Some Pictures

Here are some random photos so far.

This one is of us being stuffed in the Dala-Dala (city bus). This was actually pretty spacious compared to the other rides we had. Cute kids around the Uvikuita Centre. Lil guy in the middle is Alfa. We had just given him some chocolate so his mouth is a bit stuffed. Such a cutey!

At Uvikuita Centre. Behind us the the new Community Library that was just built. That will be workplacement for participants in January.

We had the chance to go to a village museum the other day to see traditional tribal house. Then we went to the beach! SOO nice, now I can say I've been in 3 oceans :) The water was like bath water...

I'll post more pictures next time. Running out of time. We're headed to Lindi tomorrow and will be there for 3 weeks. At the work camp we'll helping build a high school for girls and teaching kids sports in the afternoons.

IN TANZANIA!

After a 7 hr flight to Heathrow.. then 8 hour wait there.... then another 8.5 hourflight to Dar es Salaam! We're HERE!! I'm not as jetlagged as I thought I would be.. thankfully... the sleeping on the plane helped a lot.

I only have about 15 mins on the internet right now, so excuse my typos or bad grammar for the time being. I'm trying to type as fast as I can ..

So far we've had some funny encounters, I think some things are a bit more shocking to other participants than me but it's adding to the adventure :)
Some include side effects from our malaria medications...hehe.. (I don't seem to be having any side effects other than possibly being a bit dizzy) but others are/might be having halluciantions..or some vivid dreams.. so we've have our share of poking fun..

The thing so far that i think amazes me are the sounds.... the ridiculously loud bugs.... I don't get scared of bugs... but they are soo loud... I got woken up by a rooster this morning.. which brings back childhood memories of when I was in Malaysia. Even though Malaysia and Tanzania are soo different.. there are so many similarities as well. I can't help but compare what i know to each of these. The squating toilets, lizards around the house...... different than Canada that's for sure... but not realy shocking compared to other experiences I've had. I'm sure I'll be experienceing many other things in days to come.

The Plan....
After this weekend, once we finish orientation. We will be traveling to Lindi for a work camp until beginning of January. Not sure what we will be doing yet or how much internet access I will get, but wait and see. After that, we'll be coming back to Chamazi (close to Dar) to stay with host families at the eco-village and going to work placements.
That's most fo what I know for now. I'll try and update this as much as possible.

I did get a cell phone.. number is: 011-255-712-124047
Feel free to call me, incoming calls are free... and international calls are riduculously expensive. I thought it'd be useful to get one since my blackberry works here.. and the SIM card with credit only costs m,e 1500 tanzanian shillings= aprox $1.50CA

That's that... time's running out! :)
Thanks for all the support!

LEAVING!

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. If you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."-Lilla Watson

The real count down...

As of tomorrow it'll be exactly 3 days till the BIG DAY!

Since we haven't had to work or have EADs this past week, we've been going through debriefing sessions. This included a lot of reflection questions such as: our low/high points, learned from the group, learn about ourselves, likes/dislikes, issues...etc. Much of it, I feel as if we could be doing more in order to get the most of it. Part of me always wants to fix things or make things better. When I hear about an issue, I want to find a solution for everything.... Listening to some of these "issues" frustrates me when I know I can't make it better. We don't necessarily discuss it enough to really bring out underlining aspects.... maybe we're not suppose, I'm not quite sure. I just keep thinking back to Orientation camp when they told us to just trust the process.... well I guess I don't have much of choice but that..

One aspect of the debriefing which was important involved us discussing and remembering the objective of our involvement in the program. We're not going to Tanzanians to make it a better place, we're not going over there to "help" people, we're not going there to impose our ideas there. When I got into the program and at my fundraising event that I was going for because of more "selfish" reasons. I 'm going for the learning experience, I'm interested in seeing how the group dynamics work out and learning about new perspectives that will hopefully help me better understand myself. The method of figuring all this out is by participating in the program, and it is through volunteer work. We're there to learn to do whatever is needed, not to impose our ideas or make people feel second class. We're there to hopefully better understand ourselves and possibly others around us.

It's been a combination on random activities lately, the christmas festivities which we had yesterday. Andrea baked a bunch of shortbread cookies and we got to decorate them. The Tanzanians even decorated a gingerbreak house! Tonight we had another games night. We started playing Dutch Blitz! It's a great game, now I need to find myself my own personal deck. We played Risk too! but.... I'm not so great at trying to take over the world... better luck next time :P

Catch up..

