Nomad JuanCa's Report
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Olena's Answer....
Here what i answered to Olena and she wrote to me...
"Hi my dear, i am so happy of readig from you, it is ok that you misstyped the email... and you know.. i do understand you. my dear... i also understand how you are feeling there, i felt the same here... not sure ifyou remember i told you once i came back it was hard and difficult for me to get used to here again.
It took me almost two years to get used to, and even right now... i wont say i am the same or i like this place, i just stopped worrying about others and started to fight for myself and my goals in life, does not matter if i do it different than people here, i will do it and i will live the way i like it.
I am enclosing with this email a book in format of acrobat reader, it is a book i found out like 2 weeks ago (for free) but that i am about to read twice... it is a bit of what you feel right now, and it openned me and gave me the strenght to keep on fighting to be theway i want to, please read it i am sure you will like it. Also it is in spanish so you will have the chance to practice the language and i am so proud to see you still speak spanish so well.
I can only say after three years of coming back here... i learnt 2 things, 1. dont expect to get used to that place, cause you are not the same and you have to enjoy it, this gives you the chance to be different Olena, the chance to make out of your life whatever you want it to be. 2. There is no such a place called home, home is where you heart is, part of it mightin your home with your parents and part of it is in ecuador, but none country or continent can be called home, so dont feel bad for feeling you are in a strange place, i am still a foreigner here, and i am enjoying it, cause i accepted and learnt i can always come back either to moscow or to my house here, cause they will always be there... does not matter if i'd travel anywhere.
As for the rest of my life, well i am working hard here, i have 2 jobs and work 7 days a week, not becoming rich but still i am better than when i just arrived, i haven't paid all my debts yet... havent paid to my friend in moscow but he is being patient with me. I havent gone back to university but i hope to do it next year, my financial situation is sort of getting stable, my main think since i came back here was to define what i wanted from life ... and well after 3 years i am sort of done with it.
my dear olena i am more than glad that being in contact with you, please stay in touch.
i am here as your friend forever, hugs
juanca"
"JuanCa, my dear friend.
Thanks a lot for your letter... dear.. you will make me cry
Thanks for all the things you told me, I do remember ... I remember clearly how it was when you arrived back and that you could not study (SAME IS HAPPENING TO ME), how it was when you could not find job after coming back ..and found one not so good as you wish... all that is happening to me right now... or better say during these two years.
You are right in all the things you tell me and what is true YOU NEVER FAILED ME but i feel like i did fail you and it kind of hurts..i feel awfully sorry if i did it and please forgive me and the other thing... i havent got any book so please send it to me again. Thanks again. I love you my dear friend... i remember you always first because you were the only one who understood me and helped me in the times when AIESEC Cuenca's LCP was Dannyy, also.. you are the only one who met a country similar like mine, and suffered as much as i did in Ecuador...I dont know , right now i feel like these are too much words that dont really express all i feel for you and all i want to tell you..
PS: reading your mail i felt like talking to the person who could best understand me.. and it just made me feeling again like coming back to Ecuador and live there, where i've got real friends (CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT ECUADORIANS CAN BE GREAT FRIENDS AND I CAN SUFFER COZ I AM LACK OF THEM?), and where i can get really good jobs... Olena"
God Bless you Olena, i know it all will turn out fine, you'll see
Here what i answered to Olena and she wrote to me...
"Hi my dear, i am so happy of readig from you, it is ok that you misstyped the email... and you know.. i do understand you. my dear... i also understand how you are feeling there, i felt the same here... not sure ifyou remember i told you once i came back it was hard and difficult for me to get used to here again.
It took me almost two years to get used to, and even right now... i wont say i am the same or i like this place, i just stopped worrying about others and started to fight for myself and my goals in life, does not matter if i do it different than people here, i will do it and i will live the way i like it.
I am enclosing with this email a book in format of acrobat reader, it is a book i found out like 2 weeks ago (for free) but that i am about to read twice... it is a bit of what you feel right now, and it openned me and gave me the strenght to keep on fighting to be theway i want to, please read it i am sure you will like it. Also it is in spanish so you will have the chance to practice the language and i am so proud to see you still speak spanish so well.
