my first African friend

Kinsley was the AIESEC trainee in Cluj and now is still in Bucharest after his traineeship, but we never met before.
And by the way he's from Nigeria.


I wanted to get in touch with him at first because of the trainee council position in NEXT.

Another trainee told me that I'd better not write to Kinsley because he doesn't like AIESEC due to some unpleasant past experience with AIESEC.
I appreciated for her suggestion but somehow still tried to write him in the hope of some positive changes.
I didn't get reply from him, but I still put him in the trainees' mail list so that he can know what we're doing.
Then miracle happened during this NPS—Kinsley appeared in the conference!
When we met in the conference he talked to me "How are you, Michelle?"
Originally I thought he was the international delegate and therefore asked him "How do you know my name?"
He answered something like "I know you very well." (Don't really remember.)
Then I asked his name and realized he's Kinsley.
"Oh my god! You're Kinsley!!" that was my only reaction.
But really, I was so glad to see him there in the AIESEC conference and I think it was the best thing happened in my past one month.
After the conference he called me tonight, added me to his yahoo messenger, and also got the contact info of Lulu (trainee from Mexico) and Katya (trainee from Ukraine) from me.
I'm really glad to feel that the trainees' network gradually starts to work.
Besides the surprise from Kinsley I also want to thank Katya for still coming to NPS even though we couldn't make it to let her be faci, and thank Lulu for coming just because she promised me.
Tonight Kinsley and I chatted on yahoo messenger, and I don't know why but I can easily tell him how I feel now maybe because he's also from a very different culture so I think he can understand how I feel.
I even tell him some of my secrets and he promised he won't say :p
He also showed me some of his paintings since he's a painter.
Seeing his paintings let me realized that it's not only me who's encountering the culture differences and I think it actually might be even more difficult for him.
Anyway I realize that I should be stronger no matter what happens since there're actually people who care about me and I shouldn't let these people worry about me.
Although I'm still not in such a good mood and I don't know how long it will take but I'll be fine.
Thank you, Kinsley, and all the people who care about me.