My Mexico City, today!

It’s hard to comprehend how life makes us to take decisions that are so far away from your initial plan. The situation here in Mexico is really hard to handle. Yes, it seems like a scientific fiction movie. Most of the people on the streets wearing masks, much less people in the streets than we used to see before, most of the bars, restaurants, cafes and others either closed or just serving to take home. It’s not my Mexico. In this period that I was here I learned how to love this country. There are some things that I don’t like about Mexico. I would dare to say – under my not regular emotional conditions – that there are fewer things that I don’t like about México than in Brazil.

Yesterday I was afraid. I went to the supermarket close to the time that it closes and I’ve saw a scene that I’ve never seen before. It was funny because I really think that this supermarket makes part of my cultural experience here in mexico. It must sound crazy, but it’s true. I discovered there what is a Pan de muerto (Dead’s bread) and what it had to deal with a specific date that they celebrate here in Mexico. They sold a lot of especial breads for Christmas and I got to know about it also. I’ve been there almost every single day that I was here in Mexico, because I used to buy my breakfast everyday there. Yesterday, it was completely different.

Because of the fear that they are going to start closing the stores under quarantine, people left their houses to buy products for storage. I was chocked to see that most of the: pasta, milk, water, tuna (every single can), bread, meat, some other stuff made in cans, rice... was almost all gone. It was impressive. And then, without any will to come back home more than 2 months before planned, I started to shop storage also. I bought tons of things. That was the first time in my time in Mexico that I bought things that I could eat in 2 weeks... most of the non-spoilable products that I could buy. And then I went to face the line – bigger than I ever seen in my time in Mexico. There, staring at the people, using masks, with tons of things on their shopping carts, I thought about my parents and relatives. It was hard to think how desperate they could be for me to be in this country, without insurance and under all of those conditions. I left the line and gave back most of the products that I had bought. It was a hard moment for me – I was decided to come back to my country.

I will miss Mexico. I will miss it a lot. I really like to live here. I live in one of the best neighbourhoods of the city, in a very nice and cheap city that I really like. I have a beautiful park one block from my house. Nice coffee shops, some nice and cheap food... nice life. I will miss it all. But more than anything I will miss the people here.

Due to an accident, I won’t meet my best friend here – Paula. She will stay – fortunately – for 15 more days in Culiacán, recovering herself from a car crash that happened with her around 20 days ago. I’ve just talked with one of my best friends here, and we will not be able to meet because he is lightly sick and it’s not advised for him to leave his house. Since people are not in classes, for sure, I won’t meet most of the magical people that made my experience here so nice. I am truly sad about that.

I had to take probably the hardest decision of my life. I am giving up on so many things that I was planning that it couldn’t make me sadder. But I have the support of these people as well. They want to see me healthy and ready to come back to my country 100%. That’s my best chance. I just changed my flight. I am coming back home tomorrow. I will leave this country and I leave it with the sensation that it wasn’t complete. I gave up on the dreams of travelling around Mexico, making a movie about my life here, getting to know nice and different things, people and places. Shopping random things. I will miss this all.

I leave this country feeling like a coward, leaving the people that I really like by their own. And I don’t have much more to say than: I am sorry... I am sad about it... I will miss you all!

:(

From México to México (Final Part) - About Guatemala

So, I went to Guatemala. I learned a lot of things on this trip and here I will have the opportunity to share that with you. The conditions were: still a bit tired from the trip to Italy, going before everyone (together just with Janeth) to provide support for the Organize Communication (OC) to perform and to check the financial situation of the conference.

I got there and started to work. I faced a lot of challenges since the beginning. The OC were facing 2 main challenges: financial issues and with communication. Let’s talk about to the one that is more complex: communication.

I and Janeth come up with some dynamics and we had the chance to have one day with the OC to work with those points. The mood wasn’t the best and we were a bit scared. From what we heard from them – I can be honest now to say – that we were really afraid about how this event would be delivered.

Then, the last harder to fix, but definitely the one that could generate harder consequences: money. When we finally could have clarity about the numbers in the budget – and it really took a long time to happen – I realized that the OC was starting ILC with a loss of 19.000,00 USD. I couldn’t be more afraid because the situation was indeed chaotic. The MC had no idea about this number, the OC wasn’t very concerned about the budget, no financial incomes, few opportunities to fundraise – a real hard situation to deal with.