I can only say after three years of coming back here... i learnt 2 things, 1. dont expect to get used to that place, cause you are not the same and you have to enjoy it, this gives you the chance to be different Olena, the chance to make out of your life whatever you want it to be. 2. There is no such a place called home, home is where you heart is, part of it mightin your home with your parents and part of it is in ecuador, but none country or continent can be called home, so dont feel bad for feeling you are in a strange place, i am still a foreigner here, and i am enjoying it, cause i accepted and learnt i can always come back either to moscow or to my house here, cause they will always be there... does not matter if i'd travel anywhere.
As for the rest of my life, well i am working hard here, i have 2 jobs and work 7 days a week, not becoming rich but still i am better than when i just arrived, i haven't paid all my debts yet... havent paid to my friend in moscow but he is being patient with me. I havent gone back to university but i hope to do it next year, my financial situation is sort of getting stable, my main think since i came back here was to define what i wanted from life ... and well after 3 years i am sort of done with it.
my dear olena i am more than glad that being in contact with you, please stay in touch.
i am here as your friend forever, hugs
juanca"
"JuanCa, my dear friend.
Thanks a lot for your letter... dear.. you will make me cry
Thanks for all the things you told me, I do remember ... I remember clearly how it was when you arrived back and that you could not study (SAME IS HAPPENING TO ME), how it was when you could not find job after coming back ..and found one not so good as you wish... all that is happening to me right now... or better say during these two years.
You are right in all the things you tell me and what is true YOU NEVER FAILED ME but i feel like i did fail you and it kind of hurts..i feel awfully sorry if i did it and please forgive me and the other thing... i havent got any book so please send it to me again. Thanks again. I love you my dear friend... i remember you always first because you were the only one who understood me and helped me in the times when AIESEC Cuenca's LCP was Dannyy, also.. you are the only one who met a country similar like mine, and suffered as much as i did in Ecuador...I dont know , right now i feel like these are too much words that dont really express all i feel for you and all i want to tell you..
PS: reading your mail i felt like talking to the person who could best understand me.. and it just made me feeling again like coming back to Ecuador and live there, where i've got real friends (CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT ECUADORIANS CAN BE GREAT FRIENDS AND I CAN SUFFER COZ I AM LACK OF THEM?), and where i can get really good jobs... Olena"
God Bless you Olena, i know it all will turn out fine, you'll see
Saturday, May 06, 2006
aNO PLACE CALLED HOME
There is an aspect of the so called "AIESEC XP" - The AIESEC Experience - that few people put attention to, and it is the reintegration process... I have these questions for you... how many activities have you done with your returnees??? how many times have you seen them after they came back "home"??? HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU REALLY HEARD THEM??? not only about the different things they saw or learnt, but about HOW THEY FEEL NOW.
Also.. another question.... do you consider members coming back from a ceed, MC term abroad, or anything like that as returnee?? Do you deliver service to them??? Reintegration process??
Sadly i have to say that regarding reception activities and reintegration activities the AIESEC Members are just not taken into account, cause everybody assume we are able to handle all the shock, and as we are "nomads" we are in the duty to survive everywhere we end up.
AIESECers, i think you should deliver some more consideration to our members going abroad, cause some of them faced or are facing hard times to survive while being abroad and sometimes even harder times to reintegrate after coming back to that place called "Home".... if that really exist.
This comes from my personal experience (mentioned extensively in previous post at the beginning of this blog)...
After coming back from an international experience, the first week is full of joy, and confusion... but none notice it, everybody is so happy to see you and so happy to see what you brough (for them) and so eager to see your pics and listen your stories.. and one has to repeat them all houndred times... that none really see the intense shock one is having inside. At the end of the nights when you are alone on your bed... you see around.. and try to recognize where you are... and no... it is not "home", cause in that time you dont know where home is...but as the next day you will be the start of the show again, you better sleep and dont think too much. After first week, emotion is over... everybody got their presents and you are not the center of it all, so it starts your process to re-start (if not re-build) your life... then is when the shock becomes evident... things missplaced... things missing... different weather, old friends that you dont consider friends anymore, people saying that you act strange and you thinking that they act strange, people saying you became impolite while you think you are behaving just normal...suddenly... you are not "home"... you are somewhere else, and for some of us.. the way back home is just a trip to somewhere else... superficially the place looks the same like a year ago... but inside nothing is the same, and suddenly you wish you would not be there... you wish to be somewhere else... then is when depression comes...
