The past week has been really fun. For our Community Activity Day we went canoeing and kayaking on the Otonabee River and Little Lake. It was a gorgeous day, but the funny part of the day happened about 1 minute after some of us got in the water. Tegemeo tipped his Kayak and into the water he went...hehe....
I know it's mean for laughing but if you were there, you would have been too. All the Tanzanians were either wearing winter jackets or big sweaters, so I’m sure he was pretty bogged down in the water. That was by far my favourite day so far. It was great just floatin' on the lake.. and it was a lot of fun (bit frustrating) teaching the Tanzanians how to canoe as well. 
Even some of the Canadians hadn't been canoeing before... lots of excitement for everyone. I was not impressed with the life jacket i got stuck with though... it looked like a kiddie one compared to everyone elses..
Since I'm part of the social committee, I had decided to cook supper for everyone on one of the nights and it just so happened to be on Frank's Birthday. I ended up cooking 7 dishes and thankfully had tons of helpers cutting up veggies for me. Some of them thought I was a bit crazy for being so particular about the way I wanted my carrots or onions..etc cut up.. hehe. That was a really fun night as well. We also 'experience' this Tanzanian tradition of the Birthday Boy feeding everyone a bite of cake, while chanting our names.
I went to a rowing regatta for the first time last saturday. I was actually volunteering at it. One of the other host dads had arranged for Andrea and I to have free rowing lessons with an Olympian, in exchange for some work ofcourse.... so there we were. The regatta had over 1700 participants and over 250 boats..
it was pretty ridiculous. We got yelled at a couple times when helping people since we didn't really know what we were doing (it was our first time seeing rowing first hand). So we learned things by the dock pretty fast then helped keep the finish times by the end of day. Overall, everything so far has been pleasant nothing over the top but nice. I can sense myself being a bit frustrated at times with the program. Having so many people involved with different backgrounds and ages, it's hard ot please us all. I think we are now starting to realize what this program is really about and why we are here.. or at least trying to make sense of it all when we are frustrated and mad and everything in between.
So many things evolve around our community, but before we do anything we have to understand it. At the same time, we're frustrated because no one seems to understand our needs. At the end of the day we have to keep reminding ourselves that this whole experience/exchange is about first understanding then to be understood. Before we do anything, we should first seek to understand the environment that we are in and how our actions will impact it. Just cuz you built a school in that community doesn't mean it will work in another.
I'm starting to realize that one of my biggest faults is patience.... I always want things to be done quickly and efficiently but it doesn't always work that way. Of course there are external factors playing a part... but cuz of my lack of patience the language barrier between each of us is a huge challenge.
For the past four years, I've had so much independence that I forgot about the other side fo the coin... Now that I'm here, I can't drive, I'm in a program that never really ends... and my friends are far away. It's waaay harder than I thought it would be. The lifestyle change from being a student with extra curriculars to now participating in this program is very different. We do have activities/jobs that keep us busy mon-fri 9-5, but it's just so different from before. As much as I am enjoying the experience, I think for the first time I'm a bit homesick and I miss my lifestyle of being busy. This whole relaxing thing is new to me, I honestly think that I need to be kept busy and always on the go, or else I get bored. So for now, I'm trying to occupy myself with a couple things and focus on some personal projects. I'm hoping that I will get the chance to go somewhere before we leave for Tanzania just for me to get away for a little bit, to not think/deal with of the program every waking minute. Sometimes I wonder, was/is this experience worth the things which I gave up before coming on this exchange? I've been pretty positive this entire time, but I think negativity amongst the group does rub off on each other. Everyone needs their venting sessions, but we just have to remind ourselves why did we come on this in the first place.
My reasons:
1. Experience/understand other perspectives
2. Travel and do something productive
3. Better understand myself and what I want to do in life (reflection time)
4. Meet new people, live somewhere else
5. Understand other communities in Canada and overseas to better understand how my home community compares and what drives mine.
If you are interested in reading more blogs or adventures of what we are doing... Our group has set up another blog-like site (http://mambopress.blogspot.com). This site has little stories of all our adventures; it also has volunteer’s profiles, French word, Tanzanian fact, and much more. It will be updated roughly every 2 weeks.
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