The real count down has begun, now we're down to just a single hand count. The past week has been a bit crazy. A combination of personal things that I have to take care of before departing, was organizing last nights farewell fundraising dinner, cadets, badminton and some other lil things here and there. When I started the exchange, I decided to rid myself of the ridiculous schedule which I had before. the schedule that never gave me any Sally time or simply time to chill and hang out with friends. Over the past couple years I've gradually gotten better once in a while with balancing my actual life verses the activities within my life. I don' think this past year was the prime example, I remember sometime in March ish when I counted the number of days I stayed in Sackville over a 3 week period and I was actually only in town for 4 days. During that time, I was definately stressed to the max from traveling from one side of Canada and back then again the week after and so on. But because of all that, when I started this exchange, I told myself I wanted to take things easy and just relax a bit more. So I ditched my usual crazy schedule and just stuck to simply remembering commitments I have made and lil notes to myself. Well....that didn't work out so well.

I found myself disorganized and very forgetful of whats going on so it made things worst and caused me more stressed since I didn't know what was going on and procrastination didn't make things easier either.

Of the activities I've gotten myself involved with outside fo CWY. I'm really glad I was involved with cadets and badminton. Cadets has always been the one stable thing in my life and I hope it will be for a while. Last Monday was the Change of Command parade for the squadron, following that we went to the RCAF Wing for some drinks. It was a good time chit chatting with some other officers and good ol' cadet gossip is always fun :P On Wednesday, it was my last time going to Badminton so afterwards we went out for some wings. I really wish I had googled about the badminton club a lot early. It's only been 3 weeks of playing with them, but they really grew on me and wish I had known them better. If it wasn't for those involvements, I would have been going a bit crazier than I was.

The past week has been a reflection of everything over the past 3 months, I had the chance to get back into sewing. It's been 4 years since I last sewed something, since we had to do make some recyled art projects i decided to make a bag out of scraps of fabric. I realized how much I miss sweing and how soothing and calming it is for me. The last thing I had ever sewn was my prom dress back in grade 12, and after sewing that corset I never wanted to touch a machine again. But getting back into made me realized how much I missed it. That's one hobby I could get back into. I realized how much I really love cooking too.. it's like therapeutic for me. Not the greatest for my waist line, but chomping on something that tastes good always helps with emotions.. :)

As the count down continues yesterday was our community farewell/fundraising dinner. We had chosen local organization to support and another one in Tanzania. The local one was Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre and the Tanzanian was Yatima Group Trust Fund (an orphanage in Tanzania). We raised $1093 with a silent auction going on, 50/50 draws, and door donations. We had all dinner items donated and cooked some Tanzanian foods. It was a fun night, and turned out surprisingly well.... even after all the disorganization.

so, that's basically the down-low on things that have happened in the last couple days... I'll write a bit more on how I feel about things in terms of LEAVING FOR TANZANIA, laster on tonight or tomorrow.

Life goes on....

Sorry for the delay since my last entry.

Things have been a bit crazy and ummm I guess you could say emotional. We no longer have 18 people on the exchange. It's been sad and confusing trying to understand why some people make the choices that they do. We can never fully understand the background that they come from or experiences and lifestyle that they have had. We make assumptions and judge them and think it's selfish for what they have done... but we have no idea.... Now one person is left out, without having a counterpart to ask questions to and to keep company with. Thankfully it was the last week of work, so it wasn't too lonely.

Friday was the last day at our work placements. At first I was a bit relieved but then I was thinking back to what I've learned the last 2 months of work. Helping with the food box program really opened open my eyes to programs that many communities could develop to not only encourage healthy eating to famlies but also help support local farmers. It'd be great to see similar program pop up in NB, maybe in the future. As for working at Y's Buy, it was my first experience working with clothing retail and it gave me a new appreciation for second hand clothing. I had soem great buys over the last couple months for a great price and for a great cause. Helping out with the resource department introduced me to some programs that organization donations for non-profit organization and gave me better understanding to what funding is needed to sustain such organizations. Last but not least, Crossroads... the women's emergency shelter. many of us have assumptions of who goes to shelters and I definately did as well. I saw such a wide range of people coming into the shelter that it's really eye opening and definately eliminated stereotypes that I've had.

The workplacement made me realize how little I know about my own community and what services are available.....

Since we only have a little more than a week before we leave. We've been trying to think of activities that we think the Tanzanians should experience before we leave. So last week we rented an arena and went skating :) It was a lot of fun! Lots of falls and bruised hips after we were done but we were all laughing at each other skating... trying to skate backwards by wiggling out butts to make the "C" movement... Next weekend, we're playing a day of Christmas festivities.. gingerbread house decorating, decorting christmas trees, christmas carols and even a christmas parade. Should be a good time and one big hoorah before we leave.

Next Friday is out Farewell/Thank you/fundraising dinner coming up. Lots of planning coming up with it....

Update soon

been a crazy week... I'll update soon..