RUMBA in Hyderabad :)

Namaste :),

After some time in India and already settled in Hyderabad, in sort of a temporary sedentary mode (but I am sure that my nomad style will come back sooner than expected), I have had the chance to escape for a while from my hard routine facing the AIESEC systems' users claims from all around the world and afford some party moments in the city (and in the office as well). So...here are my first impressions.

This was the very first party in Hyderabad and was the most shocking one (for me at least). Why? Well, I am a Latino, and for Latinos when you mention "party" the first thing that comes to your mind is dance, drinks and girls, where you dance with them very close...actually sometimes really close :P. In this case it was a party of the office, there were drinks, there was dance, but...about 20 males dancing and having fun together?

I was totally aware in advance that these kinds of things are normal here in India, and of course that this doesn't have absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality, but I couldn't avoid to get shocked by it anyways. But after all I enjoyed it very much and had fun as well. These kind of impressions that you get around the world might be shocking at the beginning, but then you just get used to them while you really understand that not everything around the world must be like your home. And definitely that is the most wonderful, mystic and passionate thing about traveling.

Some time after that I had finally the chance to meet the trainees in Hyderabad. Once again, this shocked me a lot. I was used see Local AIESEC offices with maximum 15 trainees at the same time. But here in Hyderabad there are more than 80 trainees from the entire planet (it is a national partnership with the Satyam company, one of the biggest TN takers in the world...mmm an AIESEC client...for those who don't know what a TN is). So first we went to one trainee apartment to gathered there.

In that apartment live 10 trainees…can you imagine how it is? Ten individuals from different countries trying to share the same place? For me it was a very cool experience, since I am not a trainee here, I felt myself in a true foreign AIESEC trainee environment for the first time.

We played some cards games while girls finished their make up and then went to the discotheque “The Sixth Element”. Very western environment and music (Hip Hop, Trance, Dance), drink and chat tables and couches, dance floor, neon lights and nice beers. The DJ was cool, he spoke in english and sometimes played some Indian pop-electronic music, when actually Indian people in there enjoyed the most. According to the law, it closed at 1 am.

This poster at the entrance was pretty impressive. It was supposed to be the rules of the discotheque, but most of them were not accomplished (at least that night). For example, rule number 3 stands for only couples in the dance floor, but there was a group of 15 males dancing together.

Another day I went was the birthday of a trainee in Hyderabad. This time it was a real global convention. About 30 trainees arrived there. The place was small but very western as well and this time only western (mostly American) music was played. According to the law for public places in non weekend days, it closed at 12pm :(...not good.

We went with Asif (from the office, AIESEC systems project responsible) and took him there. He had a good time as well, but left home too early (11pm). The other guy is Gerben, the dutch trainee who works also in the office and shares the flat with me since a couple of weeks.

Finally, the last Rumba where I was, was actually the coolest one. After a long night tour in Hyderabad to find another trainees' gathering, Gerben and I dropped at this bar. Before entering it I couldn't believe what my ears were listening. IT WAS ROCK!!! yes ladies and gentlemen, alternative and heavy rock, my favourite music, the music that makes me feel really good and that I can hear all the day non stop...now in India...Incredible India. The DJ was playing a Metallica song and then some Nirvana and classic grundge songs as well...

There were 2 trainees and two members of the Executive Board of AIESEC in Hyderabad. And the best thing that I found out that night was that one of those member's favourite band was Pearl Jam, the same as I. Wow, incredible...even in Colombia it was really hard to find this old alternative rock fans. He told me that the rock movement in India was still to small and only present in big cities but that it was growing slowly though. Pretty incredible...huh? I also could see in a corner some heavy metal guys shaking their long hairy heads. How Cool...

In order not to break the tradition, the group of 20 males was also sitting behind us...next time I will take a picture ;)

So guys, I hope you liked this report. This city is very cool...really :), and it will deserve a whole article in this little virtual space later on.