After a while things were improving massively: the other facis arriving, the chair arriving, the start of the preparation of the conference itself. Everything was much better. I had a lot of fun with the Brazilian corner and my friends there. Keeping in mind all the challenges that we still had with the OC, we started the conference: 3 days pre-meeting that I was much more involved in OC stuff than with stuff related to the sessions that I had to deliver. In something around 2 days I was able to see one of the most drastic changes that I saw in my professional life.

We changed things in the budget: reduced meals, re-negotiated with the hotel, looked after sponsorship for beers, and checked every single line in the budget to search for possible expenses to cut. The OC finally started to work together and delivered an amazing conference. And also showed up another character in this history that I truly believe that had a huge impact on all of it: the chair.

This English dude, 22 years old – younger than most of the people in the faci team – with a great mood, the will to work hard, the ability to do everything in a very smooth way, to deal and have effective communication with a very diverse group of people, to adapt and change due to external impositions, to manage people to take the best of them.

And the content of the conference was also very appreciated by the delegates. Indeed I was experiencing the best AIESEC conference I’ve ever seen happening. I had some challenges with some stuff: DHL almost disconfirmed and confirmed the participation one day before the conference started; I still had meetings with the OC to attend and it took a lot of my time for sessions; some of the sessions needed to be done under the running-tired mode. Obviously, the results weren’t the best for my sessions.

This experience drove me to get to some important conclusions:

- You don’t need to be great, if you’re able to take the right decisions. If those decisions are related to the people that will be working with you, you’re halfway to succeed.

- Prioritizing has a cost. People will see what was damaged, but most of them will never get to really know what was preserved.

- Sometimes, one person can make the whole difference. If this difference is made by being able to manage people, somehow, it would be possible to deal with almost any circumstance. It seems to be something desirable to be chased by everyone that wants to succeed. (Yes, I’ve learned that with JJ)

- You can have some of the best time of your life... working.

- You can be effective and have loads of fun at the same time. It will depend who will be on your side.

- Shit happens. The art of life is to be able to clean it without anyone noticing. The rule for that is: don’t go against laws or ethics. Keep your boundaries with you.

- The best plate that you may taste in your life can be a mushroom soup in the presidential house of the Republic of Guatemala.

The results of the conference almost couldn’t be better: the OC left the conference having profit; the facis did some of the best sessions that I’ve heard about in my life; the delegates were extremely happy: I’ve never seen a mood good enough to let all the delegations to evaluate with the highest grades the OC more than one day; the connections between the facis was incredible – it’s been a while since I’ve seen people having that much fun; delegates learned a lot and are now able to come back to their countries to apply what they have learned: we empowered a region. The dream of many people was realized: we had a GREAT ILC.

And I was ready to go travelling around :)

I was happy that I had this crazy group of Colombians, Ruthie and Mishu to go around Guatemala. We went to: Tikal, Panajachel, Antígua and we climbed the volcano Pacaya and saw lava 3 meters away from us. It was all magical. I was really happy to have received this nice invitation and I truly enjoyed every moment of this trip.

I am happy I am finally finished this huge history. I was missing writing about random topics that I know that you that are reading this blog also like. But since I started, I thought it would better to finish. I hope you have enjoyed this history that finishes with me coming back to Mexico, where I am going to stay for the next 2.5 months.

Thanks again for reading it. And for the ones that didn’t like, don’t worry. I am sure that in the short term I won’t have such a huge route to talk about.

Cheers! :)

Ps.: I’ve also learned – again and again – about that people generally won’t recognize what you have done. But I am still happy that I am in AIESEC to learn about these things. It will help me a lot on the future. :)

From México to México (Part 4) - It's missing just one :D

So, when I started to write the series of these posts, I was clear that I would like to be as positive as possible with all the aspects. Definitely I was mainly talking about the period between the interviews and the next announcements. I really have many opinions, that I had the chance to share with some of my friends there in IPM – especially with other candidates and my GNB Family. Those thoughts would be around: the AI selection process, the process that we passed through, some questions around some of the people selected... but I really don’t want to talk about everything. In the end, what really matter is that: I wasn’t selected.

I guess everything in our lives somehow contributes for us to learn better how to lose. When you win, you get to know people that lost and that makes you think about how it would be to be in their places; all the situations that you pass in your life that takes you up and down and how you learn with them; the attempts that you did for something much bigger that you were already expecting to do not be elected; many other things. I was thinking about these situations, in my case.

