EGO

My experience over the past two months has been absolutely humbling. I have been working so much and traveling between Namibia and South Africa back and forth, I had an opportunity to work with kids from my previous school and now I have a new outlook on life.

As ordinary humans, sometimes we feel that we need to defend ourselves from the world and everything in life. We have the need to be praised or at least for our efforts to be rewarded. We feel uncomfortable when our peers are doing better than us. We feel that in life we have to be our competitive selves in areas of expertise. I am not going to lie, I have felt like this over a couple of instances in my life; it is human nature.

After the humbling experience, however, I have never felt free in my life. My heart became clear of any ego or alter egos. I finally felt like I became the person I was supposed to be and found my purpose in life. My heart is full of nothing but love. The love for all. I realised that all I wish for everyone is the best. I feel like I need to help people. I felt no need for me to be better than anyone else. I felt the need to not judge but rather understand people. I felt like everyone could be my friend and there is really no need to be hateful or resentful.

I want to talk to people. I want to find out what's going on in their heads. I want to know what they know, I want to learn from them and work with them towards something bigger than each one of us individually.

If you ever found me being boastful or egoistic, tarnishing someone or trying to diminish them, I give you the right to slap me in the face as hard as you can. I am certain that I have fallen in love with life.     

You better work

Every single time I sit down and do my work (MSc research, NamPower project, my business, F.L.I.C.C Foundation), I realize that I can always do more. Here I am doing my assignment from the Social Modelling class and I realized that immediately after my Masters, I would like to start with my PhD. I talked to a lot of people about this and we all agree that I at least need to work and gain experience, and then do my PhD.

Today I thought of it again and changed my mind. How about I work and do my PhD part-time? Hopefully I will have a project or at least a research idea by the end of my Masters.

Staying busy is good. It keeps me out of unnecessary thoughts or situation. I mean I have to stop at some point and just relax, perhaps get married and have kids, but that will only be in 10-15 years from now. 

Ruacana Visit

On the 20th of September, we travelled to go see our old school and give motivational speeches to the seniors at their farewell party. The party took place just before their final exams.

I was quite impressed at how respectful the kids were. And they looked so young. During our year (2008), things were a little different. We had everyone too excited to leave school so they did what they pleased.

It was such a warm and humbling welcome that we received. They cooked for us and all that. They were so eager to listen to us, talk to us and ask questions. They sent us notes of thanks after we left and they vowed to keep in touch. It was really amazing.

I will upload the speech I gave at the event shortly.

Guest Speaker at a high school farewell

So a friend of mine and I had this idea about two months ago to start a foundation to help final-year high school learners to focus on their priorities and start realising their dreams. So basically we wanted to go from school to school giving motivational speeches and just chat to learners about life after high school. We would also like to consistently keep in touch with them if they need someone to talk to. We only have a little on paper about our plan and really did nothing about it.

To our surprise, one of our old school teacher gave us a call asking us to guest speak at their Seniors' farewell party this year. It will be held at their school, Ruacana High, which is about 13 Hours away from where we live. My friend happened to be my business partner as well and we previously decided that 5% of our monthly profits goes into funding the foundation we were to start. What a great opportunity to launch our foundation?

This is unbelievable and I am really honoured :-D

I cannot wait to inform you guys on how it went, I will take lots of pictures.

Science and Religion

As we all know, Science and Religion are contradictory at many instances, and we have extreme believers on both sides. After a long time of trying to understand who is "God"(quotation marks because different religions call HIM different names), I did a little bit of research and came to my own conclusions. Being a science student puts me a position of believing that "God" is non-existent but when I was growing up I was introduced to Religion first and only got to understand Science as I grew older.

You have to admit that whichever way you go, Science or Religion, there will be questions left unanswered and they are both here to stay. In fact, within Religion, there are contradictions between different Religious beliefs. And the same is true in Science. Personally, I don’t care about different Religious or Scientific views. I care about understanding who "God" is, and trying to find either Religious or Scientific ways of explaining "His" existence.

As shown in the display that I made for myself below, I believe "God" is a concept beyond energy (or possibly 2,3, 100, million levels above energy). "GOD" EXISTS. I believe "He" is the one who created energy, the energy that Science uses to explain nature and its existence. Hard core Science failed to accept/prove "His" existence because current Science does not explain anything further beyond Energy. My question for scientists is: If "God" does not exist, where did energy come from? Where did the tiniest particles of matter come from if not "God"?

Although  I have no doubt that nature can possibly be created in flash of an eye (since "God" goes beyond Energy and Power), Religion somehow fail to accept the fact that everything in the Universe is made up of tiny particles that assembles together to make the physical entities as we know them. Hard core Religion should understand that these physical entities go through change over a period of time, depending on their source material  and their environment (Evolution).

Therefore, personally I believe it is important for us to believe in "God" and truly honour "Him" than any Religious or Scientific views, because "He" is real and powerful beyond what we all could imagine. 

Bird/Powerlines Project

Please check out my Facebook group for Birds and Powerlines in Namibia Projects here https://www.facebook.com/groups/328568770522127/

Thanks.

Registering a business in Namibia

My challenge for the past few months have been to register my company in Namibia. Here is how it went.

You go to the Ministry of Trade and Industry located in the Government Park near NamPower in Town. At level 2 of the building, you ask for CC8 forms, where you fill in the name of your business and the type of operations. This form needs a Revenue Stamp (N$ 50.00) from the Post Office. The name is then reserved for 3 months long, while you look for an Accountant (part of the requirements), and they will charge you N$ 100 for their signature.

Finally you are required to hand in three "Blue Forms" that you also get from the Ministry and you need N$ 100 for each. One form stays with the Ministry of Trade, one goes to the Ministry of Finances and one is returned to you after registration is done. Registration is finished when you get a registration number, which means you can start your operations and pay your yearly dues to the Ministry at whichever time of the year you choose (this time have to be constant, I chose end of October each year). If you need to change the name of your business or any other amendments at all, you fill in three "Yellow Forms" and you need N$ 30 for all.

Registering you name does not mean that no one else can use it. If you register "Julia's Restaurant", someone else can be allowed to register "Julia's Bar" if they so wish. To protect the use of the name "Julia" means you have to patent (or copyright) it, which is also done at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

If you wish to apply for tenders in the country, this needs a separate registration, done with the Social Security Commission (SSC) of Namibia and this basically means you register as an employer. Do not worry about such stuff as employees tax or other taxes chargeable because a this point you are still considered as a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). Income tax is only chargeable when your enterprise starts making N$ 300 000 or more of income per year.

If you wish to export or import anything into or out of the country, you register for the Export/Import Certificate with the Trade and Industry Ministry and this means you might not have to pay VAT depending on the level of moved goods.

This is all I have for you so far. I am currently in the process of registering with the SSC as well as for my Export/Import Certification and I will let you know how it goes once done. Wish me luck :-)