The hardest thing of coming back "home" is to understand that you cannot be the one you were, and most difficult to make others understand it... and it is hard cause during first weeks not even oneself can say how we are and what changed, but we just think things are not equal.
I will stop saying about my story to share with you an email i got yesterday from Olena Onyshchenko, and Ukranian girl who spent about 3 years in Ecuador first like a ceeder/LCVP and then like a trainee.
Olena is couple of years younger than me, coming from Ukrain, she arrived to Cuenca by 2001 and left Cuenca by beginning of 2004 if i am not wrong. In that time I was just elected as MCVP Exchanges and Finance from AIESEC in Ecuador and was designed coach of LC Cuenca, and small and low performing LC in the highlands. First time we met with Olena was in a national meeting where she though i was foreigner as well, lol!!. Well... shortly, Olena had a difficult time in cuenca, LC Members didnt speak english and she didnt speak spanish, more than that male members in the LC including the LCP decided to ignore her cause she could not communicate, and also started to talk shit about her cause "all foreigners are bitches"... apart from that in hightlands machist people when they see a blond woman on street they call her (and they really scream from the cars or wherever they are) "zuka" which means blond in Quechua, BUT SAME WORD MEANS "BITCH, PROSTITUTE" in Russian/Ukranian.
It was a taugh beginning for her, eventually Olena changed her hair color to avoid that situation but that was not the whole solution. When i arrived there i tried to support her and take off the stupid idea from LC members that she-has-to-learn-our-language (Funny that i faced same stupid paradigm when i lived in Russia a year after, where members wrote emails only in russian even when i asked to at least put a wrap up in english at the end of the emails), we did bilingual planning meeting, bilingual parties, bilingual EB meetings. Good thing.. by the end of the first 6 months LC Cuenca had realized 5TNs and 1 SN if i am not wrong, after about 2 or 3 years of having done.... nothing. The problem was the bad person they had for LCP, sorry LCP but i think you never really helped your members, nor Olena, and finally you never really followed instructions, thats why the last 6 months of the period LC Cuenca did NO exchanges again.
Well, Olena was never paid, she eventually learnt Spanish and found part time jobs, and then started to work full time as english teacher in a company, until she could save money enough to go home (no... she didnt stay in Ecuador almost 3 years cause she loved the country... ). While i was in Russia, Olena helped me, she arranged her brother who lives in Moscow bought me some winter clothe, and that was actually the only winter clothe i could get cause i could not afford it... Olena thanks, I owe my life to you and your brother.... real friends always help, not like the others who said they were my friends but never really helped me... they just liked to hear the stories of "juanca living abroad" without caring of what was it in reality. After i came back from Russia i could never meet Olena again, we talked over the phone once, and then i just heard she had left the country.
Olena went back and we have communicated few... the day before yesterday i got an email, addressed to other person and wrote back to her to ask her what was going on.. and she wrote this...
"HOLA "JUANITO"!!!
CARAMBAS!:)
HEY MY GREAT ECUADORIAN FRIEND!
THE ONE WHO IS NOT ONLY RED-HAIRED BUT DEFFINITLY MYFAVOURITE ONE!:)))
Well, friend, as you could see i only misstyped the emaill address :)) but i feel that it was for some reason that the email went to you, becuase i am also strange - because i dont write to my good friends... to say true i am not in communication almost with none... its due to a big deception i am having since the time i left Ecuador... I still can't find my life here in Ukrain: You won't believe me.. but i am not ukranian anymore and it is quite difficult to get used to the things here... EVENTHOUGH IT HAS HAPPENED SO MANY YEARS..... i am still fighting...
