Costa Rica choques

During July I spent in Costa Rica almost three weeks and then on 30th of July I left to Panama, as my "Base" is there. My first "country visit" to Costa Rica is being executed right now and after almost three months in Panama I came back to Costa Rica to spent two and half weeks here.

And now, when I came back after a longer time period, I have realized several things, which I didn't noticed, when I was here first time:

• Traffic - There are big differences between traffic in Panama and in Costa Rica. Generally I would be afraid to drive a car in Panama, as the driving style is quite "wild". They don't use the direction indicators, are driving pretty fast and are changing the lanes very often, so I would probably crash very quickly in the traffic in Panama. In Costa Rica is the situation more calmer, people don't drive so fast and in my opinion are more tolerant. However, you should know, that red light at traffic lights has a little bit different meaning than in other countries. Here it means: "Be more careful and when you see some car, stop! Otherwise you can cross the intersection". This also applies to pedestrians, so when you don't see any car, or if the car is far enough, you can cross the road. The red light is more recommendation than command.
• Currency - Tico currency is Colon, the exchange ratio is 1 US Dollar = 510 Colones. The most used bills are 1 000, 2 000 and 5 000 Colones, plus there are also 10 000 Colones bills, but I don't see them much (I am not sure, if it is because of my budget here or generally they don't use it much). The more interesting part of their currency are coins. You can get in contact with 11!!! coins in 7 nominal values. To be more specific, there are coins in value of 500, 100, 50, 25 Colones, which are all yellow color. Then there are 20 Colones coins, which are silver and are bigger then 100, 50 and 25 coins. And then there are 3 types of 10 Colones coins (2 sliver and 1 yellow) and 3 types of 5 Colones coins (2 sliver and 1 yellow). Just to remind you - 5 Colones equals approximately 1 US cent.
  In other words if you are not careful of how much coins do you have, it can easily happen, that you will not be able to put the wallet into your pocket...

MAX conference - part two

The conference itself was another interesting experience. For me it was conference #37, but again there were several things, which were unique.

The name (Managing AIESEC eXperience) and idea was created by the previous MC in the beginning of this year and we were ther first MC to deliver this conference. As in december there are the EB elections, the objectives for this conference are to deliver knowledge to potential EB members and motivate them to run for EB positions. Therefore we were mixing the common sessions for all delegates with functional tracks, where delegates could pick the session based on their interest. When I was at the first conference in CAS in July, I was amazed by the site. Well - some things change, some don't. The "plenary room" was again great:

Actually the whole site was amazing:

Of course we were delayed with agenda, as at each conference, but it was managable, and I think people were enjoying the sessions:

And then it came. The party started. Imagine - midnight, 30 degrees, swimming pool, beer in the hand, music (unfortunately Raeggeton, but it was kind of expected). The best relax I have ever experienced after full day of sessions, was to jump into the pool and just enjoy the time. The pictures will probably explain it better:

And of course, there was another reason, why this conference was special. I wasn't the only representative of the AIESEC in the Czech Republic at this conference. Premek took the position in the OC of the conference and after more than 3 months I was able to talk to someone in my mother language live (=Skype or Gtalk is good, but...):

"Here is to you, and here is to me
for friends we should always be
but, if by chance, we disagree
Fuck you, and here is to me!"

Last, but not least - the MC team has been together again (we were missing Vivi, the finance girl), and it was good to see Tico (=Costarican) part of the MC coming to Pamana:

Well, another part of my MC work is done, next one is the country visit in Costa Rica, and in a while I am flying home for Christmas and New Year's Eve - again, time is running sooo fast.

