Inyas Blog

Happy to be back in Botswana

bjoern — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:06:58 +0000

After a very long flight taking me from Berlin to Munich – over the white Alpes, through whole African continent to Johannesburg in South Africa and I finally arrived on Tuesday after almost a day of travelling to beautiful Gaborone in Botswana. It was great flying in over a totally green Kalahari-desert, as it was raining and it´s autumn here now. It felt a bit like coming back as I was here for the research of my diploma-thesis a year ago and will now work for German Development Cooperation/GTZ in their SADC transboundary water-management program. Everything was perfect, until I found out at the tiny airport of Gaborone that one of my bags was missing and I was already afraid, that the Johannesburg-airport crews will soon have their own tennis-team playing with my stuff, but fortunately the next day also the third bag with my rackets arrived.

As I live again in a small room at a friend´s house, where I staid also last time it seems as I only left the country some weeks ago as it looks and feels all very familiar to me. But the GTZ office changed a lot, as more staff from Danemark, Canada and Germany joined the team and we are nowadays more than ten people working together with the SADC Water-Division and the fifteen water-ministries in Southern Africa. The team is amazing and on the first day I was already able meeting our SADC colleagues, second day was already project-planning and Friday I wrote the first PR concept. That is fast speed as I like it and I am quite exiting what the future brings. Besides work I am currently looking into car-buying and I hope finding one soon, as busses ar not very effective and walking produces a lot of sweet as we have over 30 degrees here. As I had my last car almost ten years ago and life in Singapore and Berlin do not needed one, that is quite funny situation but let´s see how I get ripped off by the car-shops.

Between Carnival and Northsea

bjoern — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:28:23 +0000

Before I join my new job on 1st of March in Botswana I am currently on preparation-courses in Eschborn (near Frankfurt/Main) with around 30 other GTZ co-workers, who will join projects all over the world. For the first time in my professional job I receive professional preparation with management-skills, financial-explainations and of course strategic elements and I am very happy to exchange with all these experienced people from German development cooperation and get introduced to the GTZ with its almost 15.000 co-workers. As some of them worked already in Southern Africa I gain a lot of new informations and impressions – what to do and what to avoid and can hardly await my start in Gaborone.

As Eschborn is more an industrial-park then an ancient and beautiful city I use my weekends for some get-aways, last weekend to carnival-celebrations to the “Kölsch-Fest” in Cologne and this weekend to Aalborg in Nothern Denmark to visit some friends, whom I haven´t seen for ages. The last two weekends are dedicated for my hometown and maybe Berlin and afterwards I join a friend in Romania, before my flight leaves from Berlin on 1st of March to Gaborone. And it´s great having a girlfriend, who is traveling even more crazy than me, as Susi is currently backpacking in Latin America. You can follow her crazy adventures in magnificient mountains with pinguins and lamas here. So I have to day, that it´s great to be back in wonderful snowy Germany and to feel home with friends in Europe – hope seeing you all in Gaborone once a day.

Back to Botswana/SADC in March

bjoern — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:14:03 +0000

After some waiting I received last week the final approval for my new challenge in Africa. From March on I will move back for at least one year to Gaborone (Botswana) and start working for the GTZ in their water-programme in the SADC region. As I wrote my thesis about this topic I am familiar with that topic and will be responsible for establishing a monitoring and evaluation system in close cooperation with the SADC secretariat. Working with that great team, for GTZ and in this challenging environment with fifteen African countries is really my dream-job and I cannot wait to start.