I came from a rich family that suddenly started to have a lot of financial problems. I honestly think that, despite of all the pain that we had in our lives due to this big change, it was the best thing that could ever happened to me. I needed to pass from the situation of living in the best places in my city to some ones that were almost inhospitable. For a short while I was sharing a room with my father that almost couldn’t fit a bed and a closet. The whole house was small and very hot. That was a hard moment for me. After we came back for a better life condition – but then my brother had a hard accident.

Due to these facts, I needed to move from my city to another 4 times in a period of 2 years. After 2 more years, I changed again. I knew that I needed to study and then I came back to be one of the best students of my class. In the meanwhile I lived for 5 months in a room of 1.5 meters by 2. I knew that because my bed was beating both walls and if I put my feet on the wall in one side, my head and shoulders would come out of the door. Since I am 1.83, I imagine those were the dimensions.

After, I went to the Management School. There I was elected president of the junior enterprise in odd conditions. After I got into AIESEC and it started my journey of losing elections. I applied for President of AIESEC in Brazil. I didn’t get it. I tried again, I didn’t get it. I applied for AIESEC International, I didn’t get it and I applied for Regional External Relations Manager when I was finally chosen.

Those processes were very hard to me. Somehow, all of them were. I learned a lot about it and I grew a lot which makes me completely not regret about participating on them. But after all getting to this selection process of AI I got to the conclusion that: you cannot learn how to lose. It is really hard to handle that. Actually, what happened during all of those experiences that I had is that you learn how to deal better with the sensation of losing, but not how to deal with all of it.

In the first day I was really frustrated because I couldn’t understand some things that happened in the selection process. In the second I got to know much more information and instead of frustrated I became just sad with the results. It was a tough time. And one of the things that I thought during this period was “would did I lose and what did I win not being elected?”. So here comes the list:

Things that I’ve lost:

To be part of AIESEC International was a dream of mine since I went to my first national conference in AIESEC. It’s hard to see that you must give up on your dreams.

I knew that I could contribute a lot for AIESEC International, AIESEC Globally and for any region that I could be elected. I feel sad that I cannot show this contribution.

I was really aiming to live in Europe and in Rotterdam. I know that the city is kind of boring but I was really looking after it for different reasons.

I feel like I waste a lot of time in the application process, without much reason. I really worked like hell, many weekends to ensure that I could have a good application and get prepared to the process. Somehow I feel like I’ve lost my time in this sense.

It may sound stupid but whenever you are travelling and getting to know more people you get connected to them. The fact that I was being able to somehow inspire these people really attracted me. And it would be also reflected to this blog – that by the way I write in English because somehow I feel like many people can get connected to my way of life and to my ideas. It really gives meaning to this experience in AIESEC.

The things that I won:

I am tired. I am really tired. I feel that it is physically and work related. For sure there were people with much more time in AIESEC applying and they were probably not as tired as I was. I tried to find an explanation for that and my conclusion is that, I had some hardcore experience. Working in ER in the year of IC in Brazil and my experience in the IGN really drained my energy somehow. I am happy I am coming back home then, for main reasons: rest, to do not damage my performance as director, to finally finish my university, to meet my friends and family again. In the end, I am happy about it. :)

I don’t feel connected to the way that AIESEC is currently doing many things and with some of the people from the elected AI team. It’s better for me to do not be elected because I feel that I could be bringing conflict about many points of AIESEC International. It maybe wouldn’t be nor useful for me neither for the organization.

I am getting reconnected to my professional future and I must be happy for that. I never cared much about money, but to have some is also very good. I am very tired of living under the conditions that I am living currently and I am sure that I can finally find my independency in the short term.

I want to be able to show that I can be again a great professional in a company. I’ve done it before and now I have the chance again.

I am coming back to Brazil: food, family, friends, home. Not much more to say.

Coming back to IPM, I ran for AIESEC International for the 3rd time in my life: VPOS. Despite of everything that I said above, this time I was ready to lose. :) I didn’t get any surprised for not being selected. Indeed, I was much less surprised than I was for not having 3 VPs elected. And then, I spent the rest of IPM more hanging around than doing anything. Thinking, reflecting, having fun with my friends...

After IPM I had another great moment which was the trip through Italy. I finally had the chance to go around Rome and also to go to Naples (Nápole, Nápoles). I loved all of it. To see Vesuvius with my eyes, to see the Vatican, the Fontana di Trevi, to drink the hot chocolate of Naples, to taste the Marguerita Pizza from the place that it was created... all priceless. I was there in Naples with a trainee from my city (Enzo Busiello) that was a great friend that I had in Brazil. We had a lot of fun together – in Brazil and in Italy. I am still frustrated that I didn’t see the Sistine Chapter. But that’s a great reason for me to come back to Italy. :)

In three days was heading back to México for 2 days before going to Guatemala for another conference...I am heading for the last chapter of this large story. I truly hope that you’re enjoying.

