It's about dignity

This Blog Will No Longer Be Active

2010-04-30T15:32:00.001-07:00

Should you wish to keep up with my continued adventures and musings on life please check out: iminanutshell.blogspot.com

The Last Hurrah!

2010-04-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, March 26 was WYA's Annual Blue Gala. It also marked the final evening of my years as president of WYA and the start of Francois Jacob's new role as WYA's 3rd president.

The event was absolutely beautiful with board members from around the world, along with staff from every region, many of our supporters and friends. It was an opportunity for me to thank many of the people who helped me through the moments of greatest difficulty and inspired me to keep going when I only wanted to quit. Not everyone was there, many of the staff alumni and a few of my closest mentors were unable to be there - which was also a reminder of how incredibly diverse WYA's reach is and how lucky we are to have such successful people working with us, scattered around the world.

There were a few minimal speeches. We welcomed Francois with a very cool laptop bag and some notebooks. I had always had a great memory until I became president, by now my memory is about as long-term as a goldfish's. My notebooks have kept me organised and reminded me of many essential and funny ideas over these past years.

WYA presented me with some blue scrubs for my future career in medicine. The WYA logo is embroidered on the front and on the right sleeve is "president, 2007 - 2010" when I'm working with patients I hope that extra title impresses them :) I was so happy to receive them. As I looked, suddenly my future plans began to seem real as I realised that soon I can practically live in scrubs!

On Saturday, March 27 there was a brunch with many of WYA's staff, interns, friends, members and some board members. It was a more relaxing event and another opportunity for us to be together and chat. It was also the first opportunity to hang out with everyone without an official title!

I didn't feel any different yet, because I'm so used to being president that I was aware of all the work that went into the event and that would follow. I also knew all the thoughts Francois *should* be thinking to prepare for staff meetings the next week and also that I should allow him to encounter his new job at his own pace. I held my thoughts inside - as hard as that was!

By now, I've had a week not being president. I still have at least a week's worth of work to clean up files and finish up my projects for Francois. I've also been able to help out a little with various staff or projects. I still feel like I'm working for WYA, and to a certain extent I hope that sentiment remains with me for life, that I'll always want to help out with anything WYA needs.

For now, I've been able to sleep more, relax and hang out with the staff and... go for a jog in Central Park on a weekday during work hours!!!

As I am no longer WYA's president, I must now ditch this blog. Should you wish to follow my adventures and sporadic postings please visit my new personal blog at iminanutshell.blogspot.com

:)

J'aime Gaufres avec Nutella

2010-02-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

Every time I come back to Brussels, I crave the packaged waffles that sell for less than a Euro. Warmed slightly with nutella on top, they melt in my mouth. Finishing a day of waffles and nutella with delicious Belgian beer, some frites with mayonnaise and a kebab is pretty much heavenly. Thankfully I also walk everywhere or would have to bring muumuus to wear by the end of the visit.

The purpose of my current visit is actually not to eat. I'm here to train Francois to replace me as President of WYA. It feels so weird attempting to pass on all that I've learned, and also respecting his own opinions and plans for what he will do as President. He's also still running the WYA Europe office which doesn't leave him a lot of time to sit with me and discuss future plans.

I'm pleased with this trip though, I've been able to spend time with Francois and shout out ideas across the office. Even if we've struggled to sit together each day and work our way through all the items on our lists, we've still managed to prioritise, brainstorm and slowly accomplish all we need to. We're down to an evening and a day at this point. We certainly won't finish everything, but have progressed enough that lots more can be done via skype and email.

In the process of transitioning I'm also getting a sense of how hard it is to let go. I'm so used to planning out WYA's activities and schedules months in advance. I know what the schedule will be for staff meetings, I prepare how the regional meetings will go and I know I'll be exhausted by the end and what can and can't happen.

Instead, I have only one month left as President, the countdown is on! I'll certainly spend the first few weeks of "unemployment" finishing cleaning my files, being an ear for Francois and likely helping around the house with laundry :) I haven't woken up in the morning without something pressing for me to do for years, I'm not sure how I'll cope!

Oh well, in the meantime, I've enjoyed every minute of my stay in Brussels. I arrived to see snow in Brussels for the first time ever! Last Saturday I visited Antwerp, the diamond capital of the world, and visited the diamond museum - always good to visit my best friends :) Diamonds are a girl's best friend, right?

Tonight we have a movie night at the intern's flat with a number of WYA friends present. Tomorrow I'll meet up with a friend for supper, and possibly go for one last beer with the staff prior to that.

Safety overkill?

2010-02-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

Last night we called the fire department. 5 minutes later we heard sirens down the street and a firetruck, two ambulances and cop car pulled up outside the Brussels interns flat. Within moments firefighters in full combat gear trooped up the stairs and into the flat. We stood awkwardly by.

Shortly afterwards, our potentially hazardous gas leak, which we were concerned might ignite the entire building due to the incredibly pungent smell was nothing more than the overpowering smell of waste seeping up through the pipes and into the flat through the boiler opening.

They smirked and joked as they left.

There are things that are simply taken for granted. That should we smell something strong in our flat and have any concern of its being dangerous we can summon the fire department to investigate. They came promptly in full gear, ready for any emergency. The policemen confirmed that we did the right thing, better to be safe than sorry. And of course, the entire operation is subsidized by the Belgian government to keep the citizens of Belgium safe.

Am I the only one shocked at how incredible that is?

Of course, being from Canada, I also assume that is how such institutions should function. I felt comfortable using it to assuage my mind.

I have also traveled enough to know that to get a government, country and citizens to function, expect and use such a system to the point where all aspects are simply taken for granted is, in fact, a huge achievement.

It is easy to complain about taxes, bureaucracy and the inefficiency of a socialised system. It is also incredibly difficult to take a country from an inefficient, corrupt bureaucracy and lack of any such systems to even a minor improvement.

Enough said, either you are from, have lived in, or traveled to any developing nation or country suffering from corruption and know how difficult the lack of such systems makes everything. From going from one side of a city to another, to planning an event, to seeking information. It would be great if every person in the world could enjoy the comfort of trusting and relying on such systems. Yet, if I had never been without I would never have enjoyed the entire experience so much last night.

Modernity certainly has its pitfalls, it absolutely comes with incredible gifts and perks simply unimaginable until they came to be expected!

Livin on the edge!

2010-01-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

Is it sad when filing makes me happy? Yesterday, I spent a few hours getting things done ahead of schedule and organising my files (I am of course, way behind on many other things...) and got absolutely excited looking at my neat files. This is a time of many staff transitions for WYA, and I've been busy interviewing amazing candidates from a number of regions, and trying to remember to keep Francois updated with all I'm doing.

Last weekend, I booked a last minute flight to Los Angeles for an Ultimate Frisbee Beach Tournament!!! It was so great to run around on sand, in the sun, no shoes, no jacket... On Saturday we only won one game out of the 4 which placed us in the C-bracket on Sunday. On Sunday however, we won our first three games, taking us to the semi-finals! We then lost our fourth game after a very close game. I was fine with that, running on the sand is tough and it was cold and rainy by then. So we ate, showered and then I visited with my brother, his wife and their two kids for the next couple days.

Thankfully the hurricane hit after the tournament! It rained pretty much nonstop for the 3 days I was there, except for a few hours Tuesday afternoon when the sun broke over incredibly high waves and I spent hours on the beach gazing at the waves, wading in slightly and taking pictures.

The waves were gorgeous! I am bad at judging wave height, but I would guess they ranged from 5 to 20 feet high. I most certainly would not have survived past even the middling waves and I love riding waves... The water was so clear the waves rose up a wall of green before curling over with a touch of foam and crashing, often with a delayed reaction then a spurt of water like a fountain where it had crashed.

I walked to the edge of the water carrying my camera in one hand and a starbucks coffee in the other, I walked barefoot with my jeans rolled up and felt completely luxurious. How

amazing is it to leave your nephews about to nap with their mother and wander two blocks to the deserted beach on a Tuesday afternoon?

During my stay in Los Angeles, I realised how lucky I am to no longer be three. Life is tough; you're old enough to know that you want something now, but too young to have any control about whether you get in beyond asking (crying?). You're also too young to have much of a memory of past moments when good things came to those who waited, or to be able to rationalise that if you don't get something now, perhaps life will be even better. Life is also awesome because you're still young enough to be spoonfed, wander around all day with a soother in your mouth and naptimes are expected.

Life doesn't necessarily get easier but expectations certainly change. Now, I know how to plan for the future and learn from the past, and perhaps the hard part is focusing on the present and doing what needs to be done. And, maybe in a few months I'll reward myself with a nap :)

Musings

2010-01-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

As I sit in my bedroom in Canada, my nephews have just gone outside to play in the snow, and I'm trying to ignore my stomach, slightly rounder than usual, after a couple weeks at home eating delicious food. Thanks to a week of blizzards and then a security breach at Newark airport my flight was cancelled and I'll remain at home for another week of snow, food and adorable nephews :)

It's amazing to think I have fewer than 3 months left as president of WYA. My life for the past four years, including vacations has revolved around WYA. What needs to be done next? What did I forget to do? What will explode if I don't address it immediately, and what can I postpone doing for a little while longer? I've started to write down all the things I've learned to pass along to Francois who will replace me. I'd hate for him to make as many mistakes as I've made! Haha, although he may not have as much fun as I did, since I've tried to put structures in place to prevent anyone besides me from bellyflopping in so many situations.

I'll never forget my embarrassment when I first took over and people would ask my opinion about what's going on in whatever country and I had NO idea where that country was located - yes, stereotypes of North Americans' geographical knowledge are actually mostly true. Wikipedia was, and remains, one of my best friends!

The first time I gave a speech, I wrote it down word for word and was terrified! I went up to give the speech and was given a mic to stand in front of everyone. My left hand held the papers which looked as though they'd been caught in a hurricane, my right hand held the mic and looked as though I had advanced Parkinson's. Needless to say, my notes got dropped, I gripped that mic in a manner that would have made a Boa Constrictor jealous and passed it off to the MC afterwards flooded in my sweat. I've improved slightly since then...

I grew up vegetarian and encountered most animal innards on the dissecting table. Many cultures worldwide eat animals and parts that are considered "revolting" to a western former vegetarian. As a polite guest, I ate a small fish whole and tried not to think about how the little guy had swum around till recently or how he felt when caught, or about how his scales felt going down my throat, or if his eyeballs liked where they were headed... I've ignored the tendons of numerous animals as I gnawed my way to bone after bone and I've even eaten foods that could not be identified, and after eating them I did not wish for them to be identified :0

There are so many things I will miss about WYA; working with the best people in the world, traveling, working every day to promote something I love and believe in fully - what's not to miss? At the same time, numerous details and extraneous tasks arise that I've barely thought about what I'll spend my summer doing.

And so, since I mostly blog when I travel and rarely find my thoughts between trips interesting enough to share, I will consider these last three months as president a trip in itself. I promise to blog and see what happens as someone else takes up from what I've done and brings WYA to the next level.

What is more important than being really really ridiculously good-looking?

2009-09-24T12:16:00.001-07:00

How do you do it? You are likely one of the majority of people on this earth who spends most of your time living in one location, at the same job, seeing the same people, eating the same foods, and laughing at jokes so similar to the ones made the week before.

I am back in NY for less than two weeks, have yet to recover my energy from my recent travels and am already searching cheap flights to anywhere, literally anywhere.

I spoke with a friend recently, who travels more than I, who cautioned me. He said that having the experiences I have already by my age means I am doomed to never live a normal life. I don't know if I would consider living an unusual life being doomed, but I think he has a point.

Glancing through facebook photos - always the best way to discover what someone is like - I realised I have pictures of me with Asians, pictures of me with Africans, pictures of me with Latins, pictures from all over the world. Each of those pictures connects me to a period of growth; the first time I saw a baby whose eyes were glazed over from malnutrition, the first time I realised that in most places of the world poverty is insurmountable (due to lack of education, disease, lack of jobs, etc). The first time I saw a woman with leprosy begging and I was horrified in case she reached out and touched me, and horrified at myself for not stopping to see if I could help her in any way. The first time I met hundreds of teenage girls who had all been raped multiple times since a young age. The first time I met a doctor who abused his patients, yet he was their only hope.

There have been other firsts as well, the first time I gave a speech to hundreds of Nigerians, and was terrified and my hands shook. I began my speech with a rhetorical question, which the entire audience answered. I realised my speech needed more audience involvement and changed it on the spot, adding to my fear.

When I return to New York, to a comfortable life where I have every opportunity and option in my daily life and my future I am so grateful to have been born and educated in the west. I am always torn between enjoying my salad, Ultimate tournaments and visiting with friends and the desire I have deep inside to return to these other places and find some way to offer what I've received to more people.

When I think of all the ways my dreams set me apart from a normal life I wonder if I can change my dreams, and I have to remind myself why my dreams are different. When I

remember the people I've met who have changed my dreams I am so grateful I have been given the opportunity to help them, and the knowledge they exist. I'm taking improvisation classes, surely if I ever need to I can act out a normal life. In the meantime, I am grateful that my dreams match my experiences unlike people who have dreams of a normal life with no way of ever achieving it.

A Day in the Life of...

2009-09-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing. Each day is different, although I've almost enjoyed returning to some semblance of routine in NY. Monday was my first full day at a desk since mid-June. It felt weird. I was working at warp speed trying to get everything done before I had to run off to my next flight or some important meeting, and every 30 minutes would remind myself that I have no plans to travel for at least another month and could actually focus on projects that are not urgent and yet important.

Since returning, there are so many projects I knew I couldn't do while travelling and had pushed so far to the back of my mind I'd forgotten of their existence. Suddenly they've all come tumbling forth again and I'm struggling to prioritise amongst all the mountains of work I'm suddenly confronted with.

I also thought, since no one knows I'm back, that my first week would be relatively calm. Instead I've been singly to triply-booked each night this week. All events I couldn't skip out on; the opening of the UN General Assembly, a friend's birthday party, etc.

I've been enjoying waking up before 8am and before my alarm clock goes off. I can't chalk it up to jetlag as I really didn't struggle with it after my first couple days in Thailand. It seems my body hits a certain level of exhaustion or day-time uncertainty and then quite obediently sleeps when I tell it to and wakes up when forced to, regardless of day/night time.

I miss travelling, having each day be a surprise and opportunity to meet new people, eat new foods and learn something new about another culture just doesn't seem to get old. Returning to a culture I'm comfortable with allows me to look at it through the eyes of other cultures and also to realise that as open as I may be I have certain paradigms that continue to effect my thought processes and solutions to world problems. There are absolutely values to some paradigms I possess, and other experiences and solutions I simply won't generate because of my background.

Today, I missed a meeting by calculating a time-zone difference wrong. I've received emails from almost every continent. I've learned about some famous people from another country who I never would have discovered on my own and I've brought people together in a search for information.

This evening, I will attend a UN reception along with some of our interns currently in NY from different parts of the world. I will then go grocery shopping since I am down to a few cans of food and ramen noodles - that's what happens when I haven't shopped since April.

Kwaheri Nairobi

2009-08-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

In 4 hours I leave WYA Africa, so sad! I'll miss scuma wiki (spinach) and Kenyan tea at all hours of the day. Thankfully I was served less matoke (deep fried banana) this trip, so my bum is less large than it otherwise would have been.

Yesterday evening Caroline and her husband, Nick, took all the WYA staff and interns out for Chinese food. En route we nearly bumped fenders with one of the Matatus (public buses) as they stop randomly whenever anyone wishes to get off. Caroline was so annoyed she rolled down the window to shout at the driver, at the height of her annoyance she shouted "Go Home!" We all cracked up! Go home? Apparently she was concerned he was driving badly as he was low on sleep and thought he should take a rest and be with his family for the safety of other drivers...

Upon arrival at the restaurant there was a foosball table. Nick and Bissy played Irene and me. We won, but Nick had the most enthusiasm. We attempted to stop the game for a good 10 minutes, and every time we started to walk away he'd drop the ball and try to score on us. Once dinner was over and we were all leaving he resumed his post for another game!

We had our first chance to all be together and share stories. Irene and I talked of our recent travels and Nick shared the boys' adventures. I was quite impressed as the taxi driver who took us decided to just stay and wait for us to finish rather than going back to his post and returning for us. So Caroline and Nick fed him also - that's dignity!

Today was a no-power day. I packed for a couple hours, then took a freezing cold shower before Irene and I joined Mr. Beauttah for a farewell lunch. Completed offline work this afternoon and now the power's back on! I'm off now to meet with Irene and Hezbon to discuss final details before I head to the airport to catch my 2am flight. That's the hour you get when you fly Turkish Airlines for half the cost of any other airline :)

Maasai Cattle in Nairobi

2009-08-18T04:55:00.000-07:00

Kenya is currently suffering from a drought and Kenya's power is hydroelectric. There is power rationing 3 days/week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, there is no power between 6am and 6pm. Different parts of Nairobi have power rationing on different days.

As a result of the drought, the Maasai grazing grounds are dried up, so the cattle now wander throughout the city in search of grass and food. It's quite a sight to see Maasai herders and cattle on Nairobi city streets and side roads.

Speaking of animals... Irene, Bissy and I today took a safari tour through Nairobi's National Park. Apart from the huge fee difference for foreigners and Kenyans ($40 vs $5) the visit was lovely. We woke at 5 to be sure we could be at the park when it opened at 6 to catch the animal's early morning activities.

Although the animals are most active in the morning the wardens don't arrive till after 8 nor does the bookshop, which is the only place maps are available, open till later. So we headed off into the park with our driver, who thankfully had been there before. We saw a few giraffe and zebra in the distance and one, lone wildebeest. Then we came across a small herd of greater kudu. They were a bit skittish though we tried our best to get some nice shots, then Irene saw it. Far off in the distance, between two bushes, was a golden brown spot, a lion! It took the rest of us another few moments before we could spot him, and we tried to get pictures of him. He slunk off into the bushes so we drove on.

We became good at spotting giraffes, no pun intended, or is it... and also saw springboks, gazelle, and later on an ostrich. The ostrich was running a distance from us across a stream. We drove along in the same direction and crossed the bridge to get closer. We were especially hopeful as a number of deer were also running - we hoped from a lion.

The poor ostrich chose to walk on the road in front of us for a good 300 meters. He seemed bothered that we were following him, but unlike he, we had to stay on the road. He finally veered toward the stream and we left him. As we returned on the same path, he was also returning from the river and perhaps rather annoyed to encounter us again.

We saw two giraffes fighting. All those pictures in National Geographic where giraffes have their necks entwined in what appears to be a romantic embrace are misleading - that's how they fight. They twist their necks around each other and then bump with the top of their head either the neck or the body. It's actually adorable to watch.

At one point we thought we saw a herd of wildebeest in the distance, upon closer inspection it was a forest of slightly scattered very low bushes. We drove through it and discovered the jackpot of 4 legged grazing animals. Dozens of zebra herds, greater kudus, springboks, gazelles and even some wildebeest. It seems the wildebeest only gather together for their migration as most were wandering off by themselves in random parts of the park. That was also when we saw our warthog.

