Back to Reality?

It's been almost a week now since I've been back in Canada. We spent the last couple days in Tanzania doing evaluations and reflection exercises on our experiences over the last couple months.

After a 20hrs of traveling we got to Toronto where we(Canadians) did some re-entry shock workshops. The sessions were done with The Center for Intercultural Learning. We were all sort of dreading the sessions and thought it would be pretty boring. They turned out really well, the sessions were well facilitated and not as "chessy" as we thought they would be. It gave us a chance to think back to all our experiences and reflect on the highlights and exchange ideas with others. It helped us think deeper of some of the negative stereotypes that some of us may have developed.
I've heard from a lot of other people that when they get back from some trips, they fall into a rut of being depressed and frustrated and hard to look at their life before.

Now I'm in Edmonton, staying with my brother and his family. It's a complete flip from my living situation just a week ago. It's weird to realize how easy it is to go back to my original life.... I think it's still too early to reflect on everything and all the experiences. I still have a lot of thinking to do, but I'm sure once I get back to the Maritimes I'll get the chance to talk about it.

For now... I'll be out west until Mid-April. I'll be mostly just relaxing and studying for my commercial exam that I've been dragging on forever. I'll be doing a short contract for MTA with some receptions happening in Vancouver, Victoria & Calgary. Super excited for that :) I'll get the chance to visit some friends and give me another opportunity to travel. Once I get back to the Maritimes, everything is basically up in the air. I haven't yet decided if I want to work with cadets again for this summer.... Depends on how my job search goes.... wait and see I guess...

This will be my last post. Thanks for reading my blog over the last couple months...
See you soon :)

I'm a little tea pot!

This is little Isaac. The cutest kid of all. Going to miss him a lot :(

Less than 24 hours!

It's literally less than 24 hours till we board the plane.
I'm getting pretty antzy about it. I have mixed bag emotions..sort of relieved but sad and super excited all at the same time.

Almost there!

It’s less than a week till we head back to Canada! It’s crazy how fast 6 months has gone by. To be honest though, I’m a bit relieved that the program is coming to an end. I think most of the Canadian are relieved as well, most of us are really glad to be heading back to Canada. It’s been a great experience overall, but we miss Canada.

There’s been ups and downs in the last couple months, lately I’ve been feeling sort of a bit lonely. I’ve been going to bed at 8:30pm because I feel left out of conversations due to the language barrier. It didn’t bother me that much before but for some reason lately it is. I just go to my room and read and go to bed. I tried to join in the conversation before, but I feel more than a nuisance than anything else. I haven’t been feeling the greatest the past week anyways.. I have a bit of a cold. There seems to be a second round of sicknesses going around as well. Deborah (my counterpart) has Fever, some others have Malaria again and others have stomach problems.

We just have one more day of work.. then we go into debriefing sessions for 2 days then we have a bit of free time to pack and all.. then off we go! Once we get to Toronto..we have some more sessions of re-entry briefings.. then we split off to our separate ways…

I think moral and motivation within our group has been a bit down lately. We all realize the program is coming to an end.. but what does that mean for us individually. Now what…….

We’ve had this amazing experience and seen some incredible things…. Now we just go back to our “normal” lives and do what we did before? From the Canadians perspective.. It’s made be realize how fortunate I am for living and growing up in Canada.. It’s made me appreciate a lot of different things. I’ve lived this completely different life for the past couple months, but I’m sure when I go back.. it’ll be “easy” to fall back into the same routines as before I left. The lifestyle that I really do miss….. but what’s it mean for the Tanzanians? They’ve experienced the other side …. Of having a washing machine and so on… How do they feel? Hhmm…. I really not sure.. but I think it will cause some riffs…. I sort of sense a divide in the group the last couple week…. Not sure where that will go… but reality of the world’s we live in is starting to set in…