Death and Love

So here we are, more than a week into this Emzingo experience.

I have been asked a couple of times what exactly this internship is about and if all this volunteer work is good for the soul and blahdeeblahblah. I would say this is more than just a regular internship, more than just simply volunteer work. This experience is about stretching yourself in circumstances you normally wouldn’t. This experience is about living in a place so different from where one normally operates and in that dissimilarity I find out something new about myself. This experience is also for me to learn about South Africa and Africa, a country and continent that has hardly made its mark in my sphere of everyday life.

Right. So that thing above – well, it’s just a PR pitch.

But then it gets quite difficult to define. So maybe, I’ll share some of the things that we do here every day. As part of my experience here, the fellows and I are required to attend sessions at WITS business school and to attend all sessions planned by the Emzingo Group (who works with our business school to hosts these fellowships) and to meet with our consultant mentors and to attend coaching sessions with our career coaches. We learn about EQ and self awareness and peer-coaching and social businesses and corporate social investments and stuff like that after working hours. So, it can get pretty hectic.

One of the things Emzingo wants for us is to have a network of trust created among us. And to do that, they have approached it in a rather obvious way. Which is to make us share things. Right, you share things and you get to know one another, thus circle of trust. Simple enough concept really. However, when put in practice, sharing is not that easy as said. In one of the sessions, we had to share the things that have shaped our lives to make us who we are today. It’s deeply personal and slightly uncomfortable. It was long too, because the rule is that we have to let people talk for as long as they want. It took a while for me to speak up – I was one of the last ones actually. Funnily enough, there was a lot of talk about death and love. The two forces that drive us, one to remind us about our limited time here and the other on how we choose (or not choose) to spend our limited time on earth.

Guys, this right here is the money. I’ve got it, the key to life itself. Death and Love.

After a session like this, I do feel like I got to know these people better. And trust them too. Once you’ve opened up like that, somehow, it feels easier to share when people know where you are coming from. It’s really an interesting and a slightly disconcerting place to be, since I’ve only just gotten to know these people. And only a couple of people have heard the stuff I had said in front of these 16. But hey, I’m going to trust in the experience and see how this all turns out.

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And for Wednesday, it is confirmed – I am going to meet Michelle Obama. Pretty cool I’d say.