I saw the grasses bending coming towards us and could just make out a brown coloured shape. I was convinced it was a lion, until his upright tail, snout and tusks appeared. He was trotting along at quite the pace and seemed so businesslike. Apparently Pumba is short for pumbavo which means stupid in Swahili. Poor Pumba, at least he had a nice singing voice.

Once through that patch of land we discovered Ostrich central, they were all off by themselves and could easily be mistaken for trees in the distance with their necks down eating. Just brown and black bumps on the horizon.

By then we'd been driving for a few hours and were encountering fewer wildlife. We were about to leave the park when some rangers drove by and said there was a lion spotted nearby. We turned and headed in that direction but saw no sign of the lion. Apparently no one informed him that when you live in a national park, your job is to be observed by tourists...

Just as we arrived to the gate of the park, we saw two baboons in the road ahead of us. Unlike all the other animals we had encountered, they seemed content to remain there. One baboon ran off and returned a moment later with some food, for the baby we hadn't noticed until then cuddled into his mother's fur. They sat and ate and played in the middle of the road, until another vehicle drove past. They then came and ran behind our vehicle watching. Although Irene was adamant we shouldn't feed them as they can get vicious when angry, I couldn't resist. I threw an orange peel out the window, and the mother dove for it then ran off. We then realised they were only the forefront of an entire (herd? flock?) of baboons. There were mothers with babies, teenagers and adults. There was even the macho one of the group who was much larger than the others and barked at us before moving on.

We then visited a nearby elephant orphanage. The elephants are so tiny and wrinkled like ancient old men, I managed to reach out and pat the trunk of one, who then grabbed my hand with the edge of his trunk and tried to eat it - cute! Once the elephants were gone, a baby Rhino came out for a bit. He had the most hilarious gallop and a great deal of personality to fit into his small hide. They're trying to raise him as wild as possible to release him into the park someday as Rhinos are nearly extinct here.

Such a beautiful day, we came back and napped a bit at the WYA office and are heading out in a few hours for a dinner with Caroline's family and all the interns to see me off tomorrow.

Painted Cow Dung

2009-08-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Irene and I are back in Kigali, by this time in our travels it is our second home after Nairobi. Our? I've decided by this point I either have homes all over the world, or I am homeless, I think the first option sounds better.

We had a successful seminar with students in Goma. They were greatly impressed by Irene's talk on Peace and Good Governance, and especially that one so young as she knew so much. They had many questions for her. They were also interested in my presentation on HIV/AIDS and I think it was the first time for them to understand the disease beyond the catch phrase of abstinence, fidelity and condoms - signs are all over the place! There was one young mother in the room who was initially quite upset to hear about HIV being passed from mother to child and then appeared greatly relieved to hear of ways to pre-empt that.

I think I mentioned previously that Goma has high rates of TB, it also has incredibly high rates of HIV infection. I hope that my presentation didn't hurt anyone as I'm sure they all know someone affected. It was difficult to convey anything as they all speak French so I had a translator, whose English was good but it is a tough topic to hear and translate all in one go. Irene and I both reworded many phrases and many witty comments were lost :)

The one thing Irene and I can't get over and are both determined to somehow return and empower the youth to fix is the prevalence of rape. The one woman who spoke up during the seminar mentioned the frequency of rape, and even the men all discussed security and peace as being their number one problem. We both wanted more time to hear the stories of the women there. The things we noted as excellent points were that in the WYA core group of 4, there are two women. We also noticed that none of the men had a problem listening to two women speak and asking us questions. I think they all feel overwhelmed by the situation and haven't received leadership training to address it.

We raced across the Goma/Gisenyi border then took motorcycle taxis to catch our bus 1 minute before it departed. The roads are terrible and I was grateful we were going slow as I'd been given a helmet without a visor or strap, I had to keep shaking my head to keep it on as my hands were busy holding my purse and me on. The bus ride back, 45 minutes in the two backseats cleared out and we both slept for a couple hours. I think it is impossible to appreciate how great our spines are at keeping our heads from rattling until your head is rested directly on a seat. So many times I flew a few inches into the air or had to open my mouth to prevent my teeth from clacking. The closer we got to Kigali, the easier it was to sleep.

Today was a delicious day; we slept in and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before embarking on our day. Irene wanted to see the Genocide Memorial this trip, and we booked our flight for Sunday to give us a day to complete all our errands. Of course, this day happens to be a national holiday. The memorial is closed. I'd hoped to get some shopping done - half the stores are closed. One opened for us, and we then found a market that is also open.

We stopped at one booth where the woman had some great items, she is a phenomenal businesswoman. She is part of a cooperative where youth, elderly and women do beading, basketry, farming, etc and she sells their stuff. Thanks to that, she was a very tough bargainer, continuously reminding us of the women who benefit from the sales.

My favourite part of her shop was artwork made of painted cowdung! She showed them to us, and we smelled it, and she said tons of people buy it... as Irene put it, that is really entrepreneurship: taking what you have and adding value! She agreed to a picture of her with her cowdung artwork, on the condition that I send it to her so she can use it for marketing. Irene then bought a necklace and earring set and was told to pose with it on, holding another necklace with more in the background for her also to use... I am so impressed by her. She also insisted that I find her more markets as she assumes I have more access than she does.

We'll head back to our Kigali home in a few minutes before departing tomorrow. Our flight leaves at 11, and the Memorial opens at 8. Assuming we're both able to rouse ourselves from bed on time we'll make one last effort to visit.

Wireless in Goma, DRC

2009-08-14T01:12:00.001-07:00

Irene and I are sitting outside a supermarket in downtown Goma, DRC where they have wireless. Goma is the city in Northeastern DRC with rebel generals outside and frequent bouts of conflict. It is is home to some of the highest rates, worldwide, of TB and AIDS. They also have a live volcano which periodically engulfs the town.

We are visiting some WYA members here who have arranged for us to speak to a group of University students about peace, good governance and HIV/AIDS. These members really want to spread WYA's message of dignity to more youth, and especially students. We discovered last night that there have been 3000 reported rapes this year since January, as one small indicator of the difficulties faced by youth in this area.

I last visited Goma in February, 2007. At that time we drove over roads composed half of dirt and half of hardened volcanic lava. The roads were incredibly bumpy and the town was in recovery. I was looking forward this visit to seeing what improvements have been made. None. The roads are, if anything, worse and the town looks the same as it did previously.

Coming from Rwanda where it takes only a few months to notice improved roads, more businesses, etc. the contrast is stark. As Irene keeps saying, it demonstrates the incredible importance of leadership within the country. She also keeps suggesting that Kagame take turns as President of each country in East and Central Africa once he finishes in Rwanda.

We spent the last couple days in Rwanda also meeting with members and hopefully we'll have a WYA club at KIST university to work alongside our members at NUR. Alain also arranged for us to speak on Umucyo radio about WYA, the English language radio for Rwanda.

In Rwanda, there are few reminders that it is still emerging from devastation and poverty. One reminder is that you cannot book on their national airline without going in person to the office and paying. There are also few places in Rwanda that accept AmEx or Mastercard, only VISA. As I don't have VISA, I ended up spending the last of my American and Rwandan money to book the flight, paying exorbitant Mastercard fees to get some more out, and thankfully had just enough left for Irene and I to cover our visa fees at the DRC border.

We've been taking the motorcycle taxis each day to get into town and back to where we're staying at night as it is a bit far from the downtown. We'd been lucky to have competent drivers on each of our trips, until the night before we left. I got onto the back of the motorcycle and felt he was going much too fast, but decided to remain quiet rather than get him angry. I finally spoke up when he swerved and nearly hit Irene's motorcycle, then swerved again and nearly hit a car. I asked him to please drive slowly. He would speed up whenever we could, even when we were headed for stopped traffic, then he would stop abruptly and swerve continuously to find an opening. The only reason I remained on is I was concerned if I got off sooner than the destination that he might get angry and I didnt want an argument with him alone at night in Kigali.

Thankfully we arrived safely and also discovered a nearby bus stop to take in the future. For now I must jet, we are off to speak to the youth of Goma. This keyboard is also written in English but set to French so I have had to guess at many keys here...

Bujumbura

2009-08-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

Monday morning I had yet another 5am wake up call as Irene and I boarded our 8am flight from Nairobi to Bujumbura. We arrived to discover it is a solid 10 degrees warmer than Nairobi and I had packed completely wrong :p We were met by two WYA members, one who had attended the DDD conference in Nairobi, and driven to the Amahoro youth club. Amahoro means peace in Burundi.

We had a great meeting with the club members, then went for lunch nearby. The club is next door to a hair saloon - coiffure - and the stylists were outside eating lunch. They insisted I join them for lunch so I sat and had some kassava paste with soup and tiny fish, whole! The kassava is really sticky and I was already nauseous from beginning my anti-malaria medication that morning. I focused on so many happy memories to swallow it and remain smiling. They then insisted I go for another one, I'd managed to avoid the small fish up until this point. One of the women then picked one up and motioned for me to do the same. I tried to find the smallest one I could, but still got one which stared back at me while I held onto it's tail. I ate it, thankfully the bones were so small they didn't crunch. I smiled and thanked them for their hospitality. They wanted me to finish the whole meal with them, but I told them I absolutely could not as Irene and some club members were waiting for me.

Thankfully the food we went to eat was matoke (fried bananas), and some stews with which I am more familiar. We then went to the house where we were staying for the night, after booking our bus ticket leaving for Kigali the next morning. We stayed at a little house, about 20 minutes outside of Bujumbura with two bedrooms. One of the guys gave up his bedroom for us and they all shared a room together. We had a 30 minute nap as we were exhausted before heading back into town.

Bujumbura is a little town, and takes maybe 15 minutes to drive from one side to the other, with traffic. Within a few hours of walking, we'd seen most of the sights and were somewhat familiar with the geography. They took us to a little crafts store where we got a few items. We'd understood we would go into town for supper, so neither Irene nor I had snacked before we left.

By the time we got back to where we were staying it was 930 and we hadn't eaten since 1pm. My stomach was eating itself from the pills and even Irene was in dire need of food. We were planning to bust out protein bars and bread in our room, but the tv was in our room and our hosts decided they wanted to hang out with us. They all lounged on the bed, chatting and finally around 10pm we were served some food.

The uncomfortable part of the trip was they were all asking if I were married, engaged, had a boyfriend, when I said no to all three they were horrified and one spent nearly an hour telling me I had to reproduce so I could have beautiful children. I attempted to say beautiful children depends on a number of factors but he wasn't dissuaded from his quest. It's amazing how they all love blonde hair and white skin - Irene and I were discussing the next day all the whitening creams, hair extensions, etc. that people use to attempt to make themselves more fair, and the huge need there is for people to see beauty around them rather than some colonialist version they're currently accepting.

Nairobi

2009-08-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

To keep both Irene and myself alive, we spent the past two days in Nairobi resting before we embark on our travels through Burundi, DRC and Rwanda next week. A number of participants from Nigeria, Rwanda and Ghana stayed with WYA and one participant from Sierra Leone arrived after it ended so was thankfully still able to meet some of our other members and discuss issues. I've used this time to attempt to catch up on some emails, I discovered a restaurant near the Africa office with wifi and have yet to be kicked out :p since the office internet isn't working. I'll leave the password with Irene for future use!

The jerseys I had donated from 5Ultimate are still stuck in customs. We've been making daily trips/phone calls/emails to try and get them out, yet each time the requirements change - from an email to an email addressed to a different person, to an import form, etc. At this rate we could have flown them hot air balloon and they would have arrived sooner...

I was so annoyed that the participants didn't get jerseys, after all the work I'd done to get them donated and the generosity of 5ultimate to donate 100 for the conference. Thankfully, Mr. Beauttah knows a school in Nairobi where 90% of the students are from Kibera slum, Nairobi's (and possible Africa's) largest slum. So those kids will get to benefit from DHL's unprofessionalism, and the jerseys will still go to a good cause. On the bright side, the participants did each get a disc to take home, so they can continue to promote good governance through sports.

Yesterday, I went to the Maasai market on my own as Irene had other errands. Of course, I was greeted by numerous people willing to "bargain" for me, and receive a lovely sum for themselves in the process. I've learned that the minute you shake hands or exchange names they become 1000X more persistent in attempting to sell you or not letting you leave, so I refused until I was interested in a person's goods. A few of the "negotiators" tracked me down even in the market and accused me of rudeness for not shaking hands. I attempted to explain to one guy that the minute I shook his hand he would never leave me alone and I wished to bargain on my own. The woman running the stall cracked up when I said that and then helped me to shoo him away. She then also gave me a reasonable price to start bargaining from as I obviously knew how the market worked.

My favourite purchase from yesterday, which I absolutely had to buy, are covers for pots to keep flies away. The edges have a lovely beaded fringe and the material is... mosquito netting! As I bargained the woman down she appeared outraged as she was telling me of all the work it took and she had to buy the materials - buy? I don't think she buys her materials.

It reminded me of a story I heard where an aid agency was distributing mosquito netting within a region and couldn't understand why the malaria rates were not dropping - until they investigated and realised the girls were hoarding the mosquito netting to make their wedding dresses. So they gave the mosquito netting to the men instead, yet still the rates didn't decrease. They investigated and discovering the men were using the mosquito netting as fishing nets. The lesson learned? Never under-estimate the creativity of those you are trying to help.

WYA Africa DDD

2009-08-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

WYA Africa finished it's Decade of Dignity and Development Conference entitled Peace: Our Responsibility for Integral Development yesterday. The conference was a great success and we had participants from Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, we even had one participant from Sierra Leone arrive today - a bit late but he still gets to meet some of the others.

The speakers were all very interesting, and all focused on the responsibility of the participants to take these ideas back to their countries and make them a reality rather than blaming leaders or waiting for others to take the lead. The participants asked tough questions, and there was a real sense of urgency and importance behind each participant and their thoughts. They are all passionate about developing Africa and bringing their countries to be key players at the international level and want to begin working towards that goal now.

What was most incredible is the huge responsibility each one has willingly taken on himself. As the participants spoke with each other they discussed plans to be presidents of their countries someday, to be Africa's leading entrepreneurs, and to rid their countries of corruption through whatever field they are engaged in. When I think of what other youth are engaged in, and the conversations they are having I just hope that these youth are given the opportunities to make their dreams reality - as they certainly have the talents and desires to do so.

The second day of the conference we had a cultural night. A children's choir performed for us, all the children are from a nearby slum and were selected on the basis of musical talent - they initially came for the food and have since perfomed in South Korea and also at the UN. They also perfomed some traditional Kenyan songs and dances for us and were so adorable. Hezbon's sister sings in the choir so they are clearly a talented family!

The next performance was a troupe of dancers and acrobats also from a nearby slum. The dancers were great and the acrobats were incredible. I'm still in shock when I think of what they did. They performed pyramids, handstands, and other structures off each other for the longest time. They did flips, one swallowed fire, just amazing... What was really most remarkable was the duration of time. They did things I've seen in pictures before, but repeatedly! I kept thinking surely it was over, that they must be exhausted and the show continued. The other thing that was so remarkable was the floor they performed on was slippery and they had no safety anything - they would run and jump onto each other's shoulders and into the arms of someone already on top of another person. If they fell, that would be it. I hope someday they become world famous - they have as much talent as some of the performers in Cirque de Soleil.

I also had one Ultimate player join me from Kampala, Uganda to teach Ultimate to the participants. We did two sessions in the afternoons after the conference and finished with a game the final day. Each of the participants received a frisbee to take home with them, and most of them are quite addicted to the game. We've already heard from one participant who had to leave early and didn't take a disc that he misses playing and is wondering how he can get a disc. Many others are excited to return home and either join an existing team or start one of their own :)

What was most exciting was to see the mastery of the game. The first game we played was full chaos with people running around, double teaming and messy throws. By the final game, they were calling their own fouls, arbitrating the game themselves, marking each other and had some flow. We even had a few participants who truly understood Spirit of the Game and Good Governance who would call fouls on themselves as they felt it was necessary.

We had lunch with a few remaining participants today, and some are staying at the WYA office. The conversations they are having are so inspiring. Last night, a few were speaking of how they dream that someday all world leaders, entrepreneurs and people in positions of power will be WYA Alumni, and another seconded that someday in the future every single young person will be a member of WYA and learning how to live and treat others with dignity. They were also discussing their countries' pasts, inclusive of democracy, genocide, conflict, etc and discussing how the way forward consisted of each leader, but more importantly each youth learning about dignity and transforming their countries from that perspective. WYA and Africa have a great future together, I am excited to see what each of these people will do even within the next few years!

Drama at the airport

2009-08-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

The check in line at the airport extended halfway through the departure hall. I waited an hour to get my turn to check in. I'd checked the weight requirements earlier in the day and had been so excited to see that they'd increased the weight limit to 30kg. I packed a box full of all my presents and books I'd finished reading to hit 29, practically perfect :)

However, apparently it is 30kg/bag everywhere in the world EXCEPT Africa - yet another example of Africa being shafted... For Africa it is 30kg - 1 bag! So, instead of being 16 kg under, I was 14 kg over. I asked the check in lady for the excess baggage cost and was told 750 PHP - approximately 15 USD. Not something I wanted to pay, but I really had no option. I went to pay it and was told it was $700 USD!!!!!

So, I asked what other options I had, if I could bring my carry-on suitcase on board with me as one extra hand luggage, or ask another passenger to carry a few books for me, etc. The manager just told me my only option was to get off the flight and fly the next day or pay the $700. I told her neither was an option so we needed to find some other way.

To compress the next two hours of my life. I spoke with two managers who repeated over and over and over that I had to get off the flight or pay the $700. According to them, there was no phone the airline had which I could use, there was no baggage storage place, there was no other way to send luggage except for their way, and I am an idiot for assuming on an international flight that I'm allowed to check two pieces of luggage... especially when the airlines is Emirates which advertised online for increasing baggage allowance to 30kg and is not a budget airline. I should have assumed that it was 30kg total which is a fraction of what even most budget airlines offer!

Spoke is really putting it rather politely, they yelled. I began by asking lots of questions, then became firm that they must have a phone, baggage storage and options because every other airport in the world does, then resorted to crying and finally gave up and went to use a payphone to call Erika and ask if she could pick up my box.

Magically, as soon as they had won they had a phone which I could use, baggage storage to leave my box in, there were options to send it cargo which is much cheaper, etc!

I left my box there, didn't sign anything, and sprinted towards the gate. I was the last passenger in the airport and everyone there kept telling me to run as I made my way towards the gate, apparently even the cleaning people knew of my plight.

I was crying as I got on board and had already vowed never to fly Emirates again despite all previous positive experiences. The moment I stepped on board all the crew were so kind. They made me sit down right by them, brought me water, a face towel, juice.

Throughout the entire flight they kept checking up on me to ensure I was ok. The crew from business class brought me their snacks, mango juice and even a towel shaped like a duck with a red ribbon around it's neck.

I told the crew why I was so upset, and one of them said he wished he'd been there as he could have taken some of my weight for me. I'd asked the manager earlier if I could request a passenger who was under weight to carry some of my books or something and was told that would put me in prison. So yeah, two hours of lying, yelling managers and now I need to pay to get my luggage back to the USA - thank you jerks!

