Alive and kickin'
Sorry guys I've been in an internet-void for a while. I'm just waiting to start my work next week so I can post more often. Now I'm in an internet cafe cos I want to share some initial thoughts with you.To be honest the first couple of days were quite weird, at the same time I was just smiling at everything because everything was so new and exciting and on the other hand I felt the new environment wasn't that good. The flat was really dirty, all sorts of insects were running around and by the time I met a 15-cm spider I thought I couldn't live there. The worst thing was the heat in my room, that happens to be the hottest room in the whole community. I'm still not coping with that, cannot really sleep that well. However, I'm going to switch rooms at some point so shouldn't worry too much about it. Also the local traffic and pollution was quite terrifying in the start. There are dozens of spare-part stores alongside roads and now I understand why. :] They are driving like crazy!However, the adaptation started pretty quickly. I don't mind anymore taking a shower [or rather just a line of dribbling water] with a few spiders, ants and a worm. I'm ok with the traffic and now it seems natural that people are tooting the horn constantly: it's not to irritate the others but to communicate with them. Oh yeah, and I don't care about the mosquitoes anymore. At first I was panicking if I'd catch dengue fever or even malaria but now I'm not scared of them anymore. I've been bitten by mosquitoes many times already, so if I catch the fever I'll just cope with it and go to hospital. That reminds me of one undone practicality... I still haven't got the insurance fixed. I got my visa only yesterday and opened up the bank account today. Maybe I get to fix the health insurance also today. That would bring me a certain peace of mind. It's funny how small things make you adapt better and better; cleaning and decorating your room, putting up a picture of your girlfriend, calling home, getting a wrist band from the trainees as a mark of being one of them, getting the practicalities fixed, eating good food in low-quality restaurants, sipping a bit of tap water every day to improve the immune system, the list goes on...I won't tell you much of what has happened so far because I believe one picture tells more than a thousand words and I cannot yet upload the pictures. You have to wait till next week. I can reveal a bit though: last weekend we went to Dambulla and Sigiriya with Shek, Samantha and Sasha. It was so cool that Shek just said to me on Friday that we are going. I was like "Oh, they just assume that I go with them. Cool!" I didn't have to beg on my knees that I could go. Ok, Dambulla was not much more than a commercialized tourist attraction, although there was an impressive collection of buddha statues in the cave temples. But the locals who treat us like tourists and use their all wit to just rip off our money, sometimes successfully, brought my mood down. Next day I was afraid that the bad mood would continue as we went to the Sigiriya rock, a 350-meter cliff with amazing views and 1200 stairs. You see, there was a guy at the gate who just started walking with us and not even saying that he's a guide. We should have agreed before whether we want a guide or not but we didn't so now we justs silently accepted that we take one. He wasn't much of use in explaining the history of the rock but he took some nice pictures of us and acted quite politely. Actually I hate it when the people in the tourist locations call you sir. I'm not a sir. I'm just a normal guy like them. Sad... Anywho, in Colombo it's better. The sales people are not that pushy and they are more used to see white skin. Still, this is what I wanted... to experience how it feels to be different. And believe me, you can feel it.As the last thing in this posting I want to give you my new phone number: +94775359809. By the way, when I tried to copy the phone numbers to my new SIM card I accidentally erased most of my numbers. So, if you want to stay in touch with me via cell phone, please drop me an SMS with your name included or put your number here in the blog.Over and out for now!
Arrivin to Sri Lanka
Hey ho! I'm here, finally! Sadly I cannot upload any pictures yet since I've just been here for five hours or so, and I'm now sitting at the AIESEC office without my camera cable. Anywho, let's start from the beginning. There I was in Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The girl at the check-in had to call help from her colleague who advised to contact the team leader who then finally heard from someone that it's okay to go to Sri Lanka without the return ticket or visa. After some 20 minutes I was finally on my way... Well, on my way for waiting the first plane. The plane model was Fokker, you know, one of those small fockers. It wasn't that steady in turbulence and no way did they serve anything during the flight. However, I managed to find my way to Vienna airport where I spent the next four hours, reading Sinuhe Egyptian (the #1 Finnish novel of all times), listening Metallica and CMX and enjoying the solitude with some cigarettes and Heineken. Finally departing to Colombo I, surprise surprise, bumbed into a Finnish family who was going to spend next two years in Sri Lanka, working for Red Cross. Well I didn't have that much time to chat with them so I just enjoyed the catering and The Pink Panther movie (not as crappy as I thought). I couldn't really sleep at night due to lack of space... and maybe a hunch of excitement in my veins.