From 1st February until 1st March I will be in Eschborn, near Frankfurt (Main) for my preparation in the GTZ headquarter. Afterwards IÂ´ll leave icy Germany (currently minus 15 degrees in Berlin) for sunny Botswana. And I am very happy that also Susi, who is currently travelling for some months in Latin America, will join this adventure in June. So I have the noble task to find something to life in for us two: Maybe we can improve ourselves from our small fourteen square-meters room in Singapore – as a lot of guest already agree to visit. :)

Warm welcome back in snowy Germany

bjoern — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:12:43 +0000

After twelve months living in the tropical island Singapore it was quite a huge change arriving back in “good old Germany”. Snow covered Munich, which I landed and during the last two weeks I experienced temperature between -15 and -5 degrees each day with beautiful snow, frost patterns and many cold fingers. After some days in great Bavarian family-athmosphere I visited my home-town and my beloved Baltic Sea, Hamburg und welcomed the New Year with good friends in Cologne. Afterwards I went back to the Alpes and managed to learn the snowboarding so good, that I will come back this season to experience the blue sky, fresh air and great feeling while sliding down soon.

If everything goes right I will stay in “the greatest city of Europe: Berlin” until end of January and will leave after some preparations in March for Africa. I will keep you posted and hope to see good friends over the next weeks and invite them all for World Cup to South Africa. :) Looking back to Singapore I have to say it was an amazing year and I want to thank all friends to let me experience Asia in such a great and smooth way! I will be back!

Goodbye Singapore: It’s time for continent-change

bjoern — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:40:30 +0000

After some amazing months working in Asia and experiencing the Asian way of living, working and having fun life speeds up again. Last week I was offered a great job-opportunity at the German Development Cooperation/GTZ in the SADC-region, that I was writing my diploma-thesis about, and I decided taking this chance immediatly. It was a great time working for the FES in Asia but as Susi left for her trip to Latin-America I was able to get back to my beloved continent Africa and after this dream-offer it was very easy to decide.

Of course it’s amazing fast – as I decided this week to take the job, I will leave Singapore forever on 22nd December and will start the new challenge after a great christmas and ski-holiday from 1st February and most probably move to Botswana in March. I hope everything goes like planned, as no contract is signed so far, but the opportunity is extraordinary amazing and of course I took this small risk – as always. :) Life is great and I am awaiting the time in Africa a lot.

Myanmar adventure: Media and Hope

bjoern — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:30:44 +0000

After I finally socialised with Singapore and my new beloved home in Southeast-Asia and thought I will get bored soon the “Myanmar Writers and Journalists Association” invited me from 20th until 24th July to a training-course for young journalists from private and state-owned media. That invitation was totally exeptional as Myanmar was not inviting any foreign journalist after their “Saffron Revolution” in 2007 and after some official visits I really got the visa and was together with an American colleague the first foreign journalists conduction a training-course inside the country.

After the one-week course, where I managed to see more than 50 young journalists in the training and around 250 young activists from the civil society, I was amazed by their hospitality and mood. As there will be elections in 2010 especially young people prepare for that “window of opportunity” and realise at the moment that the administration is opening up channels for cooperation. Therefore I was more than happy to train journalists, which had never before any formal training – as the last journalism faculty closed thirty years ago. And I realised that you can read a lot about the country in our foreign media, scientific books and talks with people outside the country but it is very worth to experience the country before you finally make up your mind and paint all black and white. I realised that there is much grey and opportunities inside the country although the country is still a military junta with no democratic elements. But I was happy to assist with journalism experiences and skills and believes that such cooperation can assist their people. Attached you find an article, that I wrote in German for the journalism-magazine “M”, which explaines my experiences and introduces in the media landscape of Myanmar. I hope to be back soon to experience again the people and their country, which was an amazing adventure for me.

Article: Myanmar Challenges in journalism

Operation “Singapore Expat” sucessful

bjoern — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:29:11 +0000

After signing an official “9-to-5″ working contract I applied almost two months ago for the so-called “Employment Pass” in Singapore, that would allow me officially to work and live in the country after I had only visitors visa so far. But it took me four visits to the famous “Ministry of Manpower” and even one healt-test including HIV-testing before the tiny-little island checked and accepted me and hand me out the “Employment Pass”: first I had to officially hand in the documents, than they lost the acceptance letter in the ministry, then I had to hand over my finger-print and health-certificate and last but not least I could collect the pass. I was very happy to receive the “new” pass with all fancy stuff and was even more suprised when they told me that this little card would now be enough to enter Singapore and replace my passport at least at their boarders. Of course my first try at the boarder proofed this promise wrong: It was good that I was already trained by more crazy buerocracy and was not suprised when they also required my passport… Nothing new – just one more fancy card I added to the collection and I learned that their buerocracy is almost as inefficient as in European Union.