So, now I just need to track down the two managers and do my best to get them demoted, fired or in intensive re-training courses.

Leaving Manila...

2009-08-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

The last few days in the Philippines were so delightful. Ren and I visited the province of Bataan with the vice mayor who had attended the WYAAP DDD. He was a great tour guide and we visited a turtle hatchery, sadly the baby turtles weren't hatching at the time. We also visited a monument to remember the soldiers who fought the Japanese and also died along a "death march" after finally surrendering. Pretty horrible reminder of the faith placed in the US, and how the Philippines was abandoned for a few years until the US needed a battleground on which to fight the Japanese.

Saturday I slept in, had breakfast with Erika then went shopping in Greenhills, the pearl market and local crafts market to spend every last penny of my life savings - literally. Ren and I had one final meeting with a professor from the Ateneo university. He's one of those ADHD geniuses involved in everything. Our meeting was successful as he really loved what WYA does. Then we went for dinner with Erika and Michelle, we were so loud and it was so good to catch up with Michelle especially as I hadn't seen her yet.

Sunday I went for my last day of Ultimate and my jersey was there! I played a game with the girls, took team photos and had to leave. The guy whose cleats I'd been borrowing had a game at the same time as my team and I couldn't find anyone else to lend me cleat so played barefoot. The ground was super muddy and squishy and I was sliding everywhere. We also took a picture together and the whole team was teasing him about our love and that he should come to the USA with me...

Lunch with Er's family, packing, dinner with Michelle and then it was time to leave. Erika drove me to the airport and a whole new adventure began.

Snake alley...

2009-07-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Chinese and Japanese breakfast buffet was such a beautiful start to day 2. I combined my breakfast with glorious coffee before heading out to meetings. Each meeting offered tea or cake of some variety alongside the discussion of what our organisations did and possible ways of partnership. At lunch, I was exhausted and drank all the Oolong tea I could. By the first meeting of the afternoon, I went to pass my business card and realised my hands were shaking from all the caffeine and exhaustion.

We had two afternoon meetings, and then went to a famous tea house where we were interviewed for a prominent journal. The tea master helped us to choose a tea and then performed the whole tea ceremony for us. I had never before realised that there should be separate cups for smelling the tea and drinking the tea, as tea should be an experience enjoyed by as many senses as possible. We had a quick dinner before we headed out for our final event of the day.

One of the organisations, Vision Youth Action, had organised a conference for us of 160 youth. We had 2 hours to present and also for Q&A. The questions were great, the facilitator prefaced her question by announcing that she intended to apply for Asia Pacific's summer camp next May.

We then went to visit Taiwan's famous 24 hour bookstore. It is a beautiful, old bookstore and at 10pm was packed. Apparently it's busiest time is between 3 and 6am as many youth meet there after clubbing to continue hanging out or to wait for the Metro to open at 6am.

The night before we had visited Longshan Temple. It is a beautiful, old Buddhist temple with the main Buddha representative of mercy. In the back were numerous gods to which people pray for wisdom, a large family, health, etcetera. We went afterwards to the nearby night market which is famous for it's - snakes!

Snake soup is a delicacy here; apparently quite good for the skin and also for the... man. There were also turtles to be had. Turtle blood is supposed to be good for a cold or flu, and turtle meat for the... man. The turtles were fewer although we did see a tray of dead turtles, de-shelled waiting to be cooked. There were tons of snakes though. Small snakes, large white pythons, some alone some in groups of a dozen or so. What was somewhat sad was their food was kept nearby. We saw cages of white rats, and even some white bunnies for the larger snakes. I'm not sure why the food has to be white. I didn't eat the snakes or turtles.

I did eat: shark's fin, shark's fin skin, bamboo mushroom, jellyfish, starfish, eel, eggs from a deep sea fish, and more... I also ate cold chicken that looked uncooked chopped through the skin, bones etc to be eaten with chopsticks. I managed to eat less of that by pretending I couldn't get any more with chopsticks :p

Our final day we had one more meeting, then spoke to the Chinese Taipei Pacific Economic Cooperation Committee conference that was taking place. We again had a great reception from the youth and I think Ren will have a lot of work to do! We then met up with some members of Taiwan's top fencing team for supper at the Panorama restaurant of Taipei 101. We ate on the 85th floor and could see the farthest reaches of Taipei into the mountains.

We returned to the hotel for our last night "wallowing in luxury" as has been so eloquently stated by one of WYA's board members, before we packed up all the soaps, slippers and other free items and headed back to Manila today.

I'm staying with Erika now, the first director of WYAAP and we're about to head out for a massage soon - woop woop!

Eating dream bubbles in Taipei!

2009-07-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

Whew, the last week has been amazing. I need a book to encompass it all, and obviously haven't had the internet to tell about it. I'll begin by briefly recapping the WYAAP DDD conference. Huge success! The participants were all amazing, and after the certificates were given out and Ren had officially closed the conference they took the initiative to speak up, each one, and share their own experiences. It was amazing to hear of the friendships formed, and generosity of individual participants to others. They had bonded in a powerful way and I think most of them will remain involved with WYA and close to each other. Saturday we toured Tagaytay's volcano surrounded by a lake. The lake is the sunken volcano so you could say it is a lake within a volcano within a lake within a volcano. The days of the conference had been beautiful and sunny, the minute we arrived to the volcano it started to rain and once we had finished touring the volcano the day was sunny again. Regardless, I think I got some beautiful pictures - to be uploaded soon :)

Sunday, I played Ultimate again. The girls, over the course of one week, had improved so much. Especially the captain is an ultimate sponge. Anything I had done the last week she was already doing on Sunday. The pressure was on to perform well and only teach good habits. This is the rainy season, hence only a chilly 30+Celsius. I am definitely the only one on the field finding the temperatures and humidity difficult to play in. Thankfully by game two we had some light monsoon rains and I was able to start running a little closer to my usual speed and energy. We won both our games :) very exciting compared to the prior week's 3 losses. I also had a great time on defence as I got to poach in the back of the field and was able to knock down most throws thanks to my (rather substantial) height advantage.

Monday, Ren and I met for another 5am rendezvous to catch our flight to Taiwan. We were met at the airport by two members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and taken to our hotel. We stayed at the Howard Plaza Hotel - one of the nicest in Taipei as VIPs!!! We were each given our own room, with welcoming fruit basket, personalized stationery, L'Occitane bath products and the beautiful white bathrobes (as seen on tv/chick flick movies). We only had 20 minutes to soak it all in before we ate lunch downstairs with one of our two guides for our trip at one of the amazing hotel restaurants. Lunch was delicious and for desert we ate almond tofu. It is amazing! I will attempt to describe it...

You know those dreams you have where you are flying? Imagine that in the midst of this dream a large, fluffy bubble appears before you, you float towards the bubble and slowly take a big bite out of it. The bubble melts apart in your mouth leaving a delicious almond flavour behind. You continue to float on and feel yourself drawn towards the creamy bubbles floating in the distance to continue enjoying such a flavour.

In the afternoon we met with a research and youth empowerment organisation then with one of the ministers in MOFA to discuss WYA. For dinner, the NGO vice chair organised for CEO's of some of Taiwan's top NGO's to meet with us. He ended the meal by singing a song for us in 4 languages, he even had the music on his phone to demonstrate his karaoke prowess. Then, he demanded that each of us sing a song from our own cultures in return. Ren sang a Filipino love song, and I sang a Swahili song I remembered.

WYAAP Decade of Dignity and Development Conference!

2009-07-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

Today is day 2 of WYA Asia Pacific's Decade of Dignity and Development conference celebrating WYA's 10 years of existence with the specific theme of Good Governance and Marginalisation. There are 35 participants from the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil. Speakers are from India, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia. The conference venue is a center a few hours outside of Manila near a famous volcano within a lake - Taal volcano.

It is a beautiful area and a beautiful center. The facilities are incredible; nice rooms, sound system, lounge area, great food and even a videoke room. Most of the participants took advantage of the videoke lounge last night! They're really great, as Ren said, they're so quiet during the conferences and then very active and spontaneous participants during team dynamic activities. It truly is an Asian conference as English is not the first language to a single participant yet it is the working language of everyone here. So we have participants communicating with English they are uncertain about with other participants who are also uncomfortable speaking English - yet they're all soaking in the information and becoming friends.

The speakers come from a variety of backgrounds. We had a representative from Gawad Kalinga, Ashoka, a woman from Mindanao speaking about her organisation which promotes peace, professors on various topics, a humanitarian and even someone presenting on sustainable (and profitable) sanitation projects for the destitute poor, among others. The schedule is online if you're curious... The speaker for sanitation has an incredible organisation called Sulabh International which utilizes technology to provide clean and energy efficient toilets to poor communities and also offers jobs to former women scavengers in the process. They've instituted training opportunities and rehabilitation programs for the women to move into society.

Yesterday evening we had a bonfire and played some games. The penalty for losing the game was that one participant had to bum-spell World Youth Alliance - in cursive! Very entertaining... and another participant sang "Heal the World" disco style while periodically attempting to moonwalk - it was the only Michael Jackson signature move he could think of...

Tonight we had a cultural night and showed the videos each region prepared for WYA's 10th Anniversary. One of Gabby's friends is a professional singer and performed a number of traditional Filipino songs, musicals, broadway and even opera for us. She has a beautiful voice. Ren was MCing the night. We've discussed that she doesn't find herself funny, even though she is incapable of speaking without cracking whole crowds up. Later in the evening, as she spoke of what motivates her and Des to keep working at the most difficult times, which are the youth who are working alongside and the ones we still need to reach out to, she choked up. She signalled to Des to help, but only choked up more with her partner at her side. I stole the mic for a few moments to allow her to recover.

It was powerful for all the participants to see someone they all admire, and who is so upbeat have an emotional moment about what all this means to her. Many of them left the center speaking about how strong of an impact it made on them.

We have one and a half days left, I hope the conference continues to be as successful as it is so far!

Cebu

2009-07-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

Yet another 5am departure... yesterday we flew to Cebu. There is a great group of WYA committee members there who arranged for us to speak at two different universities and also to visit a Gawad Kalinga site.

We arrived around 8 and stopped by McDonalds for breakfast. I've eaten more McDonalds here in Asia than I have in the past few years in New York! The breakfast options here come with rice, aside from the usual egg McMuffin. Upon arrival at the airport I learned that Ferdinand Magellan was killed there by the reigning chief of the time, Lapu-Lapu. We visited the site where Magellan planted a cross years ago in commemoration of baptising 400 of the indigenous people.

For lunch I ate my first sisig. Sisig is a dish made of pork meat, specifically the face of the pig. Apparently they carve the skin off the pig's face, boil the face, chop it into pieces and fry it. This particular dish also came with pig's liver. Despite the lovely description and I'm sure how appetising it sounds I wasn't a huge fan and needed help from the others to finish it.

Gawad Kalinga is an organisation which works to transform slums into communities and empowers those living in poverty to improve their lives. Late afternoon we stopped by one community on the outskirts of Cebu. We were supposed to receive a brief tour of the site and meet some of the key people there. We did, I also got distracted by an absolutely gorgeously fat baby and spent most of my time there playing with it, speaking with the mom and some other adults and being stared at by the kids.

Whenever I'm in situations of poverty time soars by. I want to get to know each person; to help the adults care for their families, to help the kids and youth reach their dreams, and to ensure the babies are nourished and played with so they can grow to their full potential. Just as we were becoming comfortable chatting I was dragged away as we had to catch our flight.

En route to the airport we stopped for some traditional Cebuanese bbq and another mango shake - I just can't get enough!!! We also took some pictures at the main mall and Ren cracked up at what she called my "acrobatics" in attempting to get a good shot.

Today, I slept in till 9am! Longest sleep I've had in weeks and met Cathy for brunch. I had an entire day to catch up with Cathy and relax. To celebrate I took a jeepney back to Des' place, two actually, and then walked quite a distance after my stop as I probably hadn't got on the right ones in the first place. Today has been beautiful. Tomorrow is yet another 5am departure as we meet the DDD participants early and drive together to our conference venue.

Ultimate Frisbee Tournament in Manila!!!

2009-07-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, during WYA AP's General Assembly I met a WYA member and former intern who plays Ultimate here in Manila. There was a tournament today in the South and I joined her team! The tournament is ongoing for the next few Sundays leading up to the start of Monsoon League in mid-August. The team is composed of players who've started within the last few weeks to few months, making me the Ultimate Ancient on the team.

We played 3 games, with a one hour break between each game. There is a guy's team also as part of their club and we would alternate field time with the guys. It worked perfectly as we would cheer for them, then they would cheer for us. It also worked perfectly as I didn't bring any cleats, and one of the guys had cleats my size! So his cleats played six games, while we each played 3, and by the end of game 2 we were sharing foot sweat and the cleats were pretty gross!

This is the rainy season here, meaning the temperature is mild by Manila standards but still in the 30's (Celsius) plus humidity. I also haven't played Ultimate since early May and am wickedly out of shape/fat after a few weeks of eating Asian food. Thankfully I did have experience to comepensate for my heat/fitness drawbacks. During the warmup they decided that I would be handler. As that is a position I am always trying to get better at, I happily obliged. The games were fun, the girls on the team have great spirit, acknowledge that they're playing to gain experience and were so happy to have me playing with them. The first game we played we had a few competitive points although we lost by a rather large amount. The second game we played, the girls had poor spirit. They would double team, stall count fast, and not give disc space - then call foul on me if I touched them. Even if we were both 10 feet away from the disc... They were obviously also a new team, but not one with such great spirit as my team. The final game we played the defending champs for Manila and the girls were good. It was great to play against a team with flow, great throws and solid defence. A bit discouraging as the game ended in 20 minutes with a score of 11 - 0 but I will admit I made enough mistakes on my own that I wasn't a huge asset to the team to compensate for any lack of experience or skill.

One of the guys from the team then drove me to WYA AP's office for a meeting this evening to finalise plans for the Decade of Dignity and Development Conference which begins on Wednesday. He even invited me to join Tuesday evening for practice for a different team which is apparently much more competitive, so I may :)

Tomorrow, Ren and I travel to Cebu, just for the day and meet with WYA members there.

Scuba Diving in Batangas

2009-07-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

430am Des drove me to the bus. After a 2 hour bus ride I switched to a jeepney for 30 minutes and then a tricycle. Tricycles are basically motorcycles with a little box sidecar. I ducked inside the tricycle - made for Filipino sized people, and had to sit with my bum slid to the edge of the seat, my knees tucked to my chin and my head alternating from one side to the other to prevent concussions for the next 30 minutes. I arrived to Aquaventure by 830 ready for an exciting day of diving ahead.

Turned out, the guy who had promised to make all the arrangements hadn't even told them I was arriving. Long story short - thanks to his (lying? forgetfulness?) I ended up paying double what I'd expected to pay! I was so upset. The first day I ended up going out alone in my own boat with a guide. The boats are like really long, wooden canoes with outriggers. Apparently they never sink as they're made of wood. So if you get swamped by a wave, you just end up sitting in water up to your waist until rescued.

As it is typhoon season here, there was rain pretty continuously and some rather large waves. I went for my first dive around 11am, the guys take care of all your equipment for you - it's rather an easy way to dive :) The boat sat about 5 meters out from shore so it wouldn't break on the rocks and we waded out between waves to get onto the boat. Thankfully the water is warm. The waves on the way out made for an exciting ride as we'd ride a wave to the top and then plunge straight into the trough before heading up the next one. The outriggers are brilliant as they balance the boat to prevent tipping or we'd have capsized a few meters away from shore. The divesite was in a little cove so the waves were much smaller. The water was a bit churned up and there wasn't much sun, but the diving was still incredible.

I saw two sea turtles - apparently in the Philippines they don't like getting their shells scratched the way they do in Australia, so with the second turtle I rubbed his shell a bit and then held on for the ride! I also saw baracudas, tons of sea cucumbers - I was tempted to take on back onto the boat for supper - and all of Nemo's fish friends. There was a huge circle of Jack fish, the fish on Finding Nemo who make the shapes for Dori, I watched for a long while hoping they'd perform for me but I guess I don't speak Jack well enough... My guide also captured Nemo from his anemone home and tried to pass him to me, but Nemo is amazingly quick and I coudn't get him. I was nervous to catch him myself as I knew anemone's are poisonous but apparently it doesn't hurt humans. I touched the anemone trying to capture him myself and it jumps out to stick to my hands, but doesn't hurt, it's mostly just startling.

Apparently the Philippines, and Batangas specifically, has some of the highest marine biodiversity in the world and I believe it. There were so many more fish, nudibranchs and other marine species than at the Great Barrier Reef!

I spent the afternoon sleeping as the waves were too high for more dives, then chatted late into the night with a family that was staying there and one of the dive instructors. The next day, two guys showed up for diving so I was able to share a boat with them which drastically reduced my costs. The waves were even higher than the day before combined with heavy rains. I had to face into the rains and see where we were going or I would have fallen out of the boat. My eyes hurt so much that I eventually put on my mask, as did another guy, and we joked that we should get all our gear on in case we fell out so we were prepared.

The divesite was beautiful! My dive buddy was like a kid in a candy store; touching, poking and playing with everything he saw. We saw a couple moray eels and in a rock next to them I also found a white moray eel with brown spots. We saw the biggest lion fish I've ever seen, maybe a foot around with fins fully extended, and also a squid. There was one anemone growing out of what looked like a green pudgy vase and when we poked it, it was like a silky fabric rather than a rigid coral. We saw some really large, purple nudibranchs that were a couple inches long with bright yellow horns. I also saw one fish with a large eye spot painted on it's tail fin and teeny real eyes, it is the first one of those I've ever seen diving. One thing we saw, and thankfully didn't touch was a fire urchin. There were a couple that were round on top, had purple spikes coming out in ridges and yellow spikes around it's bottom. We were curious and tried to get it to move but thankfully had the sense not to touch it! I even saw a sea cucumber eating for the first time, it moved so slowly over the coral and extended teeny little fins from underneath it to eat bits from on top of the coral by moving it's fins back underneath it.

Between dives we anchored in a little cove and went snorkelling as we couldn't get enough of the water! On the way back, the waves were with us which made for a much smoother ride, and the boat man was excellent. He would idle the motor until a really large wave came then rev it up so we would surf the wave for quite a ways, then catch the next one. It was incredibly cool surfing a wave in a boat.

Diving wasn't nearly long enough, my first dive I ran out of air rather quickly but by my fourth dive I was able to maintain neutral buoyancy, turn and swim more sharply and conserve air much better. If I hadn't been cheated by who I thought would help me, I would try to sneak in another day of diving, but my funds are dry... Thankfully the family I met at the resort was driving back to Manila the same afternoon I was and gave me a lift. It was so nice, as otherwise I would have had to walk along the road until I encountered a tricycle - which could have been a few hours!

Today WYA AP had a General Assembly with about 20 members and many intern and staff alumni. It was my first opportunity to see many of my friends in the Philippines. I spoke about WYA's understanding of dignity and the projects going on in the regions. Ren added in a twist for Q&A and put me in the hot seat where they could ask anything - her suggestion was about my love life... they asked about how I came to understand dignity and also about how they could get more involved. Thankfully they didn't ask about my love life, although as a few jokingly referred to it, and it is a short answer, I told them. None!

