’ve been doing that and stuff. I’ve also been making plans to go around SA after all. Planning to visit Lesotho, Swaziland, Cape Town and Durban. I know for people who think i should to Kruger Park, all I have to say is I’m really not that into Safaris…But I’ll try to go just for the experience, as much as I prolly would prefer to not use up the money.

But yeah, just some more randoms before I go. I’m really getting sick of this house. It feels more like a…prison really than the closed community that I saw it when I first got here. It’s not safe for me to leave as I would be a walking victim for petty crime so I am discouraged from leaving the house by myself and not in a car. I mean if I really wanted too I’m sure they wouldn’t stop me, but at the same time I don’t want to risk it myself. Maybe when I feel totally confined I’ll go for a run with Colin, but I don’t feel like showing him how out of shape I really am! I haven’t gone jogging since maybe 2 weeks before my exams in May…

Anyways, I had a lot more to say but I guess I’ll save it for later. Word count is at 2800 so that’s kinda long. If you read all this, thanks for caring~ And spending so much time!