Finally I arrived to Colombo airport, went to toilet and had to explain to the old Tamil guy that I don't have rupees yet, got my luggage after a while of waiting and, poof, there they were, my new friends... the Colombo North executive board Kasun, Madhu, Thilini, Isuru and Thilanka. They are just the sweetest people. We had such a blast going from the airport to the K house (my flat): I even got to taste the king coconut juice right out of the coconut! As I didn't expect pretty much anything, own room with a fan and mosquito net and a community style household clearly exceeded those expectations. Just next to our house there is another trainee house called Rome. Birds and other animals are making their exotic sounds right next to my window, there's a king coconut tree on the yard and the place is only a walk away from the AIESEC office. After I had taken a quick shower we went to have my first genuine Sri Lankan lunch. It was awesome! Although it wasn't as spicy as I had heard. Well, there's still 18 months to dig into the Sri Lankan cuisine and find those intestine-exploding dishes. :) The guys had a blast when they were examining all the mistakes I made eating by hand. I'll learn. In any case, they were amazed how much I actually knew about the country and its specialities already. Wattaka, by the way, is a dish and it also means "fat ass". :) Synonymous for that is "loku puka" (though that's not a dish). One day I start learning the more useful words. Till that I just dwell in my misery, knowing that my second name Pekka is quite close to pakka (It's up to you to find out what it means).
I'm going, I'm going...
As if I would have time to write blog postings... My bus to the airport leaves 11:58, that's less than two hours. I just realized my luggage is not closing so I had to shift all the stuff to another luggage. Luckily Paula helped me with that. I still need to go and do some shopping (more salmiakki, book about Finland, a suitcase belt etc). One could say I'm panicking... :) Ok, enough blabbering. Thanks for all the farewell wishes. Now I hit the road! There might be a few days break in posting but I try to let you know when I'm there...
Another internship available in Wild Drift
They contacted me from Wild Drift to ask around if some of my friends would be ready to go for an internship in the same place with me but with a job description in sales and marketing. Check it out from Insight: TN-In-LK-CN-2006-1258! Contact the TN manager Isuru (isuru_boy@yahoo.com) and current trainee Jara (jarmule@gmail.com) if you're interested.
Just for clarification, I'm not actually working for Wild Drift but a company called Unleash Talent Inc. However, the boss is the same and we work in the same office. UIC is more inclined to developing long-term strategic tools for organizations whereas Wild Drift is offering the trainings for management and teams.
Started packing...
...Yeah right! :) Just wasting my time.
My living conditions
I finally found out my address (the one in the right pane). There are two trainee flats called "K house" and "Rome". I'll be living in the former, in K house with a Dutch guy called Juriaan Deumer. I heard he's ummm... Dutch... and ummm... tall... surprising! :) Isuru (one of my buddies) said that he's also very nice. Would have been nice to drop him an email and start getting to know him a bit earlier, but since I'm leaving in 29 hours and don't have his email address... what can you do. Anywho, the place is in Kirillapone, on the outskirts of Colombo. Blah, blah, blah.... Should I finally start packing? :)
Dead letters
My 10th Ilosaarirock started in a gloomy way. A friend of a friend drowned late Friday evening. We tried to
give first aid and everyone did their utmost for his survival... but he passed away early next morning in the hospital. Of course it was a shitty thing to happen, no questions asked, but in the long run it can be a strengthening experience for many. At least my thinking tweaked again into a bit more positive angle; now I do respect all the small things that make my life perfect. Just remember that every day can be Your last, so you should live accordingly: enjoy the life and make sure others around you enjoy too. It's up to each individual to define what this enjoyment means.
Maybe it wasn't the perfect way to spend the last weekend in Finland for a long while. However, in 30 hours I should be in the plane to Sri Lanka and I think I'm now more prepare to face whatever comes along during the next 1,5 years. Still, I haven't packed yet, so over and out for now!
Some Finnish moments to remember...
Visit this link to get a glimpse of Finland.
What famous leader are you?
Oh my god! The whole of our team made this abovementioned test some time in the spring and I turned up to be like Saddam Hussein. :) Well, I kind of forgot about it until I ran up on it again at Ladi's page. I thought I'd give it a shot again just to make sure I'm not like Saddam... Well, you can see the result above. Sad! Damn!