Until the next time, from the other corner of the world, missing you all...all the best and keep smiling.

Kikus...

Finally after dealing with some challenges, I got my Mobile

After one month in India, my mobile is already working :). I had to deal with some challenges to make it happen. Firstly, my colombian device didn't work with the Indian sim card. Then, I had to wait until someone took me to the place where I could find a cheap device. After that the initial sim card didn't work and after dealing with the provider for some days without any hope to get it fixed in the short term, I decided to buy a new sim card and finally it's working. Now I am connected with the world again wherever I go. For those who want to call me, please drop a message and I will write you back with the number.

After crossing the world I am back to my Blog...(reporting from India)

Hey hey hey,

In Colombia we celebrate today the Love and Friendship Day. It is like the Valentine's day. People get together, they give gifts and sweets each other and play the "secret friend" game, where you are assigned someone that you have to give some sweet secret clues until the L&F day. Couples have a special date, do something special, or go to a special place.

Well, sadly right now I am pretty far away from my freindships and love, and can't spend this special date with them. However, as I always was promising to update this weblog and let everyone know what is going on in my life in this adventure in Hyderabad, India, I want to offer to all my friends and of course my Love this first blog post after a long time of inactivity, as I promised and as a special gift for this special date, with the real promise this time, to update it more frequently.

Ok, here I am, in Hyderabad, India. The indian Sillicon Valley, the indian High Tech city, where companies like Microsoft and Oracle have settled their main offices in India. Here I am, performing my AIESEC Internation position as global User Support and Education Manager, representing AIESEC in Azri solutions (http://www.azri.biz/), the company where AIESEC outsources the development of its information systems. I arrived one week ago and will be here for ten more months, far way from my beloved Colombia :(. Anyways, before getting into a crying homesicky mood, I would remind that the long way to this point, after my last post, was pretty, but pretty much long and hectic. All the logistics, visas, air tickets, farewell, AIESEC Colombia transition, farewell conference, AIESEC International Congress, etc made this experience unique. Bogota, Pereira, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Madrid, Rotterdam, Mannheim, Delhi, Agra and finally Hyderabad, are the places where I was given the opportunity to pass by and where many histories raised. Today more than ever I feel like a genuine nomad ;). Of course, my dear readers, I will be posting most of them soon with all the pictures, but in the meanwhile I will show you some of the things that impress me from Incredible India! and other happenings that are worth to share.

So, enjoy this first ones. :)

The view from my apartment in Hyderabad. It's Azri's guest house located in Jubilee Hills, a place where rich people live in this city. It is 30 minustes away from the office by walkink. My room has a small balcony with an amazing sight. You can see this big figure of a very popular god here in India, it has an elephant shape and by these days people are having special celebrations in his honor.

I brought my cellphone device from Colombia, but when triying to make it work with an Indian sim card it was not possible because frecuency standarts of India were not compatible to the ones thta my colombian cellphone managed :(. So I bought a new device...very cheap by the way. And in order not to have to learn again how to use it and to have an additional battery, charger and handfree device, I bought almost the same mode. Now, based on the picture, guess which one is the indian and which is the colombian one :).

Indian light switches. This thingy quiet impressed me. Near to the entrance of each room you find this array of switches that control the lights and fans in the room. The thing is that you have to guess which is the one that controls the light that you want to switch on. It is like a riddle game while you pass through all of them and finally get the one you want. Additionally, due to the high amount of "mosquitos" on India, people make sure to always have connected this anti mosquitos thingy.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. I promise to report more often. Until the next one, God bless you and be happy.

All yours

Kiko

Cities...those places in the world where you spend most time in your life...

Time passes by...and so does life...

There are a lot of circumstances in life that make you move from one place to another and it increases when you are a young guy and more than that a nomad AIESECer that spins and spins around the world...