Some of the old interns joined us for lunch then I spent the afternoon with Tam catching up. So good! We were both able to chat about where our passions have brought us in life, and the difficulty in explaining to people who haven't shared our experiences or have chosen a corporate life. Our afternoon finished at Jollibee with a phenomenal merchandising idea - to be revealed only when ready... orders will be accepted :)

Funky Foods

2009-07-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening Ren and I had two meeting scheduled for the same ice cream place. Both meetings went elsewhere after the initial contact. The first, we sat outside nearby and chatted. The setting was lovely, a teeny breeze, hot, surrounded by bushes and flowers. For our second meeting, the guy wants WYA to speak at a conference in a few months and drove us to where the proposed venue is. He brought us inside to wander around, it's quite a nice location except freezing! I don't understand it, all these people are supposed to be from tropical countries and used to the heat. Instead, they all like their air temperature so cold that I could happily bundle up under a few blankets attempting to stay warm.

We went to a nearby outdoor food market, a wet market, meaning the food is fresh. The first item I saw on the menu, after squid, was frog! I pointed it out thinking they would share my joy at seeing a menu listing 4 ways to cook frog, instead they ordered it for me. I then pointed out the sea cucumber options thinking surely they would see the humour in that, and also ended up having that ordered for me to taste. I was so nervous! Especially for the sea cucumber as my only prior exposure to it was scuba diving in Australia and it feels like it's made of styrofoam...

The frog legs were actually pretty good, I ate a few. They taste a bit like chicken, but with the consistency of crab meat - they're much softer than chicken. Sea cucumber tastes like unflavoured jello. It's pretty tasteless and has a similar consistency to jello - not bad, although the appearance is like mushroom on the inside and spotted, lumpy, or striped on the outside so I didn't eat as much sea cucumber as I did frog's legs.

Apparently it is said that the Chinese eat everything that flies - except for airplanes, and everything with 4 legs - except for the table. After supper, as were discussing varieties of food in different places they told me about the Century Egg. The century egg is preserved in different acids and vinegars for 100 days, and then consumed. Apparently it's a delicacy. The egg after 100 days is black. The yolk looks like bird droppings, and the white looks like black rum jello shooters :p

I ate half the egg, before I felt nauseous and had to stop. The taste isn't so bad, but the texture and appearance are horrible and I excused myself as it was my third unusual food I'd eaten that night, so felt less obligated to finish it.

Today we had a few more meetings, flew back to Manila, and I've just finalised plans for scuba diving a few hours south of Manila tomorrow. I'll be away from internet for the next few days - don't miss me (my writing) anymore than you miss my physical presence :)

Singapore :)

2009-07-14T01:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Ren and I flew to Manila. I spent Sunday with Des' family. We went to lunch together, it's a family tradition which they allowed me to crash... and in good Filipino hospitality style they absolutely stuffed me! Even hours later for supper I was full - proof that I was really stuffed. We spent the afternoon, between meals, wandering through the Greenhills mall shopping at the pearl market. Thankfully I was able to bargain and didn't get slapped once! It really restored my faith in bargaining. I had the true Pinoy experience of visiting 3 malls in one day; one for lunch, one in the afternoon and one for supper. As Des put it "malling is their favourite past-time" a good indicator being that the noun is now an adjective.

Early Monday morning Ren and I flew to Singapore. We are staying outside of the downtown area, and far from the shopping malls - hence off the tourist map. Our one skill so far is a remarkable ability to get lost, despite the clarity of Singapore's transit system. We went for lunch at a street food place nearby and had plans to wander Orchard Road which is apparently famous for its - drum roll please - malls! I've had a bit of a cold over the past week though, and as much as I do love shopping :p I spent the afternoon sleeping. Best nap ever! I drooled ;)

We had a meeting with some students at the National University of Singapore last night. We were told our meeting location was close to NUS, we thought we were across the street from NUS as there is a big sign across the street from us and we're staying in student housing. Apparently we're by the NUS law campus - as our bus ride was a good 20 minutes even if we hadn't got lost...

Today we met with the National Youth Achievement Award program and the National Youth Council. Both organisations were very receptive to WYA's work and mission and eager to put us in touch with the youth they work with. I definitely think we can begin to have a presence here. Especially as Singapore is a wealthy, ageing country so they especially wish to encourage everything youth there would be great support for any young people who wanted to start WYA up here.

This evening we have a couple more meetings with different students and youth groups, and tomorrow we meet with the Muslim and Buddhist youth groups; in different meetings. Ren is absolutely crazy, she takes pictures of everywhere we go, everything we eat, and is in 90% of her pictures. She's started taking some pictures with me in it, as she can't understand what the purpose of taking a picture is, if you're not in the picture - unless it's of the food which you're about to eat or have just eaten. We've been polling people of various nationalities and it seems to be a western/asian conflict in picture taking philosophy.

Singapore is really beautiful! Flying in, the water was so clear and aqua I just wanted to go swimming. The weather here is nice too, hotter than Hong Kong and Manila but not as hot as Bangkok. Bangkok has been, by far, the hottest place I've visited so far. Since I also stayed there sharing a non air-conditioned washroom, dorm and transportation every other place I visit seems cold. Transportation is air-conditioned, buildings are air-conditioned and my room in each place has been air-conditioned. Ren is finding the heat much hotter than me, and we compromised last night on the air-conditioning as I wanted it at a cozy 29 Celsius and she wanted it at a maximum of 25 Celsius.

购物！食物！ Shopping! Food!

2009-07-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

Our hostel is located in Causeway Bay, also the heartland of shopping for all of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has shopping everywhere. Shopping is entertainment, relaxation, necessity, socialising, envy and basically what there is to do in Hong Kong. Eating is the break between shopping and the fuel to continue. I read through a tourist guide; in the Heritage section was a listing for a "new" heritage site. The site of some old building, but now when you go there is a shopping mall! You can view all of Hong Kong from the "Peak" shopping mall included, and I discovered this evening that City University of Hong Kong has a shopping mall attached to it. Imagine - you're shopping for new shoes, wander into the next room and are stuck in the middle of a history class!

The stores are amazing. Most of them are the expensive western stores. There is Swarovski, Banana Republic, Longchamps and then Asian stores scattered amongst. I have a few new favorites like Giordano and Bossini which sell very cool clothes. Happiness is all the rage, with brands like smileyworld and slogans like Cheer You Up on the clothes. As one explanatory brochure put it; with the global financial crisis, and H1N1 virus "You're down and you can't take it anymore? Don't be... cheery designs... to really pump up the volume of positive energy." Love it - you're depressed? Come shop!

Today we had a meeting with Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. The woman we met was quite impressive, she had a very clear passion for youth and a great understanding of the struggles and opportunities for Hong Kong youth. We had an inkling that she was impressive and discovered later on some of her many accomplishments. I look forward to working with her, and she was excited to work with us.

We then met with two youth for supper who will be flying to the Philippines for the Asia Pacific Decade of Dignity and Development Conference in a week. They also were quite interesting and we were able to learn about their culture and will continue the discussion in Tagaytay. We trusted them to order for us and enjoyed some delicious authentic Chinese food as a result - so good... mmm, I could go back right now and eat it all over again! We had fried race cakes, chicken and flour skin (with sesame sauce and tasted SO much better than it sounds) Szichuan style noodles (with peanut sauce), dim sum, and drunken chicken (soaked in Chinese wine), with bean curd puffs for dessert.

pictures now in :)

2009-07-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong!

2009-07-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went for one last session of Thai stretching - it seems so long ago. I bumped into some of my fellow massage students - took a few more pictures with them, and then waited for 30 minutes alone at the dock to catch a boat back. Normally the water taxis go every 15 minutes and there are crowds, but apparently at 930am all the businesspeople are at work and no tourists are awake yet.

I flew Emirates to Hong Kong. I love emirates, it is one of the few airlines where they still have good food, offer blankets and a large selection of movies. I nearly got through Slumdog millionaire before landing - only about 20 minutes left.

I arrived at the airport picked up some tourist maps to help find my way to the hostel and changed my money. Ren had sent me the cost of the buses which were either 21 or 41 dollars. I'd been thinking it was super expensive until I remembered the exchange rate is 7 HKG to 1 USD. I got off the bus and ended up wandering in a large circle attempting to find the hostel. I was a few blocks away and asked a guy for help. He didn't speak much English but was incredibly kind. He walked with me for 15 minutes, left me at a corner at one point to ask for directions, called the hostel, waited with me until the hostel owner came for me, and then gave me some lychees he had as he left!

Ren and I went for supper nearby - rice and pork, followed by an ice cream crepe while wandering around. All of Hong Kong is shops and food. "As seen on tv..." the buildings are incredibly tall, the ground floors have everything from Swarovski to Club Monaco to Giordano to little boutiques that sell the latest in shoe, clothing, jewelery and hair fashions. Sprinkled liberally between are restaurants and dessert places. Most of the stores have glittery or electric signs which make all the streets light up at night - coupled with intensive air-conditioning and open doors, even walking outside isn't so bad as there is so much residual air-conditioning in the streets.

Today we had a meeting with youth from the Hong Kong Climate Change Coalition. Three officers of the group met with us and we had a great discussion with them about what WYA is, our position on responsible stewardship and possibilities to work together. They really liked the idea of dignity, and incorporating it into their work on climate change - environment with the person at the center. We then went for a 4 hour lunch with the two guys as the girl had to catch an afternoon flight to Australia.

It was great, our conversations ranged from photography styles; do you like to be in the photo or not while travelling, to discussions of global poverty, it's implications and what needs to be done in addressing it. We finally left, took a bus back and are relaxing in our room before we go out for - you'll never guess...

... more food! (I knew you'd never guess, so I'm telling you!)

Asala - Dharma Day

2009-07-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up early to try and make it to Wat Pho temple for their 8am stretching session. I just missed a boat so only arrived for the final few stretches and to receive green tea :) On the way into Wat Pho, I ran into my massage instructor who was surprised to see me, and at the class was one of the girls I'd learned massage with also there. Then, as I was leaving I bumped into another guy who'd been studying at Wat Pho but in a different course - Bangkok suddenly felt small!

Today is a holiday in Thailand. It commemorates the day when Buddha emerged from two months of fasting in which he had discovered the middle way and preached it to the the other monks. The middle way is the philosophy that goodness comes not from pure ascetisim, nor from full allowance of sensuality but from a middle ground between the two. At this time Buddha also presented the 4 truths, the fourth of which is the 8 ways to live a good life.

It so happens that this festival also marks the start of the rainy season which lasts about two months. Apparently Buddha asked his monks to not wander throughout the countryside during this time, as traditionally it was when the farmers worked their fields, to prevent the monks from trampling the crops. Now, the monks remain within the temple during this time - only emerging to beg for food. It is also customary that men become monks at some point in their life and many boys do so during this time. It is a time when the monks really focus on prayer and study.

The temple of Wat Pho and Wat Arun were packed today, not just with the usual tourists, but also with Thai people bringing gifts and performing ceremonies. By the time I reached Wat Arun mid-afternoon I was so tired I sat near to the activities the monks had set up and watched. They were so kind and made an effort to include me, bringing me water and explaining the activities to me. One tradition is to write your name and wish on a piece of wax, then dip it into a pot already full of melted wax. You then take a dipper and put a few spoonfuls of the wax into a tall cylindrical container. This then cools to become the large candles in the temples. The monk explained to me that Buddhists write what they will do over the next few months, kind of a new year's resolution. There are also tiles you can write on which then go on the roofs of the temples as they need more tiles.

There is one temple where it is customary to bring a candle, a white flower (don't know what it's called) and incense and to walk around it praying. People were doing that all day, and in the evening when the monsoon rains started up they continued to walk around - some even without umbrellas!

Between Wat Pho and Wat Arun I visited Pratunam market to buy gifts. From all my research it seemed to be the cheapest market in Bangkok where even wholesale buyers go for good deals. The prices quoted to me were so ridiculously high, and people would not go down. I walked away from so many stalls as they refused to drop their prices at all. In one place, the woman quoted the most outrageously high price for little wallets and when I asked her for a discount she asked me what my price was - so I quoted a ridiculously low price back to her. She went berserk! She started screaming at me calling me crazy "You crazy! that crazy price! you crazy!" and slapped me!!! My first instinct was to punch her in the mouth and break her teeth, my second was to bring in the police for assault.

Since I promote human dignity, I couldn't in good conscience punch her - even though I think it would have been good for her. Knowing, and having experienced that the police here are corrupt, I had to accept option two would be useless and possibly detrimental to me. So, I stared at her and quite sternly told her not to touch me. Then I walked away while she continued to scream at me. There were lots of beautiful items in the stalls in that row, but I couldn't stop at any of the places I was so embarrassed.

After that, I was too nervous to bargain - I've never been slapped while attempting to bargain before and was quite shaken up. What was saddest of all, was that the prices I managed to bargain down to - after a lot of effort on my part in each place - when I returned to Wat Pho, those were the same prices labeled on the streets, and the women lowered their prices much more reasonably even from that. I don't think I'll ever return to that market again...

I did have a couple nice experiences at the market. I was starving and discovered the food places where those working the stalls eat. The woman didn't speak any English so I ordered by making animal sounds and she would point to different items and make animal sounds. The food was delicious and quite cheap. Then I found a man selling Thai desserts with his family behind him, he also didn't speak any English, so I started saying Thai numbers so he could tell me the price in Thai. He and his family got so excited they started rattling off sentences and invited me to eat with them. Since numbers, hello and thank you are all I know, I thanked them for their invitation and left.

I then returned to Wat Pho this evening to catch the festivities by night. There are hallways with dozens of Buddha statues lined against the wall. Many people had set up mats, and were settling in for the night, I wasn't able to figure out what that was for. I really like the Wat Pho area. It is the place I know best in Bangkok - but it seems every time I leave that area I get massively lost, meet crazy or corrupt people or otherwise have some unpleasant experience.

On the holiday commemorating Buddha first preaching about the righteous way, I've met both people who live it and people who demonstrate why it is needed...

Wat Po Chetawan Thai massage therapist!

2009-07-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

That's me - it's official! I received my certificate yesterday. We had a practical exam where we massaged another student, but it was someone from the other class which definitely put the pressure on. Thankfully the guy I massaged was very nice, I forgot a couple steps and he positioned his body to remind me :) I did the same for him though, so it all worked out in the end! You all know what your birthday gifts will be from now on, and be grateful. A full Thai massage takes 1.5 - 2 hours. At a spa you would be paying a LOT!

I also invested in massage pants - the pants traditionally worn in Thailand and still worn by Thai massage therapists. They are loose, comfy, light, and very brightly patterned! I wore them around all day yesterday and a few people working at street stands smiled or demonstrated that they approved of my clothing choice. A few of them just laughed at me. I fully intend to wear them for giving massages, I'm not sure I'll have the courage to wear them publicly outside of Thailand though :)

To celebrate I had supper with the guy in my class near his hostel at Khao San road. I hadn't realised how lucky my desire to save money had made me. I booked my hostel as it is the cheapest I could find in Bangkok at 130 baht/night (~$4 USD). It is in the business district of Bangkok and there are no other hostels nearby. I've really been able to eat genuine Thai food off the streets and see Bangkok the way the Thais do. At Khao San road, it's like the Vegas or Times Square of Bangkok. There are hostels everywhere, and all the massage places, food stands, clothing stalls, etcetera cater to the tourists. Everything is in English, everyone speaks English. The only Thais I saw worked there... It was good to see that - it's the famous backpacker hangout and obviously has incredible night life, and then so nice to return to my hostel in a neighbourhood that shuts down at night and is full of life during the day.

Today and tomorrow are holidays here. They are to celebrate the start of the rainy season and the last days the monks wander around freely. During the monsoon season it is a time of prayer for them, and they leave the temples only to beg food. Apparently it used to be customary for every boy to become a monk for a period of time, and often they would join the monks at the temples during this time so that the country would all celebrate. At least in Bangkok that is no longer the case, I've heard it is still common practice in rural areas.

Although I love the food here, I've also had some uncomfortable experiences. Two days ago, I ate lunch with my classmates near to our school. I ordered bamboo chicken, which was delicious and very spicy. Three bites into the meal my face was red, I had to suck in air between bites to prevent my mouth from burning up. Halfway through I couldn't continue and asked the woman for some extra rice to soothe my mouth. It helped a bit, then another woman came over and dumped some juice over my rice which looked like pork drippings. It was delicious, very sweet, and worked beautifully. I've now discovered that sweet counters spicy and was able to finish my meal thanks to her help.

Later, I bought some samosas at the side of the road for a snack. I bit into one, and wasn't quite sure what the taste was. I got halfway through before I was able to identify the meat - tongue, fat, entrails, etcetera. So gross! Thankfully I'd also purchased lychees so I ate a dozen of them to get rid of the taste. I also ate pad thai and said yes to seafood in it - assuming of course that it would be shrimp. There was one shrimp, there was also quite a bit of calamari - with the heads still attached! I've never eaten squid before with the dude looking at me as I munched through his delicious body. There were also tiny little orange shrimps throughout - shells and all. They're actually quite flavourful, I ate one on its own and the taste was really strong, but mixed with the noodle they're quite good.

The kindness of strangers

2009-07-04T04:53:00.000-07:00

When I arrived back to my hostel this afternoon I searched for the key to my lock and couldn't find it. Until I looked up and saw it sticking out of my lock, draped around my locker door handle, not locking my locker! I nearly had a heart attack until I peaked inside and saw that not a single item was missing!!! Funnily enough, the dorm room had been locked today for the first time since I'd been here. I can only assume that my roommates saw my stupidity and locked the room to protect my stuff. I am lucky...

Last night, I met up with Andreas and we took a bus over to chinatown where we'd also heard there was a late-night clothing market. We heard correctly, it didn't even begin until midnight! We ate some delicious food, wandered around and then headed over to Lumphini park and night market. We got off at the stop with all the malls - which it turned out was about an hours walk from the night market. By the time we got close we saw a sign for it saying it was 700 meters away. My flip flops are super comfy, but not for cross-city treks. We were so close we kept going. Lumphini bazaar is a great place; there was a live singer with hundreds of seats/tables for people to sit and eat and drink. Then the market goes on forever. We barely entered despite over an hour of exploring as the stalls are so closely packed and full of beautiful items.

It was great to catch up with Andreas. He arrived a few days before me so is also still exploring Bangkok. He plans to live here for a year or so though, and has been learning Thai as fast as he can. It was great as he would use a few phrases to ask people for directions or to order food. It was also good to see him and catch up. After the night market, I decided to take a tuk tuk home. I knew it wasn't a long trip, but didn't have the map clear in my mind. I bargained the driver down to half his starting price so that Andreas called me Donald Trump.

Bangkok is so beautiful. Being July, it is overrun by European tourists and backpackers. Thankfully, by choosing the cheapest hostel I could find I also chose a hostel far from backpacker central. I'm in the heart of the business and jewellery district. Each morning I walk past rows of delicious breakfast foods, pastries and fruits. Once my massage course is over I'm going to have to spend a morning eating something from every stand. Last night, as I was wandering around for hours, I was so excited to know that today I would be giving/getting massages all day and all my soreness would be mashed out of me. Now, the thought of leaving the course and going without massages for months is just so sad. Thankfully I'll be in the Philippines soon and can get a massage there!