MAX conference - part one

5:21 - I am leaving the flat. We should meet on 5:45, but I don't know, how long will it take me to catch a taxi, so I have a buffer.
5:22 - Nikki is calling telling me, that she just woke up and that she will be late. This is not usual in Panama, so I am nicely surprised, that someone called and said, that he/she will be late.
5:24 - The first cab driver is willing to take us to USMA (Universidad Santa Maria Antigua - Panamanian LC home University) - hmm so many positive moments right at the beginning of the day...
5:30 - I am arriving to the USMA campus - 15 minutes befire the meeting time, of course I am the first here.
5:45 - Meeting time. Around 25 people should be at the parking lot in front of USMA. There are two people (second person is the delegate from Costa Rica, who was staying in my flat and came to USMA with me). Why am I not surprised?
5:55 - 5 people at USMA. I am neither angry nor nervous - still we have more than half an hour as buffer.
6:00 - Bus should arrive, but as the driver is also Panamanian, I am giving him some time.
6:15 - 7 people at USMA, no bus. I am getting nervous.
6:30 - Bus arrived, but still there are more than 10 people missing. In original plan we were supposed to leave at 6:30... I am giving much effort to hiding my anger, but obviusly I am not succesful, as MCP is telling me to take a deep breath.
6:50 - The bus with 23 people is leaving USMA campus. Unfortunately there is still one more stop - we are going to bus terminal to pick up a girl, who came in the morning from Costa Rica. We are meeting at gas station close to bus terminal, all the people are going to have a breakfast while we wait for the last delegate.
7:30 - The bus is finally leaving with 26 people. It is quite clear, that we will be late for the opening plenary and will have to adjust the agenda for the first day...Hmm, did I say something about some positive moments in the morning?

El Valle trip - pics

As I promised, I am sending few pictures from El Valle trip - I know, it is almost more than month, but at least something:




Few animals, which got my attention (I will not be posting pictures of the zillion of roosters and hens, which we saw in the zoo...:





The whole delegation - 5 people, 4 nationalities, 3 Europeans:

Premek is coming - Czecho-slovak reunion in Panama

It is monday evening, on Wednesday Araz (AI Director) is coming to country visit, on Friday we have conference premeeting, and on Saturday we are leaving to our second regional conference... Pretty busy week.

But there is another important thing - as Premek is the OC of the conference, he is arriving tomorrow early in the morning to Panama...

I will keep you updated (and I am sure, that at his blog will be also something mentioned about the trip), but I am already quite sure, that on Wednesday I will not come very early to the office... Well - let's show them, how we drink in CEE...

El Valle trip

After long time I again left Panama city for a trip to countryside. El Valle - our destination - is small city in valley, which is basically the volcano crater created long time ago. I was told that the nature is very beautiful there, which definitely increased my interest in the trip.

We were meeting at 7am at bus terminal, I came at 6:55 as is my habit to be at the meeting point few minutes earlier. I did not expect anyone to be there, and actually I did not expect anyone to come within next 20 minutes, so I was nicely surprised, when first people came exactly at 7, but then I realized, that one of them was girl from Netherlands and other one was Franklin, who is actually quite punctual (I am quite lucky to have him in a team...). But until we were all, it passed another 30 minutes... Well - Latin America...

El Valle is approximately 2 hours away from Panama city in direction of Costa Rica, which means, that we were going to cross the Panama Canal. Fortunately we went in different way than the way to Costa Rica and I saw the Millennium bridge:

BTW. Did you know, that there are only two bridges over the Panama Canal? And that the second one was constructed just few years ago (maybe therefore it is called Millennium bridge).

Our first stop was in the ZOO. I was expecting different animals and definitely there were several quite interesting:

 

But most surprising for us was the presence of cages with hens and roosters. I am not sure if it is so exotic animal in Central America, or they were feeding other animals with chicken food, but definitely there were lot of them there.

Another stop which, is to be mentioned, was the thermal resort. There is a thermal spring (around 36°C). Maybe you are asking, why it is so important - well for me it meant, that I had a hot shower after several weeks... :D The thermal resort is also famous because of some mud, which is supposed to be healthy and help your skin. Frankly, I don't believe it, but for the sake of fun, here is the result:

 

The most important learning point of the trip came on the way home. In El Valle we were quite lucky,becausee it started to rain right after we took a bus to Panama. In the morning the journey took 2 hours, so we were expecting approximately the same time to get home. However after less than hour, the stopped in some very small village at the parking lot in front of some shop and after a while people started to get out of the bus. When we asked, what happened we were told, that the bus has some technical problems and is heading back to El Valle. For me the bus sounded perfectly OK and I had a strange feeling, that the bus driver just want to go home and not the whole way to Panama and back. And as I realized, lot of people thought the same way. But we got off, paid the sum we were asked and waited for another bus... If something like this happened in Europe, people would be bitching, cursing the bus driver and would be angry for next several days because of it. Here, we just stood there for half an hour and waited for another bus as nothing happened.
And I didn't even get pissed, I just accepted the situation and got used to it.

And that's the point - maybe we have feeling, that people in Latin America are all the time late and are not so responsible... But on the other hand Europeans are sooo stressed and in rush all the time. Of course, there is not right or wrong way, it is a different way of life standard and some people preferr this one, some preferr the other one. You just have to be born in the right region ;).