Sierra Leone and Kurdistan

What do they have in common? Probably quite a number of things, both being (or having been) countries in a civil war, with countless innocent people oppressed by militant forces and deprived of rights and respect.

But they have something else in common: My complete ignorance towards them. It strikes me again, as I have experienced it so many times in the past weeks: how unbelievably little I know of our world.
I read the book "Wild Swans" from Jung Chang, which put me through a minor crisis because I realized that I never heard at all of the way Chinese communism was run under Mao Zedong.
Same experience when I figured out just recently (in a class) what Apartheid actually was (in a bit more detail than "some conflict between white and black people").
Again the same experience when I read the "Drachenflieger" form Hossini, when it hit me that I didn't actually know what the Taliban where (or are), or in general the conflict in Afghanistan.
Same feeling at a dinner, when I could not explain who Nelson Mandela was.
And then, a hardcore version of teaching me a lesson: I had no clue, non at all, what blood diamond are. I saw the movie two days ago. I sat there, fighting back tears about this whole human catastrophe, being well aware that blood diamonds are only one example of it. But I also fought another feeling. I fought disgust about my own knowledge I have of these things, namely as good as none. And I think, if I have no clue, than I'm most probably not the only one. How many on this planet must there be, who have never heard of conflicts like these, who have never heard the lesson history teaches us? How then, is man supposed to not repeat history, if it was never heard?

What is it that makes me such an ignorant? The feeling keeps hunting me lately. I would consider myself quite a curious person, so how come I know that little? Maybe my standards of curiosity are somehow skewed. Maybe it's our school system? Or maybe my personal time management, that often does not include enough time for reading newspapers? Or do all people feel that way? Or have I been not doing enough about my education in the past? Questions, questions, questions...

enjoying the break

I guess most of you can imagine what winter break usually looks like. Lot's of snowboarding, snowshoeing, sauna, family, good food... Therefore no long words, but a few impressions...









One Day my mum and I did a trip to the Lötschental, which is about one hour drive from Saas Almagell to see the Tschäggete! This is a carnival custom of that particular valley, that my part of Switzerland is quite famous for, but I have never actually seen a tschäggeta in real live. So we went there in the night and it was truly impressive. Imagine about 100-150 Tschäggete walking through a dark small mountain village of about 200 inhabitants... it's creepy somehow, but very nice to watch.

changing the rhythm

My last exam was on Thursday. It was terrible. The subject: International Relations. The kind of questions: "Which number was Vietnam, when they entered the WTO? 150? 130? 155? or 170?"

But now, a new dawn is breaking. Live is starting again. :-) Yesterday night, Annina, Barbara and Anita came over to my house where we wanted to have dinner and then go out somewhere. We ended up having a very cosy night and endless discussions about the fist and second world war, school systems, and personal development. We discovered, that each one of us was deeply dissatisfied with the way history was taught to us in school. We all had similar experiences: about 6 years of talking about archeology and early medieval times, then about 2 years of french revolution and in the end, before we get our high school diploma we have WW1 and WW2 and Stalinism in one year. We hear nothing about China, Apartheid, Balkan Wars or anything else. We hear nothing about the big world religions either. Many people in Switzerland don't know that the Christians, Jews and Muslims are actually praying to the very same god.
This dissatisfaction has led each one of us to start to educate herself in a certain field of interest. So we found out that if we combined all our knowledge, we would actually have quite some expertise about Mao Zedong and the Chinese communism, about Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Islam etc. and could very much broaden our understanding of world history, issues and topics.
What we decided to do now, is to get together at least once a month, to have a "Themenabend" (Topic night) where we have dinner and one of us prepares something for the others about her field of interest. Can be a good movie or a sort of session, anything goes. Girls, I'm very happy we got this together, and I'm looking forward for these evenings.

And these are my fellow learners: Annina, Barbara and Anita.



It feels good to finally have some room in my head to fill with thoughts other than media systems, constructivism, or "Vermittlungsverfassung"... I'm very much looking forward for the 5 weeks of semester break that are ahead of me. Here is a little picture I drew on my white board, in a moment of boredom. It shows what these 5 weeks are ideally going to look like if everything works out perfectly as planned (which is a very optimistic plan, and probably not the reality, but still, it would be nice...)



What is left out in this drawing is the job I got at the SP (Social Democratic Party of Switzerland), the 25 pages paper I have to write together with a friend, seeking explanations for the differences in the welfare state of Italy and Austria, and the exam I have in the last week of break. But apart from the exam, this is all actually interesting stuff, so it's not bad.

The next step for now: In about one hour my train leaves to Wallis (Saas Almagell) where I will go snowboarding for about a week. :-P Juhu!

THE fantastic morning

My dad woke me up at 7:15 today. It's Saturday. My first though: "He can not be serious about this." My first words: "You can not be serious about this."
But he was. Because he was going to show me what it's like to have 80 kilometers of snow for me alone!
So that was a pretty appealing thought, I got up, got ready and we were about the first ones entering the gondola in Saas Fee that morning. As good as no one else was around. And my dad didn't promise too much. It truly was that: 80 km of (dammed good) snow all for us alone. It was not snowboarding anymore. It was flying!
Even though the slopes are about the last place on earth I should be right now (because of exams on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday,) I'm soooo glad I went! I'll make up for it. Now. And off.

Confidenced

Yesterday at 7 pm I got the message on my cell phone. I got the vote of conficence form the members of AIESEC in Egypt. :-D

Thank you Egypt!!!

Annika from the United States, currently on the MC in Jordan got elected as the President. :-)))
The next step will be the selection interviews. They will take place in beginning of March. A selection board will interview all the candidates and then decide who will be in the team and who won't. I'm excited and looking forward for that.

And here a little something for you...