Talking about Rubble...

back after a while. I am really not so much into that whole blog-writing thing, but I thought an update could be ok after such a long time.
Live has moved on, and I am now in Afghanistan with the ICRC. Pretty happy about that, as Mazar-e-Sharif, my duty station, is a really interesting place, that also allows for a bit of personal space.

Rubble

Mh, my new assignement has now taken me to the Middle East - centre of World attention, centre of religions, centre of crazyness. I have just started last week, and I already find myself in a wirling current of ideas, impressions, opinions, senses, pictures that is hard to escape. But it is good. I wanted to be here at some stage - and I hope to be here for a while.

International Aid can be kind of crazy, to say the most for this time. Difficult to describe and assess sometimes, especially in environments, which are so politicised. Personally, it is hard to escape this, professionally it is hard to escape this.

Bogotá i Colombia

Ha, nearly a year since I have posted something and I find this a good opportunity to start writing again. After a long, long trip, which started rediciously late/early back home in the south of germany, I have arrived last night here in Bogotá. Dianne - a friend from some time ago - was so nice to pick me up from the airport and drive me for a long long while throug the city, up the hills to her place... refreshed our memories on our time together in New York , but I was overwhelmed by the jetlag already at 9 pm. Had a pretty early sleep but and wide awake at 6 am.

Started to spend time here at the Javeriana from the morning, meeting the other guys and trying to get hold of that place. Its a nice and large campus with loads of decent facilities, including a large sports centre and a good library.
First discussion with the prof and the others which prooved to be a good reunion. They seem to be very well staffed and will provide us with some extra lectures during the summer, that should be good to get more ideas and information on the country, its conflict and our individual study interest.
Even better, the whole staff will watch the football together at the institution so there will be some ball aroud the Euro-Cup - NICE!

Bogotá as such is first of all huge huge huge. The distances seem to be incredible and the orientation still lacks main points to focus. However, very lively, busy and cold - jeap indeed, up here in the clowds, it is pretty chilly and the mountains are continiously covered in thick grey clowds, that seem to be charged with rain!

Back at University III

Uppsala is a nice and cosy town - Miranda called that Barbie land, mainly and surprisingly not in regard to the blondes, but to the way everything seems to function - clean, routine, effective and without any major braveness in deciding to show differences and disappreciation for the society as a whole. We have already been discussing Foucault and his concept of governmentality here ;-).
I live in a student-village called Lilla Sunnersta, about 6 km south of the city centre. Bikes are definetly needed here and it is - at least still during these temperatures - a nice and easy 20 minutes ride... but I will update you on the problems concerning slight misuse of alcohol and low temperatures and the use of a bike at any given moment in future.
The student village has pretty mixed inhabitants, disregarding the overwhelming presense of german folks around. There are even cats and dogs, children and the elderly...

Back at University II

So following up on the university stuff, I am doing a masters on International Humanitarian Affairs, organised by a mainly European University Network called NOHA, and founded and supported by the EU/ECHO. The course can be studies at a few different universities all over Europe. Thanks to my facination for Scandinavia, it was an easy choice to join Uppsala Universitet.
We are a group of around 20 students from pretty much all continents - the latinos lackin though, with a good interdiciplinary background and different expriences.

Back at University

Still difficult to understand and to grasp. I am back at university, and it feels pretty odd - at least during my first days here in Uppsala. Besides a small number of elderly students, there are plenty - and really plenty - of ERASMUS students, fooling around, as there was no fooling before. It brings up heaps of memories, but as it is inherent to this process, they are in the past, i.e. one has become a few years older, made a few different experiences - and now thrown back without warning in the cold of swedish university waters. But hey, I am very exited about the beginning of the course, the apprently nice and good group and not too worried about the breaking ice into ERASMUS heated coldness!

Long Time No See

Sope, back from Sri Lanka finally. After some very mixed last two month, I was happy to quit my job and have some free time before going to University again... yes, I am very happy actually to be back in the 'ivory-tower', spending some time on actual conceptual thinking - something I have pretty much missed during the last year. I mean, doing this job in Finance/Adminstration was challenging and indeed needed some conceptual thinking on how to set-up, manage and improve our financial control and HR administration. However, conceptual thinking in the above sense refers more to general program strategies and their evaluation - something, which just did not really exist, in the sense of a dialectic process between all people involved. Shame on them!! I mean really, there is so much added value to a sensible process, not only to actually create programme strategies, but also to get the people together, and let them feel a common, shared approach on their daily work and efforts.