I just came from a weekend that was full of surprises and experiences, we were at a camp site that was close to the sea and my roommate from Armenia was excited about seeing the sea for the first time. The area we were at was beautiful and the Autumn colors were showing brightly, there was also a bit of tranquility around the air, I think you just feel that when you are around beautiful nature and appreciate it. This was a leadership gathering and it mainly focused on young people just having fun, and old friends meeting again. We were together with all the GoCy's from around Norway, so i also felt like my family was close to me. When you are in different country i find that you tend to be much more aware of your surroundings and become very dependent on people pretty quickly. I have also noticed that i am extremely cautious and sensitive about people's opinion about my country and Africa as a whole.
The GoCy team had put together a presentation for a seminar we were going to hold and it was unfortunate that only 2 people came to it but i also heard that the other seminars just had 10 people each making only 22 people in total attended those seminars from a number of about 100. I understood that people were there to relax and have fun and attending seminars just does not fit into the fun hierarchy. I went canoing or paddling as some people call it for the first time and i must say it was great. Thanks to the guy that offered to take us there and for the hard work he had to do with the paddling since we were all armatures. There were different fun activities happening around in a seminar but one of them stayed in my mind and that was a concert that was held on Saturday night. It was a really great concert and the performers were seriously great at what they do, but one incident stuck to my mind and made me realize just how little people know about Africa. I feel like people think that we are still just walking around singing and dancing with spears in our hands and poor and ever so hungry but i guess thats the picture travel documentaries and the media projects to people.
During the concert there was a performance where the crowd got involved by clapping and saying a few words. I was one of the crowd that was doing so and the mood and feeing was really at a high, but then the performer randomly started to say things that did not make sense to me but had an African feeling to them and then he said Africa and i did get one sentence from what he said which is 'Nkosi Sikelela', because that is the first line of our national anthem. Now while this is taking place, everyone was laughing and having a good time. which i was also doing myself but then a few minutes afterwards i felt like i needed to go and i started thinking to myself am i just being over sensitive or am i looking to much into this incident. I am still not sure, so people can pass their opinions and comments about this. All i know is that at a very fun moment and during a joke, Africa had to come in and worst of all Nkosi Sikelela our national anthem was made into a joke and this as anthem that i take pride in and that people died for and defines who i am.
Well to less serious stuff, maybe i had my own perception of Europe and the people here but i am certainly not going to cluster everyone to that prejudice and pre-judgment and think that all people are the same because i know that we are all individuals and i don't like being pre-judge or being stereotyped just because i came from Africa. I feel like this topic is not a topic that i should speak about in my blog, but i want to hear people opinions and perception of Africa. I think it would be a great discussion and it will also help us young people to know about other countries. Let me known if i am looking to much in nothing, after all it was just a random performance and i am sure they are not used to having Africans within their audience, but does that mean lets make a jokes and fun of other cultures because they are not around and because we do not know what those things mean to them.
Overall my weekend was great, and yesterday i moved into my new apartment and i am say i am loving it so much and i will post pictures of it so everyone can see why i am so in love. Norway has really been good to me and i have meet some wonderful people here and i am looking forward to the next 7 months to go. W e have also started a GoCy blog, so everyone can follow all the other GoCy's in the different countries and hear about their experiences.
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