Pesis to Sri Lanka
I have for a while thought about one crazy idea: taking Finnish baseball (Pesäpallo or Pesis) to Sri Lanka as a means for teambuilding of the customers of Wild Drift, another company that my boss in Unleash Talent Inc owns partly. Now I did it: I contacted Berner Sport, an enterprise that is marketing Karhu pesis equipment, and enquired preliminarily about the possibility of doing cooperation with them. If they think it's a good idea I'll talk to my boss about it. Who knows, maybe the national game of Finland becomes a huge hit in the land that is so frenetic about cricket!
Here's some background for those who are completely unaware of what is this sports I'm talking about: Pesäpallo (literally "Baseball" in Finnish) was a game invented by Tahko Pihkala 80 years ago, who thought the American version wasn't good enough. Originated in Finland, it's now played at least in Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and Japan. The Kiwis (New Zealanders) have translated the game to Pallonz. This is how they describe the game: "Pallonz is the New Zealand version of Pesapallo which is game which although similar to both baseball and softball brings more thinking more cunning and more concentration to the game than any other sport. It has the skill of cricket and the tactics of American Football."
Farewell party
Yesterday we gathered to have a picnic in a park to meet all the friends before leaving the country. Afterwards we went to Hevimesta to sing heavy metal karaoke for the last time. Altogether some 25-30 people took part in picnic. Thanks everyone for being there, whether your reason was just to have an excuse for drinking or you were genuinely delighted to get rid of me. :) And big applause for Paula who made it all happen; it wasn't the most complicated thing to organize but it meant a whole lot to me. Thank you!
Thumb-whacking
No, I wasn't doing anything dirty although the title of this posting might give you such image. I had absolutely nothing to do so I played Tony Hawk's Proskater 3 and now my thumbs hurt like hell. Great game though! Just wanted to let you know that even I have my occasional weaknesses. :) Now I'm off to my farewell party. Take care!
Thesis online!
My Master's thesis about Diversity management, team leadership and nonprofit organizations is now online! The case organization was AIESEC in Finland.
The lighter side of Tamils
Like already mentioned before, LTTE is just one pissed-off fraction of Tamil population. Moreover, many Tamils live outside Sri Lanka, known as Tamil diaspora. So, I went off to search what are these guys doing on the enterntainment business. So, I started my search but got stuck with the first new face, Maya Arulpragasam (better known as M.I.A), an artist who mixes dance beats and electro hip hop grooves - music quite unfamiliar to me, but surprisingly catchy still. Born in London but brought up in Sri Lanka, her father was a Tamil Tiger and remained a mystery to her for most of her youth. The family was relocated to a shanty in India for a time, then back to Sri Lanka , and eventually out to the refugee ghettoes of West London. Her videos Galanga, Sunshowers and Bucky Done Gun can be found from You Tube.
Whilst youtubing M.I.A I came across with Aziz Ansari, an American chap who's doing stand-up comedy. You just got to see his miniseries Shutterbugs! It's hilarious!
What a network
It's funny that I haven't even settled in Sri Lanka yet and I already know many people who have been there or are there currently: Sifaan I got to know when I was applying to Estonian MC (wasn't elected); Dan was facilitating with me in a Finnish conference called ACCESS 2005 and now I'm going to his wedding on 10 August; Padmaka I almost matched to an internship Finland; with Suchith, Isuru, Thilini, Ego and Dommy I've been in touch for preparation of the internship; Cezar I know through PetaK; I'll be working with Jara and playing football with Rasmus; I've been briefly in touch with Lina, Roxy and Mirka and met Tomi to prepare for Sri Lanka; Lana (Tomi's future-wife) gave me good cultural tips; I've been in constant communication with my boss Ruky; Tasha visited me already during winter and so on.
It's good to go there as I can expect to be around good people. The local AIESECers are a great help for getting accustomed to the culture, the other interns are a good safety net and most likely great fun to hang out with but I also want some local non-AIESEC friends (who are not yet brainwashed to be culturally tolerant and all that).
Current feelings...
It feels so weird that I've had the internship coming for half a year and now there's only a week to go. Now it clears to me: a bit over one week to stay in Finland - still the farewell party and Ilosaarirock to experience, packing to do, and weird emotions to go through. As a matter of fact, I feel really odd at the moment: on one hand, I'm delighted to finally leave for the experience of my life. On the other hand, I'm feeling quite sad to leave everything behind: extremely nice weather, amazing girl friend, good friends, family and the certain safety of this organized country.
