Getting ready for a South African adventure
I came from a mid-sized town in Eastern Germany and became an exchange student in a very rural area of Colorado. This allowed me to experience a totally different world as a 16-year old high school student. Now I work as a sales rep for SAP Germany taking care of the higher education & research sector. While I enjoy my job and am grateful to work for a company with purpose , (helping the world run better and improve peoples’ lives is really not just a marketing slogan), I cherish the opportunity to grow beyond my business routine. So I applied to a program called the SAP Social Sabbatical and was rewarded with an assignment to go for 4 weeks to Durban, South Africa. I will work for a NPO that specializes in early childhood education. Exactly 16 years after my exchange in Colorado, I’m getting ready to embark again on a new intercultural experiment.
Cultural adventures have graced my life ever since my exchange as a teenager, through private vacations and travels abroad or taking on international jobs. To learn from different cultures, staying open-minded and curious, giving something to people in need and broadening each other’s perspective are just some of my motivations to apply for this upcoming unique experience. I truly believe that through traveling the world, engaging with different cultures and people and learning about each other, learning to live and work together, we can make the world a better place. I believe being open-minded for the unknown, for strangers and a different way of living is now more important than ever.
As the preparation for this exciting challenge is currently underway, I am already learning new insights. We are a team of 12 SAP employees who are impatiently waiting to board the plane at the end to March to South Africa. This team has been put together with various backgrounds, from different countries and we’re totally unknown to each other. I am amazed at how close we already grew as a team although we haven´t met in person yet; our only communication has been through Skype, forums and web sessions. I am grateful that being closed in within country borders is not something I have had to experience. Imagine a world where borders only existed in our minds and those can be overcome with modern technology!
By being open and public about my experience, which I know will have ups and downs, difficulties and challenges, I would like to give those who have currently not the opportunity and luck to go onto such an adventure to get a glimpse into my world. More to come. Please join me on my adventure.
