In a short moment, your whole life can change. When you get the possibility to make your dream come true - take a deep breath and just go for it!
Until I graduated High School, I lived my life in the unknown trying my best to be a good Norwegian following the rules and norms of our society:
- Don’t talk to people you don’t know, and always be 10 minutes early wherever you go.
- If you get very exited about something, don't make a scene and always use your "indoors voice" even though every fiber in your body wants to scream and jump up and down.
- If you are over 30 and not an expert; dancing is not something you should engage in when other people are around: you might make a fool out of yourself!
- If you as a child find it quite scary that the head of Rudolph the reindeer is hanging on your uncle's wall, don't make a fuss about it. "it is a old Norwegian tradition and a very appropriate decoration".
And last but not least: Norwegians don't normally show their emotions and they don't touch a lot. So just because you know someone doesn't make it OK to hug them. Knowing when to hug people has been a head scratcher for me all my life. Well in Latin America a hug and a kiss is never far away, and for me moving to Cuba was an eye-opening and revolutionary experience. I fell completely in love with the culture and way of life. Mañana mañana just suited be so much better than RIGHT NOW and although I realize I will never be good at it, life is just so much better when you can dance and laugh out loud.
The last 7 years, I have been moving around from Cuba to Norway to Ecuador to Australia to Norway to Ecuador to Colombia to Ecuador to Norway to Paris and then back to Ecuador again. I always go back to Quito. Since I arrived five years ago I have been back 16 times and to say I have overstayed my welcome is not an exaggeration. Twice I have ended up as an illegal immigrant at the Colombian border with tears in my eyes explaining that although it might not look like it and I don't have a Ecuadorian passport or valid VISA, I am a Ecuadorian just like them. I was always kind of dramatic as child and unfortunately this quality has made me quite the drama-queen on my older days searching for adventures (often just problems) wherever I go. This is something Quito and the Ecuadorian or Latin people never fail to provide and I am yet to experience a boring day in Latin-America.
So there I was, two months ago. Hanging out in my favorite country in the world with a 9-5 job at UNESCO. I ate rice and fried fish every day, could listen to my favorite music on every street-corner, was surrounded by my Ecuadorian family and friends as well as my worst enemies. To be completely honest; life felt pretty sweet. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would ever voluntarily shorten my stay in Quito, but that was exactly what happened when I first read about the AidCom Dream Year.
All my life I wanted to be a journalist travelling the world telling the stories of people usually not represented in the media. When I graduated my journalism-studies, the reality of the profession slapped me in the face. I realized how polarized our media coverage is and how we decide what is important in the world according to criterias I couldn't understand. After doing a second bachelor degree in Latin-American studies mostly at the National University of Colombia I was given the possibility to travel around Ecuador with president Rafael Correa for his reelection campaign. This experience just made me more upset about how stories from this part of the world usually have to involve drugs, crimes, natural disasters or football to make the news back home. After two sleepless nights with nerve-wrecking interviews in the middle of the night because of the time-difference, I knew this job would be perfect for me. Not only am I very exited about exploring parts of the world I could only dream of, but monitoring happenings all over the world not having to think about if this information sells or if Justin Bieber getting new curtains might be more interesting is such a relief. I am very exited to take part of the new dream-team and after a couple of days with a horrible jet lag and more mosquito bites than I can remember having my entire life, I have officially started my Dream Year in Kuala Lumpur.
0 comments:
Post a Comment