My Macedonian friend Petak said to me a couple of months ago that there will be moments of questioning whether it was a good decision to go for such a long period of time in such a remote country. Well yeah, I've got that feeling already dozens of times... and it will come back to me many times during the internship. However, he continued that at those times one should bear in mind that there was some reasoning for this decision, some inner motivational factors that urged me to take the steps I'm taking. Although many of those factors are so in-built that one cannot explicitly state them - or even understand them oneself - some of the obvious ones for me include:
- will to experience what it feels like to be different
- spreading my wings and testing if I can fly with all the rehearse I've done for the past five years - both professionally and personally
- will to build cultural understanding for the future endeavors in multinational environment
- need to test if my future plans really are what I should be doing - i.e. global entrepreneurship, relationships with the key people in my life and so on
- finding my place in a new environment (I've never felt that much at home in Finland, although lately I've at least become much more aware of my own culture)
Hopefully having and coming back to this humble list will enable me to overcome the moments of desperation. Funnily enough, right now might be the first time I really need to understand my motives and explain to myself once more why I opened certain doors and simultaneously kept some closed.
No matter how confused I am right now, I know that there are good people in Finland that care of me. They - my friends, family and girlfriend - have lately given me the best of vacations. It has helped me to relax and charge the batteries for the coming endeavors. You know who you are, thank you for being there for me!
Pictures from Metal Mass
Previously I mentioned that we went to see the church service in which all the hymns were re-composed in heavy metal style. Now you can view the pictures either in www.metallimessu.com or in Diaidea website. For the foreigners viewing my page I want to emphasize that this is not the traditional way of serving god in Finland, but definitely a good way. I hope it becomes a tradition so that also people like me - who don't really believe in god but who are interested in spirituality - can go and hear about this religion from genuine down-to-earth people, who are connected to you through one common factor; good music.
Volunteering in Sri Lanka
If someone one day feels that life in Finland (or any other western country) doesn't offer enough experiences, people are wining about unimportant things as everything is so well or you just genuinely want to help, here are some opportunities for volunteering in Sri Lanka. You can also make Donations for local children (in Finnish) or ask for available teaching and other volunteering jobs from:
oskari[at]herrankukkaro.fi
This would make a good movie
Soon the whole country of Sri Lanka will be in havoc again. Both LTTE and Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) have heavily armed forces and - I'm just guessing here - some civilians are either hired to commit violations or are just damn stupid doing so. Hence, the Cease Fire Agreement cannot be kept, neither by LTTE nor by the GOSL.
For once, the promises made seem to be of little or no value for both sides. This might be a cultural thing or just a matter of trust: Once the two parties agree on something, someone - who's not necessarily from LTTE or GOSL - goes and kills a politician or an officer... and the hell breaks loose again!
If only the general public would know what is actually happening behind the scenes. I bet there's a lot of money circulating around through the dirty hands of many. Publicly, it is said that agreement for peace would be the best option for all. In practice, people seem to have either differing aims or they just hold grievances of the deeds done in the past.
This would make a good movie. However, at least for me it would be damn difficult to tell who are the bad guys and who are the heroes. At least for now, my impression is that by committing acts of violence the people of Sri Lanka are just "peeing in their own cereal" - if you excuse my harsh figure of speech.
Finally, when I say "people of Sri Lanka" I mean just a fraction of the total amount of inhabitants on the island. Every Sri Lankan I've met so far, have been the most warm-hearted, laid-back and symphatetic people I've ever met! Can't wait to be there...
No fear!
"In Sri Lanka, there is nothing scarier than being a Tamil person of influence—whether you are a teacher, a school principal, a doctor, a journalist, a politician, or a successful businessman. Ordinary Tamils have learned to keep their heads down, do exactly what their neighbors do, and not make waves." - A Western Sri Lanka expert
I have been told many times that as a sudha (white foreigner) I don't need to worry about my safety in Sri Lanka. Still, reading The Human Rights Watch studies on LTTE violence I started thinking; what if either GOSL or LTTE finds out about my blog and gets pissed off for some reason? What if my conscientious objector t-shirt (with the logo above) is misinterpreted by some over-cautious bodyguard? What if I just happen to be in the wrong place at a wrong time and turn out to be one of those civilian casualties you hear about in the news?
Many might agree that it's quite stupid to go and poke the bee-hive with a stick... Still, one day as my understanding grows stronger, I might be able to do something to help and resolve this kind of conflicts either in Sri Lanka or somewhere else. So, I won't say no to my curiosity and keep on trying to understand both sides. I might consider again when someone is pointing at me with a gun, but even in that scenario my faith in justice and doing the right thing would keep me going.
