Shine my global family!

Imagine that you are sitting in a jeep in the middle of nowhere, it's night so you can't see anything and you haven't eaten since early in the morning. And the car is totally stuck in the mud.

This was just one of all the crazy situations that I found myself in when I was in Africa in November last year.

I took part in a democracy project about youth influence and except for me, it was politicians and members of the youth council in Strängnäs. First we went to Tanzania and a district in the northern part of the country and it's called Simanjiro. In that region you find one of the biggest tribes in Tanzania and that is the Masai tribe. We lived in a village called Loiborsoit and if you don't have the right contacts, it's impossible to get there, because it's really out in the bush, and there are almost no roads.

We had no electricity, just some candles and paraffin lamps. And we got water from a tank, which contained rain water. So as you understand, we couldn't waste anything.

The Masai girls are married off against their will, at the age of 12, and because of that just a few of them complete their education. The boys are circumcised at the same age and become warriors and have to leave school. Some of the chieftains and politicians now struggle for development and for changing these conditions. And due to this they want to exchange knowledge with Strängnäs kommun. So we inaugurate two trees in two different villages. These trees should be the children's meeting place with the leaders. And recently some youth councils have been formed as a result.

Everybody was excited when we came, and in the first village we visited, it was about 300 people that came and welcomed us! And everybody wanted to talk to us, touch our hair, and everywhere they wanted to show that they appreciated us, so they gave us lots of gifts and smoked goat. Sometimes it was well prepared. Sometimes it wasn't.

A week later we went safari and it was extraordinary. After that we travelled to Nairobi in Kenya, where we gathered with lots of people from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Sweden and we had lots of meetings at the UN about youth influence, but also we had the privilege to visit schools and prisons for children and youths and we spent lots of time in the slum areas of Nairobi.

We went to Uganda where we did lots of interesting things. We were also invited to some parties, and that was brilliant, because everybody, irrespective of ages, was together and I have never met such unrestrained people, and they danced utterly wild!

I have learnt a lot on this journey. Before I used to think about Africa as one big country, and almost all I thought about when I heard of it was safari, extreme poverty and children with flies around their eyes, but now I have seen that there are so much more, and I have met those children and in many ways I haven't seen such happy children before. And now, I'm dreaming of going back.

                                                           ~ global-tilda