First Month in Norway

Report Back- 1st Month as a GoCy Intern

My first month as a GoCy intern has been challenging both physically, mentally and emotionally. I have had days where I did not want get up in the morning because I felt like my body was too tired and I have had days where I just want to get up and sing ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’. The GoCy preparatory course has proved to be very successful and a good way to prepare GoCy interns before they go to their respective host countries, and as I landed in Oslo and was told I would be spending a week at the country side called Aarholt-Tunet in Stokke Norway doing the first part of my orientation I was both excited and a bit nervous. I firstly thought about the fact that I have never camped before in my life and what a city girl I have become but I also thought about how beautiful nature can be, and what better way to learn than in an environment that inspires you to learn and opens up your mind to the beauty of nature.

The first week proved to a very interesting week, we all had a schedule that had to be followed, we had activities and programs till 22:30pm and the Norwegian sun was still up till 23:00pm. It was also the time when we meet all the different GoCy interns from all around the world and the buzz and excitement was very much in the air and it was obvious that we were all excited and eager to know about each other and our countries and so forth. We were introduced to a program called the buddies system; this is where a previous GoCy intern is assigned as your buddy. The buddy system was well thought of because what you would find is that your respective buddy had either been in the country that you were going to or they had been to your country so they had the full view of the two different sides. My assigned buddy is Ida Marie; she was a GoCy last year and was in South Africa.

We watched a still picture movie called Baraka, this was great introduction as it was a movie that portrayed all the different countries the producer of the movie has been to all these different countries and showed the underlining struggles or threats that the respective country had but also linking those threats to the overall effect to the bigger picture. It proved to be a very mixed emotions filled movie that had different meaning to different individuals.

We moved on to Global thinking and worked on an interesting theory called Guns, Germs an Steel which answered the question of why some countries are rich and others are poor in a very geographical way. We moved to Intercultural understanding which I found to be very interesting, we were again given exercises that showed us what is good intercultural understanding and the disadvantages of bad pre-judgement.

This day was a more personal way of thinking through role plays, and exercises like who am I, what are my preferences ect. This in a way showed you what your qualities are, what are your strengths and weaknesses ect. At the end of this week, we had an evaluation about what we thought we had learned, what we think should stay in the course and any suggestions we might have to add to the course ect.

Week two was Global week, we had just started to feel comfortable with one another when we were joined by another group of young people. During global week our main concern was the campaign themed ‘Give a little wave’. The experience of doing a campaign was very exhilarating, I found myself getting every excited and telling people around me about my experience in marketing and talked about previous campaigns I had worked on. The people in Norway are very reserved and unlike South Africans getting attention from them proved to be a challenge but with the way we had infused all our different cultures and background to create one thing was enough to make some of them stand and look with curiosity. We called ourselves the warriors of freedom and had a different dances and actions that we did to get attention while others handed out pamphlets and other information. It proved to be every interesting and I was involved with the activities group and found myself doing human pyramids that I had only 2 hours to learn how to do, very interesting. The campaign was successful and after the evaluation we discussed the kind of feelings we had during that week. We were very stressed so there was a lot of shouting and arguing and we all had our own idea of what was right but with a bit of guidance we all did a fantastic job.

The third week was the GoCy interns only again and I got to meet Solveigh as she took us through what advocacy is, and how one can reach their audience. She also spoke about different work shopping techniques that involved getting your group of participants involved. She spoke about presentation skills that I found to be very interesting as this is one of the skills I want to sharpen and learn more on. We had a scouts fire one night during the week and had activities around the scout fire, this proved to be very helpful as I will be part of the Scouts for the next 8 months.

The last week was with FK I felt that there was a bit of repetition of what we had already done in the previous 3 weeks, but you know what they say practise makes perfect. We also moved location during this week, which was great because I was really starting to not feel any inspiration within the environment, and were at a point where I just wanted to get out of the camp. We stayed at Sanner hotel, and learned more about FK and what they rules and regulations are towards FK participants and what their objectives are through these exchange programs.

This first month has been full of personal challenges and culture shock at how different individuals can be but it also opened me up to cultural diversity and how one can adapt to different cultures through being aware of the cultures around them. I feel like I am prepared for anything in Norway for the next 8 months and I have a positive attitude mixed with an open mindness and most of all respect for other people and their culture. I am a GoCy intern and now I can see why I am here and when I go back home I will have millions of stories to share and loads of new information, experience and knowledge that I want to share with people from my country and my YMCA. I am happy to be here and I know my stay will be beneficial personally and most of all to people around me.