CEEMOS 09 - Bosna and Hercegovina

Who wouldn´t consider Balkan as an interested destination which is worth visiting he should evaluate his opinion just again and take advantage of any opportunity as we did. Eleven of us took part in the CEEMOS 09 international conference. It took part few kilometers far from Sarajevo, the capital of The Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We met a lot of people from CEE region - Polish, Slovak, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Slovenian, Turkish, Bosnian and Serbian. It was great to see young generation of Bosnian and Serbian cooperated together. We can´t also forget our friend Kuz from the UK...

The conference was divided into two tracks - taking responsibility and exchange track. In the TR track our members talked about leadership, exchange and its relevance in today world...they also simulated the processes from AIESEC during managerial game and improved their cultural understanding during feed backing outdoor session. In the exchange track we worked on establishing the cooperation among our local committees within the CEE, we shared our knowledge and we also talked about internal trends in exchange. In the end we have four co operations.

We enjoyed the parties - especially the last one which was connected with the internal Global Village and on Thursday - the last day of the conference - we traveled in the centre of Sarajevo where we were accommodated in hostel so we could prepare ourselves for exploring Sarajevo´s old city and Mostar - the 5th biggest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina located in the southern part of Herzegovina - containing wonderful sights.

We were impressed by the contrast of this country - houses absolutely devastated by war standing next to the new ones which we are used to in The CR. The orient next to European culture - mosques next to cathedrals... In Sarajevo it is kind of ordinary that mosque, synagogue and church are located nearby each other. All of this wondered us a lot.

But our most impressive moment should still come... our guides were naturally guys from CC (Congress committee) and after the closer recognition we started to realize the signs of war. The witness of persons who lived 4 years in the war shocked us all -

"When I was eight the war started but my memories are still fresh. My father was twice injured and now he can´t walk... When our house was destroyed we just moved to another - if it was free we could stay over there... Sarajevo was few years besieged and people didn´t have 4 years ordinary water supply...now it is much better."

This is also part of Bosnian culture. You can see that people are still afraid to buy long term possession such as new cars. All these facts were hard to imagine for us - calmly living Europeans.

We gained al above a lot of new knowledge, experiences and new friends... Motivated and fascinated we returned back to Prague.

Summer in Turkey!

Hey!



I am Sasa a I have spent half of my summer 2008 in Turkey. I have lived at my friend’s house in Ankara. I met this friend at my first international conference - CEEMOS in Tunisia!

I worked at LC Ankara as a CEED. Two days after I arrived they had huge planning congress with all the members so I got to know almost everyone.
At the beginning there were two more CEEDers – girl from USA and a guy from Canada. We worked in OGX team, got our own EPs to take care of and helped with planning for the next recruitment.


Firstly I was really surprised to see so many people at the office every day during the summer. They don’t even think about going abroad during the school break (to earn money), they jut enjoy their summer holiday or go to summer school.
Usually after work we went out for dinner or some drink. Ankara is not really a tourist city but it is a capital, so it is really busy at night. I lived close to the main shopping street with lots of restaurants, cafes, bars and shops.


LC Ankara also had lots of trainees during the summer. Their relationship with trainees was awesome. We had great cultural evenings every week and went for lots of trips. After 2 weeks I joined the Cappadoccia tour, which was something like their LC activity. The trip was for all AIESEC members from Turkey. I have seen lots of beautiful towns and places. We also went to Istanbul for a week. It is a great city – definitely one which is worth to see.
My summer in Turkey was awesome! Firstly I wasn’t sure if it is a good idea but I don’t regret anything. Turkey is a great country and thanks to LC Prague I got a chance to see it!