I like to think that it was my primitive evolutionary connection that attracted me to Africa, the birth place of the earliest modern humans. But regardless of the primordial connection, what made it possible was AIESEC. I am speaking of my internship in Kenya in the summer of 2009 and I am speaking of the organization that made it possible. AIESEC has been around for over fifty years now. It started as an initiative to promote youth exchange in a post WWII Europe. But since then, AIESEC has become such an international phenomena that the acronym AIESEC has been adopted as the only name while the French word from where the acronym was constructed has been rendered incapacitated.
But enough for a lesson in History, let us plunge into the crazy madness that Kenya turned out to be. Kenya turned out to be an adventure in the true sense of the word. I delved into a new culture rather cultures, explored the savannah landscape, toured the wild(safaris, yeah baby), hit the beaches and islands on the Indian ocean, ‘hard’, befriended people from all over the world, had a chance to feel a sense of worth through the volunteer position, loved my host family, hated some frustrating incidents, ran into incredible situations, ran out of the incredible situations, went across the whole country, crossed the equator(yes indeed as Kenya is located on both sides of it), saw animals making sweet love in the open spaces aside from seeing where Karen Blixen had it going(her house is a popular tourist attraction, I swear) and much more...
This short description does not make a great picture of reality but it offers a neat glimpse into it. There were definitely difficult times when I had to pull myself together. These difficult times were laden with frustrations, from monetary to linguistic but AIESEC Kenya was always there to help out. If any of you want to do an exchange, I would tell you... Kindly, do yourself a favour and do it, while all along doing others a favour through some of the amazing volunteer opportunities AIESEC has to offer. Also I must encourage you in the financial sense that it was not very expensive. In fact I paid around more than half of my expenses including air ticket by myself, as I worked part time the year before I went for exchange. And yes I was working in Pakistan. The usual myth is that it is difficult to make money as a young person in Pakistan. Well I would say yes and no.
Anyways, I would highly recommend an out of the box experience to all of you as I personally think that Pakistani society needs to open up. We need to both go out and welcome others in, if any general good is to come to the land of the Pure. XD
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