Apparently Bangkok is sometimes referred to as the Venice of Asia. There are canals along many streets and many grates/streets cover the river flowing underneath. There are some beautiful old, historic buildings and the culture here is so rich. I love the custom of people bowing as they greet each other, and the politeness with which even goods and money are exchanged as they take the money with both hands. We pray each morning before the class begins to ask that we give a massage with the proper temperament, and also that no evil will enter either us or the person receiving the massage. There are temples and little shrines to Buddha down every street and even in front of the malls. People will stop and pray at the street shrines, lighting incense and bowing.

I took a picture last night of a shrine to Buddha outside a mall. Between the two shrines is a huge banner declaring a 50% sale. I'll post it once I have the chance to upload my pictures.

Pung ni pop can (see you tomorrow)

2009-07-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

Where to begin? I took another tuk tuk yesterday from the water taxi to Brioni factory, where I was getting a dress made. Three drivers were aghast at the price I quoted and roared off, only one listened and agreed to take me for 30 baht - the same I had paid the day before. He asked if I minded stopping at some place so he could get petrol. Faced with the option (I thought) of stopping briefly or stalling somewhere I agreed. Turns out, he took me to another clothing place where I had to go in and wander around for a few minutes so he could get a petrol coupon from them... I have no objection to helping the guy get free gas - except I wish I'd thought to then have my trip for free!

I discovered that a former WYA intern, Andreas Pergher, is also in Bangkok and we'd agree to meet at 6pm at my hostel. I was left with 30 minutes to get back so stopped for a quick bite at a street stand. The menu options were all in Thai so I asked for the soup that was being prepared. They were all very kind, one girl brought me a glass of ice water and the cook kept checking to see if I enjoyed his soup. I did, except for all the fat stuck to every piece of meat, and the myriad pieces of chopped tongue. There is something not right about having cooked tastebuds in your soup.

Tuk tuk drivers are used to scamming tourists. Even though I offered the same price to take me back to the hostel (for less than half the distance) they all refused. So I resorted to asking motorcycle drivers, via a corrupt cop who laughed at me when I tried to bargain and told me my price was crazy... I was in the same area I'd spent 2 hours trying to escape from the day before and wasn't willing to do the same again. Finally I met a kind woman who told me which bus to get on. She didn't speak any English but I'd learned and brought a card from the hostel with it's name and address written in Thai for future adventures.

We got on the same bus and after a while she realised it wasn't actually going past my hostel. She was incredibly kind though, got off the bus with me and walked me the 10 minutes to my hostel - completely out of her way - as she felt responsible to get me home safely. I have definitely noticed that the Thai people are, for the most part, incredibly kind. I also have a bag from the Wat Pho massage school which helps a great deal in people offering more tips as they're excited I'm studying at their best massage school.

Tomorrow I test to pass my massage course. I'm so nervous, there is so much to learn. Apart from the sequence of steps there are body positions which go with each movement. We're graded on our body position, on knowing the steps, on giving a good massage and on our manner. We also need to know basic contra-indications, etc.

I'm going to miss going every day. The teachers are so kind, and have taken to hitting (lightly and friendly) my massage partner any time he does something he shouldn't, with a pillow, their hand, or whatever is handy. Then they'll fall on me laughing as his reactions crack them up. As they're instructing the Thai girl I've also started to learn a few numbers in Thai. Once they realised I was paying attention they've gone out of their way to teach me a little more. I've now learned to count to 10 (although I don't remember...) and some other phrases - note the Thai phrase as the title?!?

2009-07-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

Another smouldering hot day, I'm now up to knowing 3 of the 5 steps of basic Thai massage and my thumbs are very sore! Class is so delightful, all day we practice massaging each other so when another person is giving the massage I am getting one! It's funny though, Thai massage is very deep tissue so by the end of today I was extra sensitive in a few places and had to have very light pressure applied :p

After class I was determined to find some Thai clothes. Cotton shows the sweat too much... and I don't fit into the clothes they sell on the street because as one girl put it - "oh no, you are a very large size, you need to get clothes custom made..." Another guy was determined to sell me his "one size fits all" pants even after I showed him I was one size too large for them - his flattery wasn't enough though. So I was sent off to a clothing factory where they custom make suits, dresses, etc. WAY out of my price range!

I thought I'd watched where the tuk tuk took me and decided to walk back. What should have been a 30 minute walk became 3 hours. I hadn't calculated on few/no street signs, the few street signs being written in Thai (different alphabet in case you didn't know that...) and multiple 12 lane intersections. After a couple hours I was so hungry I ate some food at a little street stand. The guy pointed to different ingredients and I either shook my head or nodded at each one.

I then spent forever trying to flag down another tuk tuk and trying to a) explain where I wanted to go as few tuk tuk drivers read English and b) negotiating to a price I was willing to pay. I was clearly lost and a foreigner, so even though I knew I was only a few minutes walk away I couldn't find it on my own they had full opportunity to jack up their prices. Thankfully I finally found one who would take me, although I felt a little better as even he got lost twice on the way back to the hostel and had to stop and look at my map.

Now for a relaxing evening, getting some work done, and another early day tomorrow. If I get to the Wat Pho for 730am I can participate in their stretching exercises - normally not even an option but perhaps I will take advantage of jetlag :)

Welcome to ประเทศไทย (Thailand)

2009-07-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

It's so much fun to be a foreigner. There is always the danger of getting ripped off, kidnapped, taken advantage of or getting lost but there are just so many perks. The first and most obvious one being, you are the oddball in a place that has existed with its traditions, language, food, etc for a very long time. So you get to wander around admiring new things, taking pictures of peoples houses and neighbourhood and sometimes even the people :)

Yesterday I arrived to Bangkok around noon and took a water taxi up Bangkok's central river to find the Wat Pho Massage school. It costs 13 baht for the water taxi (about 40 cents USD). There are some beautiful parts to Bangkok, and also some very poor parts. Especially lining the river are some of the nicest hotels - Mandarin Oriental - and many shacks. This morning I passed a man bathing in the river. The river is a murky greeny brown with branches and other debris floating in it, and no clarity. I had to admire his efforts as he dumped river water on him for the few minutes it took the boat to pass and he was still washing as he went out of sight.

Bangkok is swelteringly hot, and I wish I could shower every few minutes... I need to! It's 30+ Celsius and exceedingly humid. I'm on the lookout now for some light, Thai clothes as I've wandered around visibly sweaty for the last two days which is not a good look. Today, at noon, I wandered around the Wat Pho temple. It is incredibly beautiful. The reclining Buddha is enormous, gold and takes up the whole temple. It's too big to even fit into one picture so I'll have to paste a bunch together to give any sort of idea of how he looks. My favourite part of the Buddha has got to be his feet. The bottoms are covered in designs made of mother of pearl. The walls of the temple are also illustrated with pictures. I assume they are stories of the Buddha's life, but I only had an hour so need to learn a lot more. There are numerous temples scattered around the big temple and each one is so intricately carved that I could easily spend a day staring at them all. There are also gardens and fountains with statues, and some real, live Buddhist monks. I had to say that, it is actually really cool to see them throughout the city.

One monk was seated under a tree in a prayerful pose, and the scene was so beautiful I wanted to take his photo. I asked him and he smiled for me to take the picture. I felt somewhat bad taking pictures of it all, as it is a temple and many people were there praying at the various Buddha statues. Obviously the monks are part of the "scenery" if you're a tourist, but for them it is their religion and they are simply there to pray or study or do whatever it is they do - I have a LOT to learn :p

Today, I started my Thai massage course. There are three of us in the course; a guy from South Africa, a Thai girl and myself. We started this morning observing as the teacher performed step 1 of Thai massage on the guy. We then spent the afternoon practicing on each other. It's actually quite difficult and intricate, and we have only learned one stage of the whole massage. A great deal of it comes down to practice though, so over the next 4 days I hope to become quite comfortable with it all. We learned by watching the teacher perform the massage and doing the same steps. I received one massage on my right side and then one full massage. The guy from South Africa received 4 massages on his right side, he was thinking of going to get a massage tonight and asking them to just massage his left side twice to attempt to even himself out...

I'll upload photos soon - probably in Manila. I'm nervous to bust out all my technology while I'm still at the hostel as I'd hate to get it stolen. I'm off now to eat some supper - food here is good, but I am starving! Now that I've entered an air-conditioned room some of my appetite has returned.

Passion and Happiness

2009-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

There is a viewpoint in our culture that in order for someone to be successful they must work very hard, sacrifice a great deal, be without friends, miss out on important family moments, suffer from high cholesterol and heart problems, and basically choose between quality of life or success. The same applies to artistic and creative people; they should be socially awkward, impractical and suffer from wild mood-swings.

Over the last few decades numerous studies have analysed what makes a person successful; in business, in artistic endeavors, in any field. Similar studies have been done in the field of happiness. What makes a person happy: is it money, power, friends, success, intelligence, values? Incredibly enough, studies contradict the mythology surrounding both success and happiness. Despite these two being what most people in life strive for, as a species we suck at knowing how to achieve either.

Interviews with successful people, and interviews with happy people tend to reveal very similar trends. The most successful people are usually also very happy. They are typically not living the Hollywood life - they may spend their days at an office, in a studio, in a refugee camp or performing research. They are often not the most glamorous or fashionable people. They are often not at all wealthy, or at least not living a wealthy lifestyle. What does unite them is they chose to do something different, something which fascinated them.

In each case, the successful person listened to and cultivated their curiosity. They turned down safe jobs. They chose to pursue a life different from those around them, and to devote their energies and talents to perfection in whichever area fascinated them. In the process they experienced months and years of failure, sometimes rejection, sometimes a lack of acceptance in 'normal' society. When, years later, they emerged with a discovery, an invention, a new viewpoint or something radical they became celebrities. Celebrated for how amazing they were, how special, how few of us are capable of doing what they have done.

It is true. How many of us are willing to give up the status quo, to seek a life outside of the normal career path to follow some vague dream inside? We continue to believe in the Hollywood dream that if I find some glamorous, beautiful, wealthy person and meet celebrities and by association become one myself, that I will be happy.

What in fact studies are demonstrating, successful and happy people have already figured out, and we should all pay attention to, is that if we truly wish to be happy we need to learn what makes us unique. We need to devote ourselves to cultivating our talents and using them in the best way possible. We will have to struggle, to forge new paths, to step outside of our comfort zones. We will have a life which appears hard and uncomfortable. We may become successful. What we will be, is happy.

How do we solve poverty?!?

2009-06-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book entitled "In the River They Swim". It's a collection of essays from many of the world's leading development experts. The essays don't offer the solution to global poverty, nor do they explain how to solve corruption or improve entrepreneurship. Some of the essays speak of failure or personal difficulty in adjusting to cultures, learning to respect another viewpoint or attempting to improve a situation.

So often we are offered THE solution to poverty. We need to double aid to certain countries, we need to cancel debts, we need to all go over there and spend our time helping out. Notice how it's all about US? YOU? ME? What the development experts have realised, and what their essays are discussing, is that not one of us has THE solution.

The solution doesn't exist! What WE can do, is to speak with people living in different circumstances, we can figure out what is holding them back from creating opportunities or taking advantage of existing opportunities, we can offer education, our experience, we can help them to think through the situation. Ultimately, we are only guides. It is up to us to observe, to learn, to offer assistance; it is up to those living in the situation to act.

To read essay after essay written by brilliant people, with decades of experience - who, looking through their resumes, have concretely changed hundreds and thousands of lives for the better through their work, and to have those people admit that they don't have the solution is eye opening. If only we could all have the humility to realise our limitations and to offer what resources and knowledge we do have to those who are capable of alleviating poverty in ways that I and you never can.

In my own travels, I speak with youth who are incredibly capable, passionate and dedicated to improving their societies. I am continuously asked, "what can we do to improve?" At first, I answered I didn't know, because I didn't know their societies, their culture, what opportunities they had, the difficulties with which they were faced. I was clueless. Now, I answer that I don't know, because the more I learn the less I am able to offer some quick solution. There are so many areas that need focus, and it will take each person within the society using their strengths and skills to make it better. In the meantime, it will take a very few people working very hard to inspire others to join them.

How encouraging for me, and for everyone working on these issues to read examples of what has worked in different places all over the world - sometimes in the most impossible situations where no one thought there was any hope for improvement. On top of that, how encouraging to know that I can continue to learn and work with people all over the world and that I will never have the answer. What is important is that we observe, listen, begin - and when we fail we adjust and try again.

Ultimate for Peace in Kenya

2009-04-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

This coming August, Ultimate will be brought to 100 youth in Nairobi, Kenya for the first time!

Last November as I travelled throughout Africa (always bringing my disc with me…) I played Ultimate in many countries teaching how to play and of course Spirit of the Game. The comment that stuck in my mind from one person in Rwanda was: “imagine if Africans, especially African leaders, could learn to call their own fouls and accept the call.”

World Youth Alliance Africa is hosting a conference in Nairobi, Kenya from Tuesday 4^th to Saturday 8^th August 2009 on the theme ‘Peace: Our Responsibility for Integral Development’. As part of the conference an Ultimate Workshop will be offered.

What better way to promote peace than through Ultimate and Spirit of the Game? Youth from throughout Kenya and Africa will learn about promoting the dignity of every person as the basis for peace, and hence development. They will also take home with them Ultimate and, through playing, make Spirit of the Game part of their local culture and mindset.

The Decade of Dignity and Development, WYA 1999-2009 is a celebration of ten years promoting the dignity of the person in development. The DDD celebrations are intended to unite young people, leaders in the public sector and best practices around the world to give them a global center stage.

I am looking to bring 100 discs with me to our Africa Region. I am also looking for donations to provide each of the participants with a jersey. Donations are tax deductible. WYA is a 501©3 registered nonprofit.

"The integrity of Ultimate depends on each player's responsibility to uphold the Spirit of the Game, and this responsibility should remain paramount."

“Ultimate relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship that places the responsibility for fair play on the player. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, or the basic joy of play.”

Home for Christmas

2009-01-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

This past December I drove 13 hours north of NYC with my sister, Anna, to go home for Christmas. I hadn't been home in a full year, not since last Christmas. We left at 8am from NY, and after 6 or so hours we finally found a Starbucks, and I splurged on a white chocolate mint mocha, or something along those lines - so yummy!

Leaving NY we got stuck in a snowstorm and just crawled along in the traffic, the farther north we got, the less people slowed down in the snow. By the time I got within an hour of home, I was so sick of driving. Anna was dj-ing and we'd stooped to singing along to cheesy 80's and musicals type music, which is great for staying awake to! I'm sure numerous other drivers thought I was crazy as I'd be bouncing in the seat or thumping along to the music to stay awake. At one point I thought I saw a woman at the side of the vehicle on a deserted stretch of highway, but it was the product of blinking too much or chocolate overdose - I refuse to watch horror movies and was so grateful in that moment since I'm sure there are tons on that theme and I would have been terrified!

Home sweet home, Mom had prepared delicious food, Dad had prepared one of his non-recipe specialties which tasted horrible and we left it all for him! The holidays were so nice, so relaxing. After arriving home to -20C weather, it warmed up substantially and all the beautiful snow in our backyard melted within a couple days. We did go into the woods behind our house when they were still full of snow to find, what we all agreed, was our most hideous Charlie Brown tree ever. It was so scraggly... I'd been hoping to go cross-country skiing but once the snow melted it would only snow a bit, blow and then melt again or turn icy.

The only bit of real excitement I had while home was driving home from Moncton one day. I drove around a bit of a sharp turn and saw two vans taking it a bit wide coming in the opposite direction. Not wanting to hit them, I swerved wide and hit a patch of slushy ice. I managed to gain control and get back on the road just in time to aim for the second van. Again, I swerved wide, this time lost control of the van and we flipped once into a ditch, hit the end of it and then flipped end over end to stop upside down. Thankfully we were all wearing seat-belts. Peter undid his first and fell onto Anna, Clare then undid hers and fell onto me. We all unbuckled, Peter opened the door facing most upright, and we crawled out of the van. In the van, I already started to call home, and we must have looked pretty funny crawling out of an upside down van in a ditch, with the wheels still spinning and me already on a cell phone.

Only one of the vans I swerved to avoid stopped, saw us get out, and then took off immediately. Thankfully two drivers following afterwards saw the van, stopped and waited with us till the cops arrived. The van was totaled, my first accident and I did a marvelous job of destroying it. We were so lucky to all be unhurt.

A few days later I had to drive to Moncton again. Driving alone in the car I had the radio on, and some cheesy song started playing about how memories never leave us. As I started to get closer to the accident site, I was shaking and listening to the song and started crying. Then I realised how ridiculous it would be if I were to cry over a cheesy song on the radio, and then crash again, so I dried up. Going around the corner, I slowed right down and basically crawled my way through it. I was so paranoid about ice afterwards that I would see it in the distance or on the side of the road and go out of my way to avoid it or go phenomenally slowly - old lady driver anyone?

Thanks to our whiplash we didn't end up skiing while I was home. Thankfully Peter is a cool enough teenager that he invited his sisters to join him and his friends for some pond hockey a couple days later so we had a great time skating instead. Now, I'm back in NY, still suffering from residual guilt whenever I think about what could have happened to my siblings and so grateful they're all safe. Apart from that, life goes on. For the first time in 3 years New York is actually getting snow! So we had a delightful snowball fight with the interns a few days ago.

everywhere a sign, blocking out the scenery breaking my mind

2008-12-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

It is said a sign is a window into the soul of a culture, no?

Perhaps these will convey a small glimpse of another culture...

Billboard over beauty shop in countryside, Uganda "God is Here"
"It is strictly prohibited to wash cars along roadside" - entering Uganda
"Welcome to Uganda, Keep Left" - entering Uganda
"God is Love" - Forex Bureau in Kigali, Rwanda
"Gain hips and bum, call #..." - Kampala, Uganda
"Find a lover, call #..." - Kampala, Uganda
"Focused, Courageous, Victorious - not even a Sugar Daddy can stop her. Cross-generational sex stops with you." - Billboard in downtown Kampala
"Priorities changing ahead" - traffic sign in Kampala
"Tipsy Wood, Preservation Center" - Eldoret, Kenya (is this a nature reserve or drunk trees?)
"Theme: Strategic Worship for Divine Restoration" - Christian worship center in Eldoret
" 'For' 'Your' 'Electricity Bill' " - Easy Pay Billboard in Nairobi, Kenya (I don't think I'm culturally savvy enough to understand what this is code for...)

And finally... this answer came from one of the participants during a conference as Irene used multiple examples to help participants understand the impact of human dignity. "What prevents us from peeing in the streets? Answer: Shame"

Whirlwind

2008-12-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

I should have known better. Returning from Africa I was so excited to get to bed early, catch up on sleep and recover from the trip. I knew the first week likely would be exceedingly busy with catching up on all I'd put on hold while travelling and corresponding with new contacts, following up on new ideas. In preparing to leave I had, for the first time since starting to work for WYA, actually accomplished all I wanted to accomplish before leaving. I thought, consequently, that I could easily catch up upon return.

