Highlights from International Congress 2006

One of the biggest highlights for me at International Congress 2006 (IC) was the Global Village. Although I have been to many Global Villages in the past, they still never fail to entertain me. I have always loved the concept, where else you can travel the world in a few hours, tasting food from all over the world, seeing traditional clothes from across the world and asking far-away countries just what it’s like to live there, and comparing how different it is to the reality that I grew up in. But this Global Village really struck a chord in me, and the memories of it stand out as one of the best in my AIESEC career.

Was it the sheer number of AIESECers (around 800)? The public? (it was right next to the Warsaw Central Station, can’t get more central than that), the media, or something else? I’m not sure what it was exactly but I was quite content that sunny afternoon moving from stall to stall, tasting eccentric foods, snapping photos and learning new things about regions of the world I have only dreamed about visiting. I joined in the AIESEC dances, along with some 200 other young AIESECers having fun, smiled at the local people that stared at us in awe and laughed at those who tried to follow along. At that moment I wanted to bring everyone that I knew to that place with me to experience that moment, as cheesy as it may sound it really felt magical.

I think one of my favourite parts of this Global Village was visiting the stalls of some of our new extension countries, mainly the ones in the Middle East. As I was talking to other AIESECers from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan, among others, I was thinking to myself what would my family and friends back home think if I told them I had friends in these places? That’s the beauty of AIESEC, a world without borders.

It was invigorating to be able to speak with people from this region and to be able to discuss what it is really like living there. Hearing it from the first person, rather than believing what is read in the newspapers about their countries really opens your eyes. The MCP of Qatar, Kristine, is originally from Austria. At global village she was dressed in a traditional black burka, covering all but her eyes. As I strolled up to their country stall I noticed quite a number of people waiting in line to take a photo with her, or one of the other girls dressed in similar attire. When it was my turn, I asked her what it felt like for so many people to want to take photos with her—what did it feel like to see the world through those eyes? She said it was really eye opening, and really interesting to experience the stereotypes that these women face, first hand. Especially in a country like Poland that is not known for its immigrants like the Netherlands or other parts of Europe, I am sure for some of the Polish visitors it was a bit of a shock to see people dressed like that there.

I think it is important to see people in such traditional clothes, identifying them just as those you see in the news, and realizing that they are in fact people just like you and me—they even live a life more similar to yours than you would think. But when all you see on the news is a portrait of their country as a place of war, of course you will associate that country with that—how else would you know otherwise? How many people get the opportunity to speak with people living there, and hearing that truth first hand? It’s definitely a learning point that there is more to the world than what we read in the news. After all, life is all a matter of perspective. And I love Global Village for being a learning ground for different perspectives :)