Want to save €200 million a year?
I came across with a website that is trying to collect 1 000 000 EU citizens name in an address to save 200 million euros a year. How?
It costs European taxpayers approximately 200 million euros a year to move the European Parliament between Brussels/Belgium and Strasbourg/France. As a citizen of the European Union, I want the European Parliament to be located only in Brussels.
By the time of writing 758 817 other european citizens have signed the petition! Less than 250 000 more are needed. So, if you are a) from EU and b) pissed off that our money is wasted in this moving circus, go and sign it in: http://www.oneseat.eu/
Assortment of thoughts
Last weekend was awesome. We went to Saimaa Summer, a relaxing weekend on a beautiful island of Päiviö at Lake Saimaa; enjoying good company, warm weather, sauna, the lake and some activities like football and Finnish baseball. That event was actually something my team started back in 2003, so it was good to see the tradition going forward. The atmosphere was still the same. The only difference being that back then we had to recruit the local IAESTE trainees to participates since we didn't have our own. Now there was people from all over the world, all AIESECers! What's more, it's been like 20-30 degrees for the past month, so I'm proceeding to get a good tan, so no need for sunscreen in Colombo.
My arrival date to Colombo is 20 July (Thursday) 09:35 AM (that would be 5:35 Finnish time). The flight goes through Vienna where I have to wait for four hours at the airport. So, altogether the trip takes 15 hrs 45 mins.
At the moment it feels that I'm even a bit over-prepared for the internship. I have met the locals and Finns who've been there, I have read about the country and Buddhism, I have tried to gain understanding of the political history and current state of the country and so on. Still, I feel like I could have done more; like learn the language a bit better. However, now I'm 100% ready to take Sri Lanka as it is - a bundle of experiences, that show the pros and cons of the country.
Actually, just before going to Saimaa Summer I met with another Tomi who had been in an internship in Sri Lanka in 2004-2005. Already that discussion was good and enlightening, but for my positive surprise his Sri Lankan girlfriend - and to-become-wife - Lana was visiting Finland so she joined our conversation. We had like four hour discussion concentrating mainly on the culture, people and characteristics of the country. Most of the information I already knew but it was good to get some perspective from a local citizen who's not an AIESECer.
Now here comes her perspective on the currrent situation with the government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE): First of all, she said that she does think that they - LTTE - are terrorists. If they would like to get their message across they would stay in the negotiation table, instead of bombing the opposite side (GOSL). Secondly, she said that LTTE is not representing the whole Tamil nation even though they claim so. Thirdly, she adviced me not to go to north and east - if I would, it would be on my own risk. Finally, she concluded that foreigners are taken good care of and the rest of the country is completely safe.
We also discussed about the living conditions in the trainee flat with Tomi. He said both of the apartments are a bit away from the centre so the noise of the traffic doesn't bother that much. However, it also means that there are a few bugs - ants, cockroaches, wasps, mosquitoes, gekkos and spiders. He adviced us to keep the apartment clean in order to keep the cockies and ants away. Now that's a challenge for me! :)
Tomi said he had played football in Finland all his life - in the lower leagues - and in Sri Lanka he immediately started playing in a team with the people working in embassies. Shortly he was asked to play in the Premier League of the country. Now that's what I call career advancement. As for the current world championships in football, my team Portugal has made its way to the semi-finals! Back in 1990 I started cheering for Brazil and Holland. In 1994 Portugal joined my TOP 3. During these games, after 12 years of Portugal frenzy, it's finally crystalizing to me who I support the most. In the beginning of Portugal-Netherlands game I intuitively chose the side of Portugal and understood that the current Team Holland is no longer the same as it was in the 90s and it has nothing to offer me. The Portugal game against England provoked such feelings within me that I'm starting to believe that I no longer have three but one team to cheer for! I am living the games with my every cell when Portugal is playing, so I do hope and believe that they take what belongs to them: the world championship! It's now or never; they're at their peak. In the next qualifying games for the european championships 2008 Finland is playing in the same group with Portugal. I'm not going to be a turn-coat: I hope both of them qualify to the games. That would be first time for Finland.
As a concluding remark for this lengthy posting of sporadic thoughts I'd like to announce that I took a summer job! It's a translation job of three pages, Finnish to English, and my estimation is that it takes just a few hours. However, it pays me 100 euros so it's definitely worth it! Come on, it's my two-week salary during the internship!
