I went to Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, for 8 weeks. During this period I did an internship at the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in the first part of the day and a Microfinance and Entrepreneurship (MFE) project in the afternoon. I wanted to gain another international experience and do something totally different, therefore I was especially eager to go to Africa. AIESEC was able to give me this opportunity and guided me through the search process. I applied to different Traineeships, this process took a lot of time and was frustrating in the sense that some TN managers took a long time to respond. But when I came across the TN in Uganda and got a positive reply quickly I was very enthusiastic, and was able to “make a match”.
A couple weeks later I was on my way to Uganda, I flew via Dubai and I stayed there for 10 days, so that was a good start to my journey. I arrived in Kampala a couple weeks before my internship started and I had already booked a safari for the first week. I chose to go earlier because I wanted to travel around in the country as well and I expected that I would not have the opportunity to do that during the internship.
After I travelled around I still had one week left before the project started and I met with the LC for the first time to set expectations and go through all the things I needed to know. Unfortunately, they were not very clear about the EP’s role in the MFE project and they still had some difficulties with the internship but I was assured everything would be fine. Which in the end it was. The housing was not yet arranged so I stayed in a small hotel in the centre of Kampala, where I stayed the rest of my stay because I was able to make a nice deal with the owner, and because it was very close to work.
The other interns from the MFE project started to arrive as well and my internship at the CMA started with only one week delay. I was a research intern and assisted in data entry and other daily tasks of the senior research officer, I also had to write a report on the Influence of the African Monetary Union on the Integration of the Capital Markets in East Africa. It is a very interesting time in East Africa, as they are in the process of becoming an integrated trade block. When all the other EPs had arrived the MFE project also started, there were around 20 local students attending and 8 international EPs. During 6 weeks, the students were given lectures from professionals from the field of Entrepreneurship and Microfinance. Although the role of the EPs were unclear in the beginning, we had to give presentations when there was no technical facilitator. We also acted as facilitators in discussion and role plays. At the end of the project all the participants had to write a business plan and incorporate the things they had learned during the project.
During the course of the exchange there were some situations where the cultural differences became apparent. For instance, before the project started, I was supposed to meet a couple of LC members to recruit students for the MFE project on campus at 2 pm. I was at the university right on time and started to call some members to tell them where I was and confirm our meeting, they said that one of the members would be there very soon and that they did not know where the others were. Time went on and reached 3pm, still nobody, I started calling again, but nobody picked up their phone, and I decided to wait for another 20 min or so… After 15 minutes one of the members called and they told me that nobody could make it… and that we will start recruiting tomorrow! Normally “African Time” meant a little later but not that they did not show at all!
The local AIESEC community was very active and organized all kind of activities. There were a couple of universities where AIESEC operated and they all had EPs over for the summer. So we were with a big group of interns. Next to the weakly drinks at the local bar Mateo’s, they also organized a conference in Entebbe, one hour away from Kampala, where we stayed for a whole weekend and all kind of activities were organized. The interns also organized their own activities, we went rafting in the Nile in Jinja with a big group for instance. And a lot of people travelled to Kenya and Tanzania. I went to South Africa with two other interns during the World Cup 2010 where we visited the games USA-Ghana and Netherlands-Slovakia. What did I Learn?
First of all, this experience gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of new people, not only from Uganda but from all over the world. You hear a lot of different life stories and learn about many different countries. But of course I learned most about the Ugandan culture, not only about their timing, but also about their view of the world and for instance the importance of their religion. During my internship at a formal government organization I learned about the Ugandan business culture, which I experienced as formal in official business and with superiors, but at the same time very relaxed and fun between colleagues.
Next to that I experienced first hand the difficulties that people from my age experience when they grow up in a country where the possibilities are less than what we are used to. This changed my view of the world that we live in.
The advantage of doing an exchange with AIESEC is that you are not on your own. During the summer there were approximately 40 international interns in Uganda. I have made a lot of new contacts and already met with a few of them a couple of weeks ago. AIESEC also facilitates a lot of projects like the MFE project where you can put your knowledge you gained in practice. I gave a lot of presentations and taught others what I have learned during my studies which was a very satisfying. Another good thing about an AIESEC project is that you can have influence in the way it is organized because it is all done by students. Therefore I have learned how to organize a project and especially have learned from the things that went wrong. I can only say that it was an amazing experience, and that I would recommend it to everybody!