2011/01/24

Hey gringo meet senhora Augusta!!! (Part 3 of 3: Returning and solving the first challenge)

So short before Christmas after exhausting and turbulent times in São Paulo i had the next challenge. On my way to my Christmas party with Julia on Ilha Grande I was lost in the middle of nowhere. And with my still limited Portuguese. That is quite quest. 

The bus driver misunderstood my target location and after 2 hours of driving he just left me at a restaurant on the highway. Well I got a bit nervous since I was very sure that I had been in the right bus. At the restaurant they could not speak English besides the owner a bit. Finally I could make myself understood and the owner called Julia. There was already a very uncomfortable pattern in the relationship with Julia. It would be the 2nd time that I was saved by her...
Well after 2 buses going on to Angra, one bus driver agreed to take me with him. I arrived too late to catch a boat and so I had to sleep in the harbor. To be honest I was really recovered the next day. 

After that I wished very much to rest and enjoy Christmas and New Years Eve. But what a wish... :)) An unfulfilled wish. I spent a great time with Julia but is was nearly as exhausting as in São Paulo. Since she had to work and experienced difficult costumers she was also pressured. Being in this situation and being together with a woman on a serious base confronted me brutally with my weaknesses and shadows. So you can imagine how challenging the time was. On the one hand I could not do anything for solving my mission - Brazil was on holidays - and on the other hand I had to fight with my bad sides, my ego, my selfishness, my in-consequence. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccccccccccccccceeeeeeee. 

It ended with staying in the hospital because Julia was so affected by this stress that she got sick. Well after another week of taking care about her and recovering a bit I returned to São Paulo. The outlook was perfect! There was the meeting with the decision makers of the national Association of toy producers. The perspective of having a job interview at Lumiar, discussing with Pablo possibilities of solving my www.busuu.com language while addressing a Hub need and talks with Rita and Augusto to apply the www.chllng.me mechanism in their communities made me raise my expectations. 

Well to shorten it up. Of course it came the other way round. Pablo was surprisingly on a training workshop for the whole week, the job interview was delayed and I was so exhausted that I could not get started. Even worse than that: I had troubles with my money because through a miscommunication with my Austrian bank institute my debut card was expired by the end of the year. Sweet!!! So I had some money in cash enough either to get through until flying home or going back to Angra to meet with Julia who got money from my bank. The signs were already there…

The meeting with the association was in order to solve my first big challenge and initiate a social project with street kids. This meeting was the first concrete proof of our hypothesis of the power of the virtual world. Vitor who is a board member of the association introduced me to the president and the managing director of the association. The funny thing was that I met Vitor the first time in the meeting. He just knew my linkedIn account and Daniel who connected the two of us. However I have never met Daniel in person yet since a former school friend linked me via email with him. So the whole process showed what we believed in. How strong the social web can be.

Vitor and his colleagues met me with a great amount of trust and willing to help. I was amazed. The irony of this happening was that Vitor realized in the meeting that my appearing was part of the chllng.me game and I presented myself as a game designer. (Hw would he have reacted if I would have used the term player?)

The meeting went really great. The president was happy and convinced of the Mobile School project (www.mobileschool.org) and agreed on bringing the project to Brazil. 


Yes!!!!! Strike. There we goooooooo. About the learning and more about this project later on. It was strange because despite of enjoying the first success I couldn’t get of my exhausted …

On the next morning I made a terrible discovery in the grocery store. My money was gone. Instead of my money I found a big whole in my shorts. I freaked out. Lost completely my balance. What the fuck. I was there in SP without any money and no cards. I was upset and unsure to ask people I got to know some days ago and who I didn’t know very well. What would they think? Would they trust me? Didn’t I use to much of their support by staying at their place?

Damned I was really shocked. Besides that it was so unlikely that I made such a big hole on the way to the grocery store. When I took of my pants with all the money the day before there was no hole since I got some money out of the pocket and gave the rest back. So being freaked out and aware of the uncertainty of those events I asked my hosts if they could imagine that their maid would be in a difficult situation that she would take advantage of my chaotic and irresponsible style.

Could you imagine my situation having met such great and nice people who fully trust their maid and didn’t know me well. I was upset having raised my question in my frustration. What if this happening would destroy our relationship and we would lose the trust in each other? It really made me nervous.

At lunch I told my story to Karen who I saw just one time at my last visit to SP for a drink. She offered me right away the opportunity to lend the money from her. Without having any security and knowledge of who I was. Really amazing. Thanks Karen for your help and trust.

Well at least having that solved I could not really focus on what my challenges and of course it came worse. Marina from Lumiar needed to cancel our meeting. Oh great the last days seemed to be a complete fail. I was not sure anymore if I should miss my flight in order to have 2 more weeks to accomplish my remaining 2 challenges. Everything seemed to fall apart. My insecurity was laming me. I was so focused on went wrong that I really was close before to blow off everything and fly home as planned before coming to Brazil. I came to Brazil for 2 reasons to prototype a real life game which was more or less successful and to change myself. I was so fed up with knowing what could be possible and what could be done and being able to execute it. I never wanted to grow up accused very often other people of being so engstirning and old fashion. I was very inconsequent and lost so very often my focus (Remark: it was of course an awesome idea of having three major challenges in 6 weeks).

I want to use my talents and get the real value back for my efforts and ideas. Whereas I am still not sure if I need to think ideas to an end or concentrate on my magic of initiating action and projects.

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