To be written the last part...

Ps.: you can see the pictures of my trip here:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mtkaiesec/RomePlaces

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mtkaiesec/RomePeople

Ps2.: Seeing now the pictures I reminded me about something fun. During the global village Driss made me eat something very spicy from Tunisia. I kept a black spot on my teeth. Nobody ever told me and I took all the pictures with this mtf black spot. People after was asking me: "But nobody told you?" The fact was that... I was taking the pictures, so nobody could see. One more time, kehding :D

From México to México (Part 3)

So I arrived to IPM. The first days were for the preparation of IGN Pre meeting. I didn’t have my luggage and the hostel was a bit lousy. But it was okay, we would stay just some few days there... so no problems with that. We delivered IPM pre meeting and everything went smooth. It was really good to be there the IGN people because they were always very supportive and they were also cooperating a lot with the sessions and everything.

I had one of the hardest moments there which was presenting my results on ER. It was interesting because, due to the situation, all the MCPs were able to understand why we couldn’t fundraise in our period. It was a personal tough time for me, but I really think they understood the point and were again very supportive.

Afterwards we got to the conference. First day it was opening ceremony and then global village. The host guy of the opening ceremony was one of the weirdest things that I’ve ever seen in my life. But anyway, on the ceremony there was a classical band playing that was simply amazing. I really advise you to take a look, even the people that doesn’t like much of classical music. It changed a bit my concept. This Harmony.

In the meanwhile between opening ceremony and global village we took a time to go to Coliseum. It is funny because, due to my impression made with movies, I always thought that it was much bigger than I saw it indeed. Global village was really cool and there were a lot of people visiting us in a warm place and we had a lot of fun shouting the shouts of our regions.

IPM then finally starts. First day was dedicated to the PAI speeches and special event. Second day we got to the stage and did our speeches. It’s funny because actually at this point most of the people not even know that you’re a candidate. But after the speech it changes a lot. It was a great sensation. Tons of people – most of them that I’ve never seen before, come to you and support you a lot. My speech I think was very different of the average and expected speech from a director candidate. I must confess that I was a bit scared after talking to some people (specially the current AIESEC International team) and they said that their speeches were much more turned to the organizational perspective. I really disagreed that it should be our approaches because, they will elect someone that is good or not on something based on ourselves. Who defines where we are going is actually the President elected and there is a huge contribution of the current AI team. Imagine all of that, without knowing for which Region in the world would you be allocated!? ...

I took my shot and did it differently. I talked about myself, my history, why I was there why I wanted to be there... somehow it worked out. After the question and answers – where they had the chance to check more about specific knowledge we passed for the announcements.

Something made me really frustrated in the Q&A. When we were in Central and Eastern Europe – Region that by the way was the one that I was prioritizing for my elections – they did the funny question (all the GNs generally always do). The question was: “Does size matter?” It was frustrating because in the beginning Mehmet and Driss didn’t get the question and when they got it they just answered: “Yes it matters.” :( I didn’t have time to think about a good answer because they were so fast... and afterwards I came up with some very good ones:

- It’s not the size of the entity that really matters but how further it can gets.

-
No, size doesn’t matters. There are some big entities that are showing no performance and in the other hand small ones being able to growth a lot and increase the volume of high quality experiences delivered.

Unfortunately my answer at that time was only, something around: yes, size matters. The funny thing is that after one girl came to us and said: just FYI all the girls answer that it doesn’t matter. It was funny.

We went smoothly through the process and we get the confidence vote. It was very interesting for us because, apparently there was a balance among the Presidents candidates. But when we got to the results, Aman won with a huge difference of votes. For the first time in the last 3 years, we had a PAI elected in the first round of votes. It was a surprise for us, mainly because we couldn’t see what happened in the Q&A and I honestly think that it was the moment when Aman actually won the elections.

Next days: interviews. I was really dedicated to the process itself, trying to relax, to think about myself, do not get too much stressed and everything. But there was someone very special in this process and I am very thankful to her. Since the beginning of the process when we met in pre meeting we spent all the IPM (and some days after together). Since we were both candidates, we were all the time supporting each other on the process and talking all day long, having fun, making fun with the rest of the people and etc. So I really would like to thanks Eva (Madeira) for all the time that we spent together there.