There have been great things to keep me busy. Lots of projects requiring some attention, speaking with the staff and hearing how they've all been doing over the previous few weeks, and other matters of great importance but little interest to anyone not me... This all means that sleep continues to wait for me. Being an optimist - I think I'll sleep lots this weekend :p

Last night, WYA partnered with IAV to host a photo exhibit showing Oman in a period of transition from traditional culture to modern conveniences. Many of the pictures were quite fascinating - if you live in NY here is a plug that you have 2 weeks more in which you can come and see them :) Afterwards we hosted a little party for Habib Malik, who was one of the guests of honour for the event, to get to know WYA staff and interns.

Best of all? We now have FOOD! Leftover party trays, and leftover food from post-party Trays. Um-mmm we'll all eat well for a few days.

Tonight, Bissy has invited me to attend an opera with her and one of the current interns. We'll go see Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades. A little coffee pre-opera will likely be essential and then the music and story will have to take over!

ps. The picture is just one I love of my little brother and I looking exceedingly cool. No relation whatsoever with anything in this post.

The Little Things in Life

2008-12-03T12:38:00.001-08:00

It's the small things in life that make a big difference, and also what take a bit of adjustment.

In London, I asked Simon where I could get some water to drink and he looked at me as though I were crazy "in the tap..." It was my first time in 3 weeks in which I could drink unboiled tap water.

Walking in the dark up the deserted hill to the observatory, I kept glancing around and felt as though it were a very unsafe thing to do. I finally confessed to Phil how odd it felt to realise that it was a perfectly safe thing to do.

Blending into a crowd again felt quite nice :)

Last night, as I briefly checked my emails, I commented to Aliah on how fast the internet was. She replied "oh, it got faster?" before realising that I was comparing it to my recent usage. Even the "high speed" internet cafes were a few minutes slower than high speed here in NY.

I have yet to take public transportation, but I will do my best to remember to stretch my legs out and wiggle my toes a bit in appreciation of space.

I ate uncooked greens and vegetables! Oh, how delightful that was... I've already had two salads in less than a day!

The cold is less than pleasant. I think if I had been here for the past month, I would have considered current temperatures to be quite mild for the time of year. Instead, I feel so very, very cold.

And the weirdest thing of all; I am no longer me. I have been waking up at 6:30/7:00am every morning! Last night I didn't go to 2 parties! That is not me... where am I?

Mary Poppins in Londinium

2008-12-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Monday morning, early, I arrived to London. Managed to find my way to Hunt Castle with little difficulty, until I got within 10 meters of the place. At that point the street became a court and the numbers reflected much but not reality. I finally dug deep into my memory and explored the little center court which brought me to the door.

It was good to see Phil again, I also woke up Simon who was much nicer than Phil was hoping for... We chatted for a few hours, Phil made me breakfast, I finally showered and Phil and I ventured out into the ancient city.

We walked through the center of London to the Tower of London. It was the first time either of us had been there. We first walked around to find the entrance (where we started from) and then began our exploration. It was very cool. I'd somehow always thought of the Tower of London as being a really tall tower surrounded by a moat. It's not, it's a castle. It is in fact, many castles built over many centuries, mostly interconnected by castle walls and surrounded by a large moat to prevent invasions. Now the moat is mostly dry and I'm sure much of the dampness and scum has vanished also.

In the towers where they used to keep prisoners, oddly enough it's not the one called Bloody Tower... there is glass over the inscriptions scratched by prisoners which are still somewhat legible. There is a very high number of jesuits and a few from the gunpowder plot - among others. Apparently the only time the Tower of London was ever broken into was by peasants outraged by an increase in taxes who, upon entering, committed the most heinous crimes - they insulted the guards!

I also received a history lesson in jewels, it's also where many of the crown jewels are kept on display alongside thousands of diamonds beside one crown to demonstrate how many diamonds used to be embedded in it. I also saw the Koh-i-noor, and a demonstration of what used to be the largest diamond in the world which is now split into two large, valuable diamonds, and many smaller ones. The "small" ones of course are tiny and would be an embarrassment to anyone getting engaged, being only a centimeter around rather than 7 or 5 centimeters.

We then took a boat down the Thames (correctly pronounced so that it should rhyme with James and the TH should be enunciated rather than shortened to a T sound - Simon was very careful to ensure I knew that...) to Greenwich village. Here, Phil made sure to remind me that it is the original and best - not like the fake, knockoff version in NYC. By the time we arrived it was already dark. Still wandering through the old naval academy and up to the observatory at the top of the hill was quite beautiful. There was a great view of all of London as we stood at General Wolfe's feet.

For any Canadians out there, I was able to impress the Brit with my knowledge of "British" history fought on Canadian soil. Wolfe being the general who defeated the French General Montcalme and sent the French settlers packing - most of whom fled to New Orleans, hence the Cajun population there phonetically somewhat similar to the Acadian population of eastern Canada. The Acadians remaining in Canada fled west and north, mostly into the woods and resettled in harsher climates. I also thought of Peter who refreshed my knowledge of Canadian history recently (hence my impressive knowledge, down to the details of the decisive battle) and wished I had a camera with me to take a picture with the statue.

We then got back on the ferry up to central London where we met up with Simon and Oliver for drinks - yummy, yummy mulled wine, and supper. After which we wandered around, met up with some other folk and continued to drink until my jetlag hit like a brick wall and I was incapable of even polite smalltalk. I also had a cold and was impressed how polite they all were while I was rather less than the most scintillating conversationalist or entertaining guest. London weather was a bit of a shock coming from Africa and, I've since discovered, also colder than NY.

Leaving on a jetplane

2008-12-03T10:38:00.001-08:00

Sunday, I spent the morning packing - it was a work of art. My clothes, by then, were all so filthy that I wrapped my purchases in newspaper and then my clothes to cushion them in my suitcase - they couldn't possibly get any dirtier. I figured I was right around the weight limit, and my only concern was that at some point some customs guy would wish to check my luggage and disturb the perfection that was my packing job...

In the afternoon Irene and I visited Winnie and chatted with her. She is teaching at Strathmore university and has incorporated WYA's training materials into her classes - so that her students basically finish with a good introduction to WYA! We then went to visit Caroline, and Agi, who was in Nairobi from Hungary - small world...

Finally, we headed back to Buru Buru for the last time. Oscar Beauttah drove us there so we would have time to eat before I left for the airport. The Ambassador had promised the evening before that he would come for me in the official embassy vehicle. He arrived just as we were beginning to eat. Irene and Noreen ate in one of the bedrooms while Esther joined me with the Ambassador and his wife. They then drove me to the airport. It was so much fun not stopping to be searched and skipping the x-ray and customs line! He then escorted me to the government VIP lounge where I waited for my flight.

We had pineapple juice together before he left. Somehow I could not squeeze the juicebox into the glass given to me. I sprayed all over the table - he then volunteered to help and had the same luck regardless of direction or tilt the juice was determined to spray. Finally he ripped open one of the corner and managed to pour the rest. I'm sure the staff had never had to clean up a table of pineapple juice spray left by an Ambassador and distinguished guest before :)

Masai market

2008-12-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

Buses in Eastern Kenya are crafted with maximum utility of space in mind, rather than passenger comfort. I am lucky that I don't bruise easily, and that Irene is so nice. Friday night I slept in what I thought was quite a clever position, and Irene thought looked like a really uncomfortable F shape... Since my knees hit the seat in front of me leaving no room for sleep sprawl, I twisted my right leg sideways and straight in front of me, with my other tucked under my seat in front of me. Due to the bumpy roads, the window was not so comfortable and I managed to tuck my blanket over my head and into a ball so it didn't slip around too much and to angle my back into a position which allowed for minimal movement against the seat. In that position I slept for a few hours until I awoke thinking my knee caps might slide out of position. Irene was then kind enough to stick her legs into the aisle and make room for my legs in front of her...

We arrived early Saturday morning - thankfully no bus hijacking occurred! Went home just on time to say goodbye to Esther and her niece before they took off to her brother's wedding. I then slept for a few hours. I woke up to find Irene asking for me to let her out of the room next door. The handle had fallen off and she hadn't wanted to wake me up so had patiently waited for 30 minutes trapped in the room till I woke up!

We then went into downtown Nairobi to shop for presents at the Masai market. The last time I went there I got majorly ripped off, and I was nervous it would happen again... Somewhere over the last few weeks though I must have acquired some knowledge. I managed to get good deals, and not good deals for a tourist, but genuinely good deals. At one point (I must have been bargaining really well!) the girl said "I'm giving you this price because you're not a rich American, you're one of us" I didn't correct her perception of the American part as the rich was false, but thought it was funny that she figured I must live in Kenya due to my bargaining style. Later on, I'd gone up to the price I wanted to pay and the guy wouldn't come down any further he said "I've already gone down so much, and you've only come up a little..." so I responded that was because he had started with a muzungu price and I wanted to pay the "my sista" price. He laughed and gave me the price I wanted. Everyone around who was selling cracked up also.

Irene was quite patient throughout this, as we spent hours in the hot sun bargaining and she helped me carry my purchases also.

That evening we went to dinner at the residence of the Nigerian High Commissioner to Kenya. The Ambassador was hosting us, a number of interns and the Beauttah family. I was able to eat Nigerian food - we had gari gari which is similar to ugali along with a typical, very spicy, soup. The Ambassador confirmed my suspicions of what Nigerian soups contained by detailing it's ingredients - basically lots of variety of fish and fish extracts, some local herbs, various bits of meat, and lots of spice!

I wore the Kenyan outfit I had purchased that day at the market, and was one of only three of us to be in authentic African garb that evening. I thought I would look like a poser wearing Kenyan clothes and being obviously not Kenyan. Irene said that it would be good for Kenyans to see their traditional clothing being worn and appreciated by foreigners as many don't appreciate it on their own.

Muzungu

2008-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

By now, I know my name pretty well - muzungu, it means white person. I've also learned the slang, mlami.

Leaving Bungoma, one of the shuttle drivers was very kind and put our luggage into another driver's shuttle. He kept saying in Swahili that he was so excited to have a muzungu there, and he wished so much he could have the honour of taking me in his bus, and that he wished he spoke english so he could speak with me. It was so funny, Irene was translating and we were cracking up.

We then drove to Bungoma, met a former WYA Africa intern, who took us to speak to another youth group. This group was quite receptive and restored our faith in youth groups. They are from the country and only 3 of them had emails, they also couldn't understand my accent at all, so I chipped in to say a few things but mostly Irene spoke.

Then we travelled to Terige, where a seminar for almost 200 high school kids is taking place and Irene and I were scheduled to present the following day. In a little car we had, taking up a full seat, Irene's suitcase with my rucksack on top, Irene and myself squished into the other seat, and in front another passenger. The roads, even without extra people and luggage would have been rough travelling. I fought a battle with my rucksack for an hour as every time we went over a bump (every 3 seconds to 5 minutes) it would attempt to land on me. Irene commented that I looked like I was in a boxing match. We finally arrived and met the teachers and coordinators responsible for the seminar who were quite welcoming.

By 8pm exhaustion had hit in a big way, and I was no longer capable of even pretending to be sociable, they were kind enough to take us to our sleeping quarters.

Today, we spent the day giving a full WYA seminar to the kids. They were quite enthusiastic, but again struggled with my accent. I've learned that english here is taught sans pronunciation. The teachers make sure the kids know what the words mean, but few of them even know how words should be pronounced so it ends up being a bit of a free for all, that then translates into some pretty funky pronunciations and difficulty understanding english from outside their area.

It was a great seminar and I think most, if not all the kids, became WYA members. We also received our evaluation forms at the end of the day. It was pretty unanimous that we were not nearly entertaining enough and needed some dramatisation to illustrate our points. Next time, perhaps we can work on translating our workshops into song or play form.

We've got a few minutes now before we board the night bus back to Nairobi. We discovered yesterday that apparently bus hijacking along the route have become common recently, we then went back to the bus station and checked on safety precautions. It turns out we'll be travelling in a convoy of 20 buses back to Nairobi to prevent hijacking and robbery. I just hope we're the middle bus! The consensus from people here though, is that the convoys are safe, and only travelling alone is dangerous - I hope that is the case!

If I don't post again, you'll know why... I joke! and I know it isn't funny. I likely won't have internet access again till I'm back in NY, so don't expect a post till next week. If I'm lucky I'll get to internet tomorrow afternoon.

starry night, starry dreams

2008-11-28T08:01:00.000-08:00

Leaving Uganda was an adventure. Time is not simply African time, it is specifically Ugandan time which runs about 2 hours later on average than African time. I'd been hoping to have an hour or so to do some shopping and so Irene and I thought we had about a 4 hour window in which to relax before we took the bus to Bungoma, Kenya. Instead I ran from the bus station, spent 20 minutes bartering (actually got some pretty good deals considering the time constraints and skin colour), and ran back to catch the bus which left relatively punctually. Borders here are so remarkable. There is a queue, of sorts, in which 100 people squash into an area which is built to accommodate about 30. Those best at pushing get out a good 20 minutes earlier than those who were actually ahead in line. After my first border crossing I learned to box out. Since there is absolutely no personal space, and my body was pressed from all sides, I also felt not at all bad about jabbing a pushy woman in the chest to keep her out of my place in line, or to gently kick a guy in the shins if he got too aggressive.

Back on the bus, and 40 minutes away from the border, we were stopped for a police check to ensure we all had appropriate paperwork. One guy was taken off the bus as he'd walked from one border to the next, without stopping at either control, and simply got back on the bus without a passport or anything else.

Waiting in line to have our passports checked I enjoyed stargazing. It is so much fun to look up at the sky in another part of the world and invent constellations. I did see the plow and sirius though, Irene pointed them out to me, as well as my beloved manta ray constellation from Australia.

I didn't notice for quite a while that the men and women had divided themselves into separate lines to have an officer of the same sex check their paperwork. Thankfully I was following Irene or would have ended up in the men's only line without even realising what a cultural faux pas I was committing.

We arrived to Bungoma around midnight and were welcomed by the family of one of our members. They were so incredibly welcoming and Irene and I felt so at home while we were with them.

The next day we were scheduled to speak to a group of youth organisation leaders. If it weren't for meeting the family, I would have never wanted to return to Bungoma. It was my first experience with a roomful of corruption, and such blatant corruption! After the seminar they yelled at Irene and myself for almost an hour about not paying them for attending, at not providing food, and at not even giving them souvenirs of the day. I felt terrible for our member who had organised the event, he'd been hoping for synergy between WYA and a number of youth groups, at least we know now not to work with any of them.

Afterwards, a few approached me to reiterate their statements, and after I continued to refuse to apologise to them, one informed me about how hospitable that portion of Kenya was and invited me to spend the night at his house!

I spent the afternoon playing frisbee with the neighbourhood girls (after one of the participants that morning told me how impressive it was that I, as a woman, should engage a roomful of men in conversation - argument? - I made no effort to include any of the boys in the game and only taught it to the girls) sometimes female empowerment is genuinely necessary.

I also bonded with the little boy of the house who was three, by the end of the day he knew a few English words including doggy, yeah, and high five! The next morning he was so sad to see me in my rucksack he refused to say bye. I left the frisbee for the girls to continue to be empowered through playing sports - hopefully it works. (ps. Eduardo, that's where your frisbee is)

Kampala, Uganda

2008-11-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

This morning Irene and I gave another seminar to a number of youth groups. Most of the youth either live in, or work in, the slum the clinic is based out of. I discovered today it is the largest slum in Uganda.

They all speak English as a second language, after Luganda, so Irene and I both presented in simple words and tried to speak slowly. Even so, at times there was a need for a translation break. Some of the participants had excellent english, but others struggled. I also gave a presentation on Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Seems farfetched to present those technologies to youth from a slum, some of whom haven't even graduated from high school, and all of whom are in need of basic necessities and jobs. I wasn't sure whether they would understand it, or be interested in it.

In presenting WYA, and following Irene's presentation they all expressed a great desire for knowledge. The needs they feel the most, at the moment, are for seminars, workshops, opportunities to learn and to network. With those needs met they feel confident they can even then create their own jobs and opportunities.

I attempted to present the basic biology of the technologies, and then outlined the areas for potential exploitation involved. During my presentation, I was shocked to see that many of the girls in the room had tears in their eyes and many of the guys also looked quite saddened. The points on the potential to exploit poor women hit home in a huge way.

Speaking with one of the participants afterwards, I learned that transactional sex remains a huge part of Ugandan life, especially here in Kampala. Many children from rural areas are AIDS orphans and people will convince them to come to Kampala with promises of money, they are then forced to beg on the streets or work in prostitution. Rapings and defilement are apparently common at every level; from uncles, teachers, taxi drivers, everyone.

In the schools, teachers will either ask for money or sex in order to give a good grade - if a student doesn't agree then they will receive a poor grade regardless of what they deserve. The teacher will simply assign their grade to another student who does pay or have sex with them. There is no mechanism for students to appeal, they all are aware of the system.

Girls at night will often be raped by taxi drivers or other men around. Breaking into houses is common too, and often the men have guns.

Even girls who get into university will often have one man who pays for their books, another for their shoes, another for their hair, and then their real boyfriend - whom they love. It is not just among poor girls, girls who are somewhat well off but who want something nice sooner than later will sleep with a wealthy older man to get a new dress, new car, etc. There are signs throughout Uganda about getting rid of cross-generational sex.

I even learned today that at the local university there is one older man who will pay girls a certain amount for each date they go on with him. All the girls know that he is ill with AIDS, but because he pays so well many of them will go with him anyways. The younger men, because they don't have such money, have great difficulty in finding a girlfriend. Even the modelling agencies will hire out their models to men as they go on business trips or marry them off to wealthy businessmen. The agencies then get a nice kickback from what the models earn.

HIV has started to rise again, especially in Kampala. The young people are aware that having sex with an older man can kill them, but they see the nice things their friends are getting, they see the celebrities on tv and they ignore all the warnings. The youth who were telling me this aren't sure of what to do next. When the information is there, access to retrovirals is there also although much more limited - then it is difficult to do much more.

Unless they were to get rid of corruption and offer opportunities to the girls and to families instead of transactional sex?

Travelling - Ugandan style

2008-11-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

Last night, Irene and I physically crashed around 9pm but were unable to get into bed till midnight. We are being hosted by a family here. After taking tea at 9pm yesterday we went back to the clinic and chatted with some of the staff and patients while waiting to find our accomodations. Upon arrival we waited as they wished to also bring us tea and food. By the time we'd finished eating I was so exhausted that I only washed my face and feet before crawling into bed - even though I felt so filthy from travelling all day.

On the bus we'd had the seats directly behind the door. They of course packed the bus so full with seats that my feet extended over the edge and spent most of the 8 hour trip either tucked under my seat or dangling over the ledge. The door also didn't fully close so I would wipe my pants every 30 minutes or so to get rid of the film of dirt which had accumulated from the incoming wind. After we stopped by the roadside for a pee break, I felt much less comfortable dangling my feet.