Well my friend, tell me how you are? I hope you are fine! Tell me all!! I know that telling the good things is always easier than telling the bad ones :) Take care, Juan Carlos Calderon, my very favourite guy, cya"
I havent still replied to Olena, but while reading her email... i felt touched... it was like seeing myself couple of years ago, missplaced, depressed, confused, still fighting.. without a person who could understand me, suddenly felt left alone... and same like Olena, i stopped communicating with people, prefered to stay far from all my past AIESEC "friends" and from AIESEC itself, and nowadays after 3 years... i still dont want to communicate with my ex "AIESEC Colleagues". I met an alumni last week, and she asked me what has changed in me after my trip i told her "well... i went far from people... i just dont feel we look for the same in life right now", she said: I understand you, these kind of experiences leave a strong mark on you.
Right now, i work with AIESEC in a CSR project they are running as a part of the Learning Networks, but i can say this JuanCa is not the same one of years ago, but as the current members didnt know me ... they dont realize how much i have changed. I still keep some costumes from Russia, my way of thinking and my logic to solve problems is still different but with the years, i stopped caring about the thing that apparently i think and act a "bit" different from other people around me here.
That was why this book from Paulo Coelho, Veronika decides to die, called my attention and i felt so identified, cause when i just arrived and during the first two years.. i felt other people though i was crazy cause my way of thinking was different... and still nowadays i found sometimes moments when i cannot communicate with people around me and what i say does not make sense to them... Here a story taken from the book..
"Once upon a time a powerful magician, wishing to destroy a kingdom put a magical potion in a river where all the inhabitants usually took water, so everybody who tried it, would become crazy. Next day, all the inhabitants had taken water from the river and became crazy, except the king who had his personal water reserve. The worried king tried to control the situation ordering several measures for security and public health but policemen and inspectors were also crazy by that time and finding the orders absurds they decided not to follow them.
When the inhabitants of the kingdom got to know about the orders, they got convinced King had become crazy and went screaming to the palace to ask him to give up and leave the place. The desperated king said he was ready to withdraw, but his wife told him "lets go to the river and drink of its water, so we will be equal to them". So they did: the king and the queen became crazy inmediatly and start saying non senses. At this time the inhabitants though: why to make him leave if he is now talking with so much wisdom, why not let him rule us again?.
The kingdom stayed calmed, eventhough its inhabitants behaved differently to their neighbors and the king continued ruling until the end of his days.
Do you know what is outside here? - asked Zedka
People who drinked from same river - Answered Veronika
Exactly, They feel they are normal cause they all do the same. Once i got out of this sanatorium I will simulate i also drinked that water - Zedka replied
Zedka was conscious that with a few of common sense , she could be in the outside world doing everything she always liked to do, while facing the daily challenges. It was just about keeping the "crazyness" controlled, like someone said.. to cry, to worry, to irritate like any other normal human being.."
I tell you guys once again, read that book it is really good.
I have 2 jobs, work 7 days a week, and people here ask me... "what for?? do you have goals in life? i could not do it" and i know they could not, but i saw Russians doing it, i saw them fighting for survive and never giving up... and i am now one of them. I finally learnt, there is NO PLACE CALLED HOME, Home is where your heart is.. and my heart is in a small house at Guayaquil where my mother and my sisters live, and the rest of it is splitted in two houses in Moscow and one in Saint Petersburg where my three best friends live... apart from those places i have no other home in this world. Also.. i have to note that i have called to my friends in Russia 10 times more than i have called my ex "friends" here. I only have 2 good friends left from my old time here, Diana Patricia and Carmen, only one of them is AIESECer.
I want to dedicate this post to all of you facing hard times to start again... be pantient, reflect, look inside yourself, be clear with what you want.. and once you find it... just follow it does not matter where you are or where you go... just follow your own path in life does not matter if other think you are getting crazy, cause we all are, be crazy if it makes you happy!!! Be the way you want to be!!! The only use of the AIESEC XP is to open your eyes to show you ... you can be whatever you want wherever you are... get out and live!!!.