Studies finally finished: Diplom-Politologe – Thesis published

bjoern — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:25:36 +0000

The last two weeks I had been back to Europe and enjoyed the starting summer and non-humid climate a lot. The reason for my trip were that I had to attend my last two oral exams and hold diverse meetings with the FES headquarter, German partners and ministries to get introduced to my new working sphere. But before I went for the exams to Berlin Hans and me took the car from Munich and went on an Italy-trip, which we enjoyed a lot: Verona, Appenin, Toscany, Siena, Lago di Garda and back to Germany. Coming from Singapore the differences could not been higher. With the amazing cultural heritage from Roman empire and thousand of years of history the artifical world of my home-island Singapore was not really able to compete. And the trip was exiting as well, as I managed to challenge the car in a field. But with the help of Italian farmers you can solve all problems – even at 7 oÂ´clock in the morning.

Afterwards I went back to Berlin and it felt really great meeting so many friends and feeling home again. I hold my oral exams with Prof. Grottian and Dr. Peters and received there also my note for my master-thesis: I was really amazed to get the best note – 1,0 (summa cum laude) from MP DÃ¤ubler-Gmelin, who is the former federal minister of justice and head of the commitee for human rights and humanitarian aid in the federal parliament. That seriously honoured me – now I proofed myselfes and the world of scientists, that I can also do scientific work! I am now a graduate – Diplom-Politologe and celebrated a lot in Germany. LetÂ´s see what the future brings but I am very happy to finally finish almost ten years of studies! :)

As I published my diploma-thesis also as book, please find here the opportunity to order if you are interested in the topic.

Working for ASEAN and Asia media-projects

bjoern — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:10:50 +0000

After so many years as freelancer and my own boss working for NGOs and governmental institutions, I am finally also caught up in an office-job for the next months. Due to a lot of great coincidence I started to work for the “Office of Regional Cooperation in Asia” of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) here in Singapur. As project-manager I am responsible to work on governance-projects with ASEAN and stakeholders of social dialogue, like ASETUC and other regional partners. Additionally I am following up my media-passion and work as media-consultant for the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) on their online-portal AYCN.net all over Asia and also for establishing a substainable Asia-European Network of Young Journalists with the European Youth Press and Asia-Europe Foundation. This combination from regional governance and media-projects is a great start to get introduced to the region and experience Asia, as it involves a lot of travelling and work with very interesting partners from diverse countries. LetÂ´s see how the office-job transfers me after some months and hope to stay flexible and open-minded – but I have seen from a lot of colleagues, that this should be possible. :)

Magic days in “down-under”

bjoern — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:31:55 +0000

After Vietnam I still had enough time before I finally entered “working life” again and so Susi and me decided to use the chance to escape from Singapore-island to another island: “down under”, “Aussie-Land”, “Terra incognito” or simply Australia.

As we had only two weeks we decided to go for Sydney, Tasmania and Melbourne and I am still overwhelmed when thinking back to these days between amazing landscapes, European lifestyle and great food as well as beautiful coasts, koalas, cangaroos, whales and wombats in real life. We stayed with friends in Sydney, where we visited the “blue mountains” nearby and lived in great CBD of this cosmopolitian city but enjoyed long costal walks as well. Afterwards we went for some days to the nearest point to Antartica, to Tasmanian island, and that play of nature was almost not able to resist – some days more and I would have applied for Australian citizenship. This nature was extraordinary, the seatrips on speed-boats through huges waves with whales and albatrosses were outstanding and the food and Tasmanian people were great pleasure. Coming back to this island is for sure and also a “must” for Melbourne, where we stayed the last days to enjoy the urban cultural life before going back to the “artifical island” of Singapore. If you have once the chance to go to Australia use it! I will do it again in October and will see more of “Ayes Rock” and the aboriginy culture.