WOW! The third week of the WOW programme has passed by!

Its so amazing how ‘time flies when you are having fun’. I now fully understand what this phrase means. The third week has gone by and I can gladly say, my knowledge box is almost full.
I have learned so much in this programme as I have discovered some revelations about myself that I did not know about. We had a seminar on ‘emotional intelligence’ and I must admit, it has challenged me to introspect and evaluate my abilities. We have been advised to start keeping a journal and try to write on it at least three times a week. I have always known or have learned about the importance of having a journal, but I guess I never took it seriously. Well I now realise the value of this exercise, especially now that I’m in a journey of discovering myself.
My life is changing for the better I believe. I’m one person who believes change is good, change is essential and it is part of growth. So as I’m embracing this change, I feel the need to document every aspect of this change in my life. I must admit that it is not simple and practical to write on my journal three times in a week, but because I want to do this I will commit myself to this new hobby that I have just chosen. We have learned of setting goals the ‘SMART’ way in this program and ‘smart’ stands for: S- specific, M stands for measureable, A for attainable, R means realistic and T means time based. So I intend to attain this simple goal of writing in my journal, by using the ‘smart’ way.
This week has been amazing. I have been inspired, to become ‘technological competent’ if there is such a term, and to move with the times. I have been challenged to embrace globalisation and its features as it is one phenomenon that is here to stay. Both Kuseni Dlamini and Josie spoke to us on Monday about the ‘inter connected’ world that we are living in. This has challenged me to start reading as much as I can and to start embracing ‘globalisation’. Secondly, Kuseni asked us if South Africa or the whole of Africa has ever invented something that we can be proud of. I can say I have never thought of this before, even though we know that the Western and East countries have invented almost everything cars, spaghetti, computers, software and the list is endless. I have never taken the time to think about my continent, but after Monday I was more aware of our shortcomings as a continent. What have we invented as Africans? This is a ‘low/ disadvantage/ weakness’ however you see it, especially when you start thinking about all the problems that face Africa: HIV/AIDS, education, politics and the list goes on.
Furthermore, Josie touched on similar issues and presented statistics about our economic level in comparison to 131 countries. It was sad but not surprising to see where we are ranked as an economy and with the current electricity crisis we can only imagine where we will be ranked by the end of the year.
On the other hand, Josie managed to make us see ‘light at the end of this tunnel’ that we are in. She reminded us that in spite of all these challenges that we are facing, we still have things to be proud of as Africans. Our cultural diversity is one of them and the traditional values such as ‘ubuntu’ which are unique to Africa only are positive aspects to be proud of.
In a nutshell, I can honestly say that acknowledging our development areas as individuals or as a continent is the right and necessary step for growth for us. In this way we are able to identify exactly what it is that is missing and then through unity and knowledge we will be able to also identify the solution needed.