Introducción

At the end of 2009, while looking for a new endeavor after leaving the bank, I was having quite a dilemma: should I keep applying for a new job, hoping it would become my dream job, should I just pack up and go travelling around the world to have a real time-out, or what the hell was my plan anyways, etc… and on top of that I was doing my guesswork knowing that I would have to spend the last month of the year in the Swiss army no matter what direction my decision would turn to, which is an outlook as motivating as a dirty kitchen.
Usually this kind of problems don’t get solved by themselves and we end up putting up with the second best compromise-solutions… but guess what, usually doesn’t mean always and I was about to get really luck this one time ;) While looking into the possibility of working abroad for some time, a friend suggested having a look at the Swiss civil service homepage (www.zivi.admin.ch), because they were sometimes looking for qualified personnel in Swiss projects abroad. He himself had been very happy with his decision to do civil service instead of going to the army (a choice that was facilitated in Switzerland about a year ago) and so I thought a look wouldn’t hurt. And it didn’t! On the contrary: although lots of the openings were about engineers, computer scientists, medics and teachers, there was one organization looking for an economist in a project of theirs in Colombia… long story short: EMPA (Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology Research, see: www.empa.ch/tsl) contracted me as civil servant for their e-Waste Initiative Colombia (check out: www.ewasteguide.info), which was about to get implemented and needed some backing up on the financial side (meaning help to get some economic questions out of the way).
So suddenly I would travel to Bogota and help building a system for e-Waste-recycling, kinda something I would never have dared imagine even in my most creative dreams… but there it was: no more army (ever again), no more hamster-race in a big multi-national corporation and the chance to explore my Colombian roots! And the best part of it all was, it would be for a purpose that kept fuelling my motivation the more I learned about it. Of course I would have to leave my beloved Winterthur together with my dearest girlfriend, friends and family (and even my volleyball, where I never had went away in mid-season before in all my life!), but I thought in the end it’s a small price to pay for a once in a lifetime-experience, isn’t it?
Anyways, let’s get to the point of this introduction: because I will be away from home for half a year, I decided to create this blog so I can write down some of my experiences somewhere and at the same time share my Colombia-impressions with anyone who’s interested. I hope you have some fun reading these lines and please feel free to write back to me, so I can keep up with what’s going on elsewhere. And of course let me know if you’re close and want to drop by!!
Un abrazo, Gabriel “lique en Colombia”