But there is a fact that you can't hide. It's the current place where you "live" and spend a big amount of time in your life trying to simulate a sedentary lifestyle. Since a long of time ago those places are called cities and gained importance and grew a lot in the last 5 hundred years of the human history.

And well, most of the times it's not exactly your choice to live somewhere in a certain moment...it's just about probabilistic options that play an uncertain game called "day to day" and where sometimes you become a winner and sometimes a looser, and also makes you move from one corner to the other corner of the world.

The concrete thing here that has to be taken into consideration is that you have to get into like some mutual feeling with that surrounding environment called city and neighborhood; else, you can have a very bad time. It's commonly called adaptation.

Darwin's "Natural Selection" theory showed that species that were able to adapt to their living environment stay alive and that's precisely what steers evolution. (Sometimes you can notice that in AIESEC as well. Some newies don't adapt to our passion and craziness and quit (poor bastards, they will never know what they will miss).

In that sense I thank God for giving me this adaptation ability to this places, and even more than that, I enjoy them, feel good and strive to capitalize their good stuff and understand and avoid bad stuff. So after this long and boring introduction this is my city-story...

Tubingen-Germany:

Here is where I was born...well, it's not exactly a city but a nice university town in the south of Germany. I lived there my first 4 years before my family moved to Colombia. I can't remember those ages clearly, but all memories are nice...it was a big part of my childhood.

Barranquilla-Colombia:
My mother was born here (my father in Chile). So we moved to Barranquilla and I lived there for 20 years. It’s a nice and hot city in the Colombian Caribbean coast and is called Colombian Golden Gate. Almost 2 million people live there and the city is famous for its carnival. I love it and consider myself a “Barranquillero” because here is where I grew up and studied. I miss Barranquilla and my AIESEC Local Committee UNINORTE there so much. I don’t know if I ever will go back to stay, but it’s going to stay by me in my heart forever.

Bogotá:
Well, I think that it’s quiet normal for most of us to visit the country’s capital or live in it at least once in your life. I came here in July 2004 and lived here for one long year working at the AIESEC in Colombia National Office. It’s a big and very cold city and is located in the middle of Colombia on high mountains (2600 meters). At the beginning I was scared because it was four times bigger than Barranquilla and well, it was indeed the capital. But my adaptation was quick and I liked it a lot. People and many things are very different as in Barranquilla, but it has been nice so far… There are a lot and diverse things happening in such a big city…

Hyderabad…the question
Expectations are big. Many Indians just told me that it’s one of the coolest cities in India. It’s as big as Bogotá and is located in the middle of India. Hot? Cold? Safe? Dangerous? Nice people? Bad People? I still don’t know. The only think I know is that I am very excited and hope to adapt easily again, enjoy and understand it…let’s see…I will be telling you…

Kiko's Technical Support

I really like Dilbert comic strips. I feel like identified with it. The office and technicians' life situations that are shown there are so funny, cool and realistic.

Now, regarding to my future position in India as Global User Support and Education Manager for AIESEC International, I'm figuring out how would it be...hehe...any ideas or advices?

I 've been doing user support and education a lot of times before in my AIESEC XP and could find very different type of users. Among others, there are those ones who somehow won't ever feel any attraction for that kind of machine called computer (I met a lot of them) and also those ones who think that they know a little bit about this stuff and feel like they can expect much more from the systems than they (machines) can realistically deliver. Well there are for sure many other kind of users and to handle with each of them is like a science. But honestly, I like it...it's my job :) and the attitude for service is a part of our role in the society. Besides that, the things that you learn by making support are very valuable, not only technically but also about human relationships...or human-machine relationships.

Well, I am conscious that my role in AI as USEM will not only be resolving user problems...I know that it's a lot of more stuff besides that and I am extremely excited for that. I thank God for giving me this amazing opportunity through AIESEC and can't wait to be there to keep on learning and learning and learning while contributing to this strange thing that I love which is called AIESEC.

Welcome to Kiko's Weblog

This is my first post

Now in Nomad Life....

:)