I was heading to the interview. I did it. At this point of time it was really interesting because most of the MCPs of IGN said explicitly to me that they really wanted me to be the next director for IGN. It was really good mainly because somehow it was a nice recognition to the work that I was delivering at that point.

And we went to the announcements... to be continued :)

From México to México (Part 2)

I left my flight and I had some difficulties to find the places where my luggage supposed to be. After going around for a while I finally found it out. After I found it, I had troubles trying to find something else: my luggage. It was lost. When I went to the place to claim my luggage, everything went fine... except for the fact that I forgot the address of my hostel there with the guy that was attending me – for them to know where they should send the luggage.

So I left the place and tried to withdraw money with my 2 credit cards. Obviously, none of my cards worked out. Without having many more options, I went to change the dollars that I had. The 100 dollars that I had became 61 euro. I am telling the details because they’re going to be important in the story, believe me. So I got the train that people told me to get. I either got the wrong one, or the indications that they gave me were wrong. Any of the two options would screw me up. And I actually got screwed.

Besides that, after I got into the train I discovered that I haven’t authenticated my ticket – which also means that, it wasn’t valid then. If any guard stops me at this time, I would have to pay a huge fine. One important part is that my ticket cost 11 euro – which means that I had exactly 50 euro left.

Finally, I’ve got to the wrong station in the metro. At this point I was lucky: no guard checked my ticket in my trip. :) From the wrong station where I’ve arrived I could either to get a metro or a bus. With my non-existent Italian, I couldn’t ask for information. When I finally could, I asked for a guy from the information centre and he told me to get the bus 910 and then the 218. When I tried to buy the ticket it cost 1 euro. I had just a bill of 50, so I needed to change the money. I went to a place with sandwiches inside the station again and there I changed my money. Went back, bought the ticket and get into the bus. After I got there, I’ve got the news from the driver that it was the wrong bus. I supposed to get a metro (do you remember that I’ve lost the address of the hostel, right?) to somewhere.

So I went to the metro station. With the stamp of tourist in my forehead I started to check the map of the metro to see where I should go. The place was the emptiest metro station that I’ve ever been in my life. After some seconds that I was checking there the map a guy came to ask me for money. Considering that he was all the time looking behind his shoulders and came to me and asked for 5 euro to do something (speaking in English) – for me it’s was a robbery attempt.

I got to 2 conclusions:

- Shit!! That’s a robbery! With 5 Euros I can spend almost 2 whole days in Mexico with all my meals!

- Man!! Thieves in Italy are so smart that they speak English!! He was speaking English better than the information guy... and thinking by this perspective, he could be providing information instead of stealing people...

So I went back to the information centre for metro station. The guy that spoke a little bit of English could teach me which metro station I should go. When I asked about the bus that I should take there to go to the hostel he said: “here is metro information! We don’t give information about buses.” I was holding myself to do not laugh reminding the public services in Brazil. :)

I followed the information, got the metro and arrived to the station. When I left the metro I didn’t know where to go... into a very deep cold weather... I walked for something like 2 blocks, got some new information and came back to get the right bus. I followed the instructions that asked the guy to stop close to the hostel. He did it, but when I left I had no clue where should I go again. I saw a street going down for a group of houses and I thought that could be there.

That was one of the most exciting parts of my trip. Since the weather was really cold there was nothing on the street. I really felt like I was any version of “Resident Evil”. I was just waiting for the first zombie to come to me and start to try to bite me and get my blood. Fortunately it didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the place. I checked for some place to ask for information and there was a bar around but my fear of having some zombies taking drinks on that place was so big that I decided just to come back. It was almost midnight.

In my way back I found a person parking its car. I tried to speak with it in some languages and he finally explained me how to get to the hostel. It was around 2 blocks from where I was. I thanked him and finally arrived in the place. By the way, the money that I had left was exactly enough to pay for one night for me. I just bought a very expensive internet card to tell my family this history and that I was fine. Few minutes after I started Mali arrived. She and Mo couldn’t get why I was so white and without reaction. I guess after reading this post they would understand better. :)

Until that moment my conclusions about Italia were:

• People are incredibly beautiful. And they do use the weird fashion things that we see on the television. And it works out.


• Everything was really expensive. For me, it was almost like Paris.


• I didn’t like the Coffee machine of the hotel. It swallowed 1 euro from me.


• The water to take shower was hot, but the restroom was a small fridge. I am serious about the possibility of storing some ham above the beds there.

To be continued...