The toilet consisted of a cement block with a hole in the middle surrounded by corrugated tin. All the women would wait outside while one went inside and squatted. When it was my turn I went inside and the two women after me peeked around the corner to watch. I tried to wait for them to get bored of watching me, but apparently they wanted to see a white woman pee. Eventually I just asked them to please turn around. They nearly waited till I finished, and I guess that is the best I could hope for...

Of course, no one on the bus washed their hands afterwards and everyone held onto the ledge as they entered, then one of the guys on the bus took a sip of water and spat onto the stairs. By the end of the bus ride I alternated between sticking my feet into the air ahead of me and tucking under my seat since I could feel my knees starting to go numb.

Washing this morning, my whole body, was one of the happiest things I've ever done :)

I saw a warthog!

2008-11-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

This morning Irene and I left at 530am to take a bus from Kigali to Kampala. The bus, running on African time, left around 630am... We then stopped at the Ugandan border to get our passports stamped, bit of a stampede and my toes started itching after I'd wandered around the area in flip flops. Knowing that when jiggers (fleas) infest a person the area feels itchy, I obsessed and spent 20 min checking every so often to find it again. Of course since there was the thought of jigger there the itchyness didn't go away till Irene also checked my toes and found them jigger free :)

We're now in Kamapala, I'm typing on a keyboard so stiff that it feels like a really old typewriter that you had to pound. I think my fingers will be stiff tomorrow :p

We were picked up at the bus station by a Friend of WYA. He took us to his clinic, he's worked there for the past 7 years. It's in a slum and serves the people of the community. Many are Somalian refugees and there is a mosque across the street. He said 90% of the slum is Muslim, and apparently Somali's tend to be strict as I saw for the first time two little girls of about 5 and 7 wearing hijabs.

They are incredibly friendly. Almost everyone here speaks English, and I recognise my name by now - muzungu. So as they're calling out to me I'll wave or say hi. Many of the kids are excited to practice their english and will say "hi, how are you, I'm fine" and leave so pleased with themselves. The adults will wait till I smile and then they'll grin back. The little babies I think are terrified of this strange-looking creature.

At the clinic there is only one fulltime doctor and 3 other part time doctors as well as nurses and other staff. So many young people are HIV infected, and if they can be offered treatment and counselling then that is a great help to them. As we've wandered through the slums the doctor is a bit of a celebrity.

Gotta run now, but as I mentioned in the title - I saw a warthog today! A few minutes across the border and he was splashing around in a little stream, he looked just like pumba :) We also saw hundreds of goats. Cows being herded (in herds!) horns and all. And the insides hanging gracefully at every market we passed.

Butare

2008-11-22T04:06:00.001-08:00

Thursday and Friday, Irene and I gave a two-day seminar to WYA members (now they are WYA members, they weren't when we started...) at the National University of Rwanda. It is the holidays now for Rwandan students, as it is the rainy season here, the only students left at the university of Rwanda were the science students who were still in the middle of exams. We were incredibly lucky, with an empty campus, to have over 40 students participate for 2 days while taking a break from exams.

Our seminar focused on the dignity of the human person - who am I? who are you? and what implications does that have for freedom, solidarity and human rights. We also spoke about HIV/AIDS and Assisted Reproductive Technologies. As in every seminar, I began by introducing WYA - who we are and what we do. When I speak about how WYA was founded, at a conference on Population and Development at the UN in 1999, I ask the participants - if they had been the young people - what they would have asked to be considered as the basis of development. The answers I almost always receive are access to employment, food, education, basic healthcare and good governance. From time to time I'll receive answers like providing youth with a greater voice, or technology skills. Here in Rwanda was the first time I've received the answer: self confidence.

Upon reflection it is absolutely a requirement for development, we cannot develop if we do not believe we are worthy of respect or capable of creating a better future. After each seminar, Irene and I would break the participants into groups for discussion and they would then present their answers. In every discussion we asked them to present the core issues along with solutions. Every group, at some point would mention again the need for self confidence. They also spoke a great deal about peace, and the need to accept every member of society and demonstrate that everyone, regardless of any condition, can contribute in some way to society.

The answers were so incredible to hear. As I'm always made aware of when speaking to various groups, people worldwide have many of the same needs and desires for change. Here in Rwanda, with its unique history of recent human rights abuses and genocide, our members have extra difficulties to overcome alongside a much greater awareness of how important the work of WYA is.

An interesting side note is that people here will talk a great deal of progress and reconstruction - almost never will anyone say the word genocide, although they might mention 'war' or '1994'.

I also realised in these last few days that while many humanitarian and aid agencies have flocked to Rwanda, no one has come to offer counselling or guidance to the survivors. Both the perpetrators and those attacked are in great need of guidance to understand what happened, how, to make sense of how to move forward, and to deal with any emotional or psychological trauma they may have endured or still suffer with. No one has yet come to offer that.

The lucky ones are those are able to integrate back into society and continue with their lives, they work extra hard to ensure nothing like that will ever happen again and through all this they struggle with comprehending and coming to grips with what happened. Many are not so lucky and retreat into their homes in the hills, living from day to day unable to move on with their lives. I hope someone reading this blog will take the initiative to come. People now, I get the impression, are open to help and guidance and it could really change many people's lives if they were to receive that.

As we speak with the members about HIV/AIDS, about human dignity, about perceptions of the person, there is no need to go into the dangers of what discrimination and placing people into categories of fully human or less human can do. If you simply begin to mention those dangers, it is obvious in their faces how deeply they understand what can happen. In that way, as they become aware of the concept of intrinsic human dignity - it is something which can really guide their lives and their work. I would love to offer more WYA members and youth to learn from the Rwandese about the importance of these issues.

The Rwandese members here are inspirational to me, as they open up little by little about their pasts, and how much they want to accomplish in their lives, it hits home how lucky so many of us are worldwide to not have endured what they have endured, but also how much they can offer to the world if they are able to retain those lessons and remind others' and other countries of what needs to be done.

Chigari (Kigali)

2008-11-22T03:48:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was a more relaxing day for Irene and myself. I spent the morning at the GSL (Greatest School of Languages) where they teach English, reading through the beginning and intermediate books to correct grammar and have my voice recorded. All future English students of the school should come away with a lovely Canadian accent!

In the afternoon Irene and I met with some members here in Kigali who want to re-energise the committee that is currently here and were looking for some guidance. We sat outside at a little concrete table and benches overlooking a vegetable garden, overlooking the slums of Rwanda which skirt the embassies and hotels. The slums are scattered along the slopes and in the afternoon sunlight were quite picturesque - then the rains began. We attempted to stay in our little shelter but the rains came down so hard we were splashed from its landing and it blew in from both sides of the shelter as well as from minuscule holes in the roofing. We then fled to our room to finish the meeting.

In the evening, Irene and I attended the Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Awards. The awards ceremony was to honour 10 entrepreneurs from across Africa (selected from over 1400 nominations) who demonstrate excellence in entrepreneurship and are contributing to a better society in some way. The evening was an incredible opportunity to meet some of those most dedicated to improving Africa's development and private sector from a range of angles. There were also present people from across Africa who support or are otherwise engaged in similar fields - an absolute gold mine of people changing the world!

All the entrepreneurs were incredible, there were finalists from South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria. The finalist who won the grand prize was a man from Nigeria who runs a paper company, he provides jobs and care for almost 600 people and used his $100,000 of prize money to build houses for his workers - he deserved to win!

I also met a man who works for a health/insurance company in Kenya, called AAR. He absolutely oozed energy - I think I've never spoken with someone who so clearly had multiple thought processes running in intersecting areas throughout his mind, and would pull from one or another as they became relevant to the conversation. His company charges insurance - but with the theory that healthy patients saves money for the insurance company in the long run. By tying the insurance company to the healthcare sector, they work a great deal with preventative care, thereby caring for their customers in a much more meaningful and impactful way!

Andreas Widmer of 7 fund and Eric Kacou of OTF were there as co-hosts of the event with Legatum. I realised in the days leading up to the event that here in Rwanda they are both celebrities. As I mentioned to our WYA members that Irene and I would attend, they were so jealous and wished so much to meet them - they all remembered seeing Andreas on tv years ago, and Eric currently. Seeing them at the event was great by itself, and extra fun knowing that I was speaking with such celebrities :)

We had taken motorcycle taxis to the event, and on the way home it seemed we would have to walk. It was do-able, but at 11pm not the best use of 40 min of our time, especially as we had to leave the next morning at 6am for Butare. Thankfully, 5 minutes into the walk a woman who had been at the event was driving by and gave us a lift home. I think I've already mentioned how friendly people are here?

So it just cuts through the air?

2008-11-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

I brought a few frisbees with me to Africa to introduce WYA members to a new sport. I didn't realise how incredibly revolutionary my little plastic discs would be...

In Nairobi, I spent an afternoon with the interns in Uhuru park teaching them to play. As I was first demonstrating how to throw, one of the interns threw it so it landed near a woman's feet. She picked it up to hand it back to me but was staring so intently at it that I encouraged her to throw. A panicked look crossed her face and she shook her head, I asked her again to throw it to me, and she said "so it just cuts through the air?" She threw it back and was so excited to watch it go.

We then threw around for a little while until a few guys walked past, one of them called out to me "I'm Obama's cousin!" I laughed and they asked me to throw the frisbee to them. I did, and then the second one wanted to catch also, I threw it to him but he crouched and it hit him in the forehead - he was so embarassed and the third one also wanted to catch. Then one told me that I was beautiful and should remain in Kenya, his logic was flawless - apparently white women and Kenyan men produce senators and Presidents, so if I had children with him, just think what our kids could do!

Here in Rwanda, the members have been equally fascinated by my frisbee. I threw a bit with them today and they are excited to learn to play tomorrow. The only problem for them is that apparently kids here play with paint can lids, and they are a little concerned about their reputations :)

We couldn't play this afternoon as it is the rainy season here, and it poured. While we sat inside listening to thunder, they asked me if I like the rain - it just so happens I love rain. They then said that they hated rain because whenever there is a thunderstorm here, people die from being struck by lightning, and also their shacks will wash away so they will drown. Apparently every major thunderstorm approximately 50 people will die from their houses being destroyed or freezing in the streets, or other related causes.

It just reminds me how priviledged, and selfish, I am that my whole life I have loved thunderstorms since I can watch it from the comfort of being inside or to enjoy the feeling of changing into dry, comfy clothes after getting soaked. It's easy to remember that people die in earthquakes, fires, typhoons, etc. It's much harder to remember that in some places all it takes is a rainstorm for people to die...

The members have taken such excellent care of Irene and myself. After the rainstorm the walked us back to our lodgings before they left to take care of business. We're staying in accommodations near a Church at the center of Kigali. Irene and I need to explore this Church, it is huge and we are both convinced that this is one of the famous places from the genocide where a few thousand were massacred after seeking asylum here.

One thing that I cannot quite accustom myself to, is how physically affectionate people are here. It is so common for men to walk around together holding hands or with their arms around each other, and women also. They'll do the same with me and I have to remember to be polite and reciprocate. I don't generally hold hands in public or hug people so closely that to do so with multiple people and strangers is a little difficult. Of all the countries in Africa I have been to, Rwanda is the friendliest and most affectionate. People here, especially children are so outgoing and will go out of their way to shake my hand. I think the entire country has made a huge effort to be friendly and loving towards everyone to prevent any hell like what they experienced from ever happening again.

Their thoughts are so geared towards peace, the value of each person, and development at all times - I truly hope they become the most incredible example worldwide of recovering from an atrocity by building as a nation and with a high development standard.

Maramutze en Rwanda

2008-11-18T07:23:00.000-08:00

It is now the third day of Irene's and my stay in Rwanda. We are taking a few moments at an internet cafe with a French keyboard so I will likely avoid all contractions since I cant find the apostrophe key...

I think I will never get used to Rwanda's beauty. The red dirt amongst rolling hills and lush tropical greenery everywhere. So much construction has occurred since I last visited, there are more houses and fewer shacks, the roads have more flowers and plants growing alongside - its amazing how much it has developed! On top of all this, many of the Rwandese still wear their traditional dress, so they look so beautiful walking along the roads.

My last visit to Rwanda I wanted so much to take a motorcycle taxi, yesterday my wish came true. We arrived late Sunday night as Kenya air had overbooked the flight and we couldn't get on - so we waited 6 hours to take the next flight. We were greeted by Obadias whom I'd met my previous visit along with Ntezimana - a member from Butare who took the bus into Kigali simply to meet us. Our first night we spent in a hostel which cost much more than our budget, so we took Monday morning with Ntezimana to ask around for a cheaper place. We took the bus to the other side of Kigali close to the embassies where a Christian organisation had said they could offer us a room for a third of the cost. After following their directions to the bus stop, we had to walk 45 minutes back in the direction we had come to find the place. Upon arrival, it turned out they had no rooms but that another center close by might.

Since they told us the other center was close by, and knowing African time, I asked them to call the other place before we spent the rest of the day walking in search of it. They did have rooms, so we walked for 30 min, it was a very nice clean humanitarian organisation with extra rooms, so we agreed to stay there. By that time we had only 20 min to get back into Kigali as we had a radio interview scheduled, so we had to take motorcycles rather than the bus - LOVED it!

We spoke on the English radio station here, we had a one hour segment and a WYA member here was the DJ so he asked great questions to keep the show moving and focus on WYA. We then moved our stuff from the hostel to another cheaper place - it turned out that Obadias knew a cheaper place but thought we would want more comfortable lodgings - very thoughtful, but not how WYA works ;)

Today we gave a seminar scheduled from 8am till 3pm. I knew last evening that it would start on African time - but there was so much talk of punctuality. I arrived just on time, and Irene shortly afterwards as she had been printing slides of my speech since the laptop wasn't working. We then sat till 9am since apparently more than half the participants had called to say they would show at 10am. I felt terrible for the few who had actually been punctual and were sitting waiting there, when I asked if we could begin at least for those I was reminded that Africa functions on African time...

It was especially frustrating though as, true to form, I hadn't woken up on time - so hadn't eaten breakfast. Always a problem, but with anti-malaria pills eating my insides if I neglect to eat every few hours, the time spent waiting was especially painful. After I finally gave my first talk, I snuck outside to eat a protein bar (thanks Bissie!) After the seminar we gave out certificates to all the participants and then had a few photo ops. Then we went for lunch with Obadias, Allen (the DJ) and Bosco (another WYA member).

Food here is so delicious and filling. Meals consist typically of rice, kasava, cooked bananas, beans, ugali, potatoes, carrots, and some form of meat. Not every dish has all those ingredients (although todays did!) but the foods are so filling that it doesn't really matter.

Preaching and Hawking strictly prohibited

2008-11-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

That was the sign on the bus yesterday going home, shortly before our driver got into a shouting match with another bus as they competed to remain the one bus on the road. My driver won.

Since last posting I visited with Caroline Maingi, the first Director for WYA Africa, and her 3 little kids. Her newest baby Rafael is adorable with curly hair, and he just wouldn't stop staring at me, I think I was the oddest thing he's seen in his short life... The other two, Victor and little Javi were so funny. When I first arrived two sets of eyes would appear from behind a doorway, and disappear the moment I looked in that direction. As the visit progressed they became increasingly less shy, and rowdier. By the end of the visit they were pushing tires throughout the house and running in and out every few seconds to give me "sweets". Last I saw little Javi he looked exactly like a cabbage patch doll. His body has grown quite a bit since then to match his head, although his eyes remain so big in his face - he is so cute!

Yesterday, Irene and I were media stars... We went in the early morning to visit the BBC. Once they found out we were travelling to Rwanda and Uganda they postponed our interview so we could come back with a field report. We then went to K24 and were interviewed about WYA. We were shown on primetime tv, at 1230pm that same day, with a 30 min. segment. We went to a nearby cafe to watch ourselves with the interns. Later in the day, we visited Pomoja radio station for a brief WYA introduction. Pomoja is the radio station which broadcasts out of Kibera slum - the largest in the world. The interview with Irene took place in Swahili and mine was translated.

On our way into the radio station we drove through Kibera slum, it was my first time visiting Kibera. We parked outside the radio station and two of the most adorable little boys were staring from behind a corner. I managed to become friend with them and we played soccer for a few seconds together until Oscar Beauttah and Irene dragged me into the radio station. After our radio interview they took us onto the balcony which gave a birds-eye view of the slum. As we peered around I saw my two little buddies, they also noticed me and waved at me from 5 stories below! On my way out of the station, they were still there hanging around, I wanted to steal them and bring them with me but managed to leave them there. One of the little boys had a sore in the corner of his mouth, I really wished I had something with me for him.

I'm a huge fan of signs in Nairobi, some of my personal favourites to date are: "car park under rehabilitation" (construction) "driver under instruction" (student driver) "do not urinate here, it is unethical and prohibited" "don't hoot, driver is sleeping". More will come...

Gotta run now, the interns are all waiting patiently for me to finish so we can all go home tonight.

Buru Buru

2008-11-13T02:01:00.000-08:00

I am staying at phase 5 of Buru Buru in the Eastern Headlands. The best way to travel there is by the hip hop matatu, although there is a "normal" bus that actually follows the traffic signs - it is much slower. En route from Nairobi center to Buru Buru are numerous roadside stands. I noticed yesterday one stand selling grave-stone markers, anything from crosses to hearts to the standard variety. I also passed one this morning selling soccer cleats - very cool cleats, it made me want to shop! You can get everything from leather shoes, to nighties, to bananas to electronics equipment. All the while you're being tossed around while dodging people, other buses, and road dividers - there is no point in dodging potholes :)

Last night, Noreen, one of the girls I am staying with cooked Ugali, a bony fish and scuma wiki. Ugali is a paste made of flour and water which you roll around in your hand and then use it as a spoon to scoop up the scuma wiki (greens) and fish. The fish also was to be eaten with your hands. Irene was kind enough to eat the head, eyeballs and all, and to leave me with the middle section. I've had a bit of practice by now eating with my hands, but realised about 5 minutes into the meal that I've likely got my idea of how to eat with my hands from babies - I was by far the messiest eater :p

Today, I've brought a frisbee with me to the office, at some point I'll take the interns to a park nearby and introduce them to the greatest sport :)

Of course in the midst of all this, I'm also working! I expect no one to believe me...

Sawa sawa

2008-11-12T01:35:00.000-08:00

Last night, I arrived to Nairobi! I got a cool visa in my new passport and after claiming my lost baggage was greeted by Irene Mwangi, and Mr and Mrs Beauttah. I was excited they had come, I'd expected to have Irene meet me, but to have Mr and Mrs Beauttah show up made me feel that much more welcome :)

We took a taxi to the apartment Irene and Esther share - WYA Africa staff unite! I was quite happy to see the pilates ball I gave them is being put to good use as one of their living room chairs! It was so great to see them, Esther served me delicious non-plane food and we just chatted and caught up. Irene also gave me a little introduction to the large and small mosquitos Kenya has, with the large ones not carrying malaria. Conveniently, there was a large mosquito on the ceiling which she could point to, I thought it was a daddy-longlegs spider! I got up as close as I could to see that it was actually a mosquito, we took a picture - I have proof that spider sized mosquitos exist. After taking his picture we thought it best to name him. As he is Kenyan and larger-than-life, we called him Obama. I just hope he doesn't get squished by someone unaware of who he is!

Today, Esther and I took a matatu into the office to visit Irene and the interns. We rode on one which markets to teenagers by blaring hip hop and rock music with tv screens on the bus! We stood the whole way, Esther was impressed by my anti-pickpocketing purse hold :) I think I'm still somewhat deaf from the ride and my right arm will be sore tomorrow from holding on. The roads are very potholed outside of the city center which makes for some funky directional changes.

Day one is half over, I'll now get back to work before we head to Caroline's house this afternoon for tea.

Karibu Sana!

2008-11-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

At last, the moment has arrived. In 0:50 hours I leave for Newark to head to Africa! I'll be visiting Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. I am so excited to leave!!! I'll be visiting Nairobi, Eldoret and Bungoma in Kenya. Kigali and Butare in Rwanda, and Kampala in Uganda. Irene, the WYA Africa staff member, and I will be travelling together by bus through most of these places for the next 3 weeks.

This morning, I needed another 2 days before I would be fully packed and ready to go. Lots of adrenaline, a little stress, and 1 cup of coffee later I have time to write a short blog before heading out the door. This is the teaser... I'll post as I'm able to find internet during my travels.

Now, off to finalise all the last-minute details of the trip, hug everyone goodbye and start lugging my suitcase through the subway system en-route to Newark airport...

So long rafikis! (Swahili for friends & Karibu Sana is You are Very Welcome)

In Dignity

2008-10-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

Recently, at WYA, we began "In Dignity Moments." Quite possibly the most brilliant idea yet! They are opportunities for us all to take a break in the office and rejuvenate ourselves, have some fun, or simply goof off!

There are only two rules:
1. Anyone can initiate; staff, intern, etc.
2. There is a limit of once/day for each In Dignity Moment of 5-15 minutes

I wasn't sure of the reaction to this idea, if people would tell me to stop wasting their time and focus on becoming more "professional." Haha, that was another spark for the In Dignity name, I assumed I would have a lot of Indignant people :) Quite the opposite... We've only had them taking place for about a week now, so I've had to remind people to make these moments happen. The response has been great!

The first In Dignity Moment was a brief improvisation skit, the next day we learned Kenyan dancing, yesterday we threw chocolate chips into each other's mouths from across the room, today we had ice cream and hot chocolate! You may be noticing a theme of activity and food...

It's wonderful though, since the In Dignity moments can consist of anything (which promotes dignity) they're wide open to people being creative and greatly help to break up the monotony of working for a full day in the office. I hope they continue forever... If you're really brave you can try this at home ;)

I'm Becoming the Hamptons

2008-09-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

International Staff Meetings began a week ago. Twice a year all the WYA staff from each of the 5 offices worldwide comes to NY and we plan strategically, have a chance to share our experiences and just get to know each other better. This year, we were lucky enough to be hosted at two houses in the Hamptons for week 2.
Tuesday, we arrived to Bridgehampton around noon. Francois and I jogged to the house we were staying at, initially in the wrong direction. Then drove back to the train station to pick up all the luggage while the staff walked. The house is great, 8 of us are staying in one place and four at another so they drive over every evening and come back to join for staff meetings.

We've all entered heaven. Tuesday we arrived and after a quick lunch we drove to the beach at the bottom of the road. I made 3 trips, and by the time I finally got out of the car I was so excited to go swimming. The waves were huge and crashing on the shore with enough spray to knock you down and chuck you meters further up the beach. All the staff were sitting calmly on their towels, chatting. I slowed down enough to throw my towel and shirt on the sand and sprinted directly into the waves. Francois followed quickly afterwards, and then Carlos. We dove right into the waves and although the initial shock of the cold was quite intense, the joy of swimming in the ocean more than made up for it. Carlos managed to stay in about 2 minutes before his Paraguayan body refused to deal with the chill anymore.

After a few minutes of swimming we moved on to body surfing. By this time, a number of the other staff had at least moved far enough down the beach to dip their toes in the surf. Shannon eventually joined and once we were out beyond the breaking waves confessed she wasn't such a confident swimmer. We stayed out there till we had some waves small enough I thought she might enjoy the ride. We missed the first wave, caught the second and while I got out of the surf Shannon didn't move quickly enough and got swamped by a big one. After that experience she was quite shaken up, perhaps still is, and stayed out of the ocean for the rest of the day.

Carlos and I threw a frisbee around for a little while as everyone else relaxed and chatted. Thunderclouds started to roll up and the sky got quite dark after a little over an hour so we had to leave.

After supper while Francois, Becky, Carlos and Des drove over to their home the rest of us settled into the attic to watch some, what Carlos would call, chicken flicks. Our goal was to watch the most ridiculous, brainless, girliest movie we could find. Sadly, all those movies had already been watched to death. We did find one that was still functional, The Prince and Me, Part 2. Which we followed with A Girl in the Cafe, a love story which takes place around the UN and Millenium Development Goals. I absolutely loved A Girl in the Cafe, it is one of the most awkward love stories ever. Both protagonists were such socially inept, awkward conversationalists, that watching their interactions and flirting was so painful. I think part of its charm is I could remember conversations I've had with people like that, and I'd always wondered how they got to know people or fell in love, now I know!

Today we began our day with a game called SPUD, in which the person who is "it" counts to 3 while everyone else runs as far as they can. Then the "it" person has 3 steps to take in any direction to hit someone with a sock. Each time someone is hit by a sock they receive a letter and upon completing SPUD, they are eliminated. I've been playing games with the staff each morning to introduce them to all sorts of icebreakers they can use in their own work. Becky, especially, intensely dislikes these exercises and upon hearing of this morning's game was especially disappointed. So we decided the game could also be called MARY, the important thing being that it remains a four letter word :)

During lunch today, I went to the beach again for a quick swim (of course also attempting to tan somewhat). This evening we had a BBQ out in the backyard. Basically, it's been a little slice of heaven for all of us here. Only two more days, they will pass us by much too quickly.

Chowdafest Tournament

2008-09-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Two weekends after I returned home from travels, after only one Ultimate practice, I went to the Chowdafest Tournament in Massachussetts. It is one of the more important tournaments as it is the last tournament before all the teams in the NorthEast Region compete to qualify to attend Nationals. The rankings assigned to the teams based on how they play there, affects their rankings at Sectionals which occurs a few weeks later.

After basically 2 months of not playing Ultimate, I was exceedingly nervous that I would play one game be completely out of shape and be dead for the rest of the tournament. What happenned was not far off, but willpower carried me much further. Even in the warmups I was nervous that my teammates would realise how out of shape I was and really worked hard to appear fit.

First game, I went all out and managed to have some nice catches, throws and even a couple goals scored! We won our first game against a relatively easy team. Second game was also against a relatively easy team and we won that also. Third game was against one of the top ranked teams in the country and while we expected to lose we did put up quite a bit of a fight, scoring the most points against them of any team they had played until then. Fourth game was against a team which went on to beat that team for first place in the tournament. We lost by one point and while we were happy to have played a good game, all felt that with a little more time we could have potentially beat them.

Saturday evening I was dead. My calves were sore, my abs hurt, my back hurt, I didn't think I'd be able to play at all on Sunday. Thankfully after a little swim, some beer, and a couple go-kart races I felt much better :)

Sunday we had a relatively easy team for our first game and won. It was a great game for me to warm up my muscles little by little. Second game was against our NY rival team. Most of the time they're seeded higher than we are, but we had already beat them once this summer and were determined to again, and did. Third game was again against the Nationals level team, this time they absolutely destroyed us and we didn't even put up a fight. Our goal had been to beat Crafty, our rival team, and we had spent all our energy in doing so. Final game of the day, for third place at the tournament was a hard-fought game. By that point many of our guys were injured or too sore to continue playing. I had only enough endurance to play one point at a time and don't think I contributed too much... we lost by two points in the end, but it was a close game point for point.

Sunday evening I could not walk at all, I was so sore for a few days and basically just lazed around doing nothing. I decided on Thursday to do sprints and warm up my muscles again. I did sprints with Ben and by the time we'd warmed up, completed our 40m sprints and gone on to the 100m sprints, my left quad was already hurting. I kept on and tried not to push it too hard. After doing a couple 200m sprints, I stopped by the bleachers where my backpack was, or should have been. It had been there less than 60seconds before as we went around the track. I quickly checked the garbage cans, then ran to check all the exits. I couldn't find it anywhere. We didn't do anymore sprints after that. We checked the whole track, the bleachers, all the garbage cans, my backpack was definitely stolen. The saddest part is that in there were my jerseys from the Dominican Republic team at World's and also my New Zealand jersey, along with my water bottle from World's and my favourite skirt which I'd been planning to go out in afterwards.

So, if anyone sees my jerseys, get them back! It's so sad being robbed, someone stole my cellphone, driver's license, bank card, backpack, flipflops, $$, etc. They didn't even get that much money and nothing in there was of any use to anyone but me. Even my driver's license won't do anyone any good since no bouncers in NYC believe that New Brunswick even exists, they all think it's a fake! When it actually is a fake, they won't even have the indignation of nobody believing the province the card is from actually exists.

World Ultimate and Guts Championship

2008-08-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was my first shift as a volunteer for World's Ultimate. Volunteering was great, we were treated so well, given cool T-shirts and free food. My first game one of the Columbian girls had a neck injury but didn't have to go to the hospital. I scorekept for a few more games and then wandered off to find the Domino's (from the Dominican Republic) and watch their game.

It's so much fun to be at an Ultimate Tournament and the first one ever that I have not played in. It was especially hard as the second game I scorekept for was Mexico vs Australia and I knew half the women on the Mexican team. I'd played with them all when I was in Mexico, the worst part was, when they saw me they also wished they'd known I would be there so I could have been on the team! Instead, I taught them a few new drills and will hopefully play for them next World's.

Thursday I also had a neck injury my first game, one of the Venezuelan Master's but thankfully he also didn't have to ride in the ambulance. After their game they got in a big circle with drums and all the French and Venezuelans danced, they even pulled me into the center for a little while, so embarrassing but tons of fun. Thursday afternoon I watched the Domino's warmup before ditching to see if I could play for Mexico in their game against Ireland. Ireland said no, which in hindsight was likely for the best since if I had played Mexico might have won. Ireland wasn't such a strong team and basically won the game on their height and longer strides, without that advantage the game would have been quite different. Instead I coached the girls throughout the game, it was great fun and they played very well. Their first game against Ireland they lost 17-3, this game they lost 17-9 which showed great improvement on their part.

Afterwards we watched part of the showcase games which was in the beer garden and had hot tubs on one corner of the field. The water was so hot it took me 5 minutes to get in up to my knees, the Mexicans thought I was a total wuss. I don't feel so bad though, as the day before I jumped into the Pacific ocean with a few of the Dominos when most of them thought it was much too cold...

Friday was my final volunteer day and I managed to be scorekeeper for the game of the Dominos vs Mexico! Loved it, I knew all the Dominos and most of the Mexicans so it was a great game to watch. It was also the second time the two teams played each other and Mexico had lost previously and was determined to redeem themselves. The Dominos won once more, in a much closer game and then spent nearly 45 minutes taking turns to give pep talks about their play during Worlds. Most of the players were quite new to Ultimate and it was their first competitive tournament, so they had really come in seeded last in rankings and hoping to win just one game. To win three, and twice against Mexico was very exciting.

This blog is totally long overdue, but I just have to write it down. The final game was Canada vs. USA Open division. It was a great game to watch, and especially fun as one of the volunteers I'd become friends with was American, so we heckled each other as Canada, USA traded points. It also turns out that one of the guys on the Domino's team is arch-nemesis with my favourite player on Team Canada. Of course I was so happy every time John Hassel was on the field and had a great play, and he was cringing or upset every time. So much fun!

The flight home was terrible, after a month of being in clean cities or places, trees, blue sky, fresh air, beautiful views and skylines, I returned to NY exited JFK Airport to cars honking, concrete a grey sky, polluted air and just wanted to leave again immediately. Since returning to NY it's been good to see friends again, and get back into Ultimate shape (such a joke! I'm so out of shape!!!) but oh, how I miss travelling. I now also define my life BSD and ASD, before scuba diving and after scuba diving. It was such an incredible experience and "trippin' on acid changed my whole perspective on shit." Need I say more?

Vancouver, BC

2008-08-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

Time warps are pretty sweet. I left Australia at 1pm on Monday, arrived to Los Angeles at 930am on Monday went for lunch with my brother and his wife and baby, left Los Angeles at 130pm on Monday and arrived to Vancouver at 4pm on Monday, after over 20 hours of travelling only 3 hours in my life had actually passed me by.

Trev met me at the airport, and it is so exciting to be met at the airport. I travel so frequently that I am fully accustomed to arriving at a strange airport and finding my way to where ever I need to get. Being picked up and driven to where we had to get, not worrying about having the proper currency, following the correct route or anything else was heavenly. We went first to UBC where the World Championship of Ultimate was taking place and met up with the team from the Dominican Republic who I stayed with. Being phenomenally jetlagged we then decided it was in my best interests to wander around the beautiful downtown waterfront before supper and putting me to bed.

Tuesday morning I went with Trev to the Capilano Suspension bridge a little north of Vancouver. The suspension bridge was first built approximately 200 years ago across a deep ravine and it is quite impressive whoever thought to build a large, rickety, wooden suspension bridge to leap from mountain to mountain rather than fording the stream beneath.

There is an entire tourist industry built around the suspension bridge showing off the beauty of BC's forests and vistas along with some Native American totem poles, etc. Despite that, they've kept the area in a remarkably pristine condition and the splendour of the valley and bridge are not destroyed at all.

We then wandered around Granville Island's market under the bridge and ate lunch out on the docks. It is so beautiful to see a city on the water which has made efforts to keep the water and shoreline beautiful. Living in NY, some of the ugliest parts of the city are right along the waterfront, and sitting on a plaza swinging my legs over the water with seagulls circling overhead, ships and tugboats travelling back and forth under a beautiful sunny sky is such a treat and just not possible in NY. There was a musician playing there who needed a serious dose of endorphins, he was the most depressed street musician I have ever heard play and the only downside to my lunch.

In the afternoon we travelled to white rock, where there is a gigantic white rock in the middle of the beach which was deposited centuries ago by retreating glaciers. I am sure this rock is, in fact, white. To ensure the tourists know exactly which rock it is (the only large rock around for kilometres) they have painted it with the whitest white paint possible... I don't understand at all. White rock is a beautiful beach, we wandered out onto the wharf where kids were jumping off into the water 20 feet below and a few guys were hauling crates of crabs onto the wharf and letting the kids throw the crabs back into the water which were too small to sell.

We waded through the water for a little while and my coral burns stung intensely, we also saw tons of little mudskippers which was pretty cool. I tried to corner a few but failed miserably. The day ended early for me as Trev flew back to Calgary and I happily passed out in my sleeping bag on the floor :)

Just another day in Paradise...

2008-08-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

On Friday I decided I could not bear to leave Cairns and changed my flight to the last possible time I could return to Sydney and still make my flight back to Vancouver. Cairns is such a beautiful place. I arrived and wondered what I would possibly do there when I wasn't scuba diving as there is not that much to do, it is a small city.

Wandering around I was enthralled by all the beautiful plants growing everywhere, tropical plants which I studied and have always wanted to see. There are large fruitbats (bats which eat fruit and are the same size as crows, even a bit bigger especially with wingspan), cockatoos, all sorts of birds with funky featherings and colourings.

I spent one evening watching the sunset over Cairns harbour. The setting sun across the ocean, with a backdrop of mountains covered in the oldest rainforest on earth, home to numerous animals that exist nowhere else. Watching the tide come in, slowly covering the mudflats which are home to crocodiles (danger, no swimming!) turning red, orange and golden in the setting sun. Watching fish jumping out of the water to escape predators in the midst of all this. I went to watch the sunset the following evening and took my jacket so I could also stargaze.

None of these sights compared to on the boat. Watching sunrise and sunset in the middle of the ocean, where the horizon truly does drop away into sky, nothing interferes with the glimmer of the sky and sun on the waters except for the motion of the waters moving is a magnificent experience. At night, stargazing can suck you in for hours, as you lay on a rocking boat with only the sound of water and a soft engine peering up at sky so filled with stars no other light is needed. As I lay gazing at the stars and my eyes became accustomed I was able to make out the milky way, see upwards of 20 shooting stars, some with tails which lit up in their wake. On shore, it took me quite some time to refind the manta ray constellation, and when I did only half the stars were visible.

My last day in Cairns, Taka, one of the scuba instructors from Japan (this guy is one of the coolest people I have ever met, in every sense of the word, he's like a Japanese god) invited me to go wakeboarding with a bunch of the other scuba instructors. I was told the only downside is that I would feel as though I were hit by a truck the next day. Never having wakeboarded I assumed it would be similar to waterskiing, its not, its similar to snowboarding. And I do feel as though I've been hit by a truck now...

Took me numerous tries to get up, finally I was switched to a board which was the right size for me and that helped immensely. My first time out of the water I headed straight for the first jump, couldn't figure out how to get around it in time and had to let go... Finally got the hang of getting up, headed around the lake, made it past the first turn went wide of the second turn and went flying headfirst into the water. Second time around, same spot, same fall, this time I was so determined to hold on tight that I felt myself lifted out of the water, lost my board behind me and finally released the cable to a phenomenal splash. Third time around, Nick offered me insructions on turning left. As I am weird, I am a left-footed, right-hander, which means I wakeboard backwards and had difficulty on what should have been the easy turns. Made it around the first turn, made it around the second turn, went wide of the third turn, I was going so fast I dove through the air some distance into the water. Nick said afterwards he was watching and thought I would head straight into the pole by the bank I was going so fast.

Afterwards, I had two hours till I had to catch my flight and I hung out with them till Ralph drove me to the airport, we cut it to the last second, I checked in 30 minutes before my flight took off and we were all hoping that I would get lucky and miss it, no such luck...

I arrived back to Sydney last night, hung out a bit with Jenny and her sister and hopefully have convinced Jenny's sister to now go scuba diving! This morning had a lovely chat with Jenny on her way to work and now must go to pack and head off to the airport to fly to Vancouver.

When I told Nick about how excited I had been to see a shark, and my attempts to sneak up on it, after I thought I would be so terrified, he gave me a shark's tooth which he had. As silly as it may sound, that tooth may be the one thing to keep me from crying as I board my flight back into the western hemisphere...

Tales from the Great Barrier Reef

2008-07-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

As I've written the past few blogs all in one go, I've kept realising so many stories and amazing experiences which didn't make it into the blogs. Rather than go back, I'll simply blog a mess of memories as they come to me.

I mentioned the dinosaur egg Mereta and I purchased. Upon waking up day 2, we checked to see if our egg was hatching, and discovered someone had written on the side of the bucket "Godzilla eats liveaboard boat on Great Barrier Reef - No survivors" Turns out the skipper of the boat had discovered our egg and got a big kick out of it. Denvis became the hit of the boat, numerous times throughout the day all the instructors, crew and passengers would check up on Denvis' hatching progress and excitedly tell me as new progress was made. Denvis is currently halfway out of his shell and continues to grow. Obviously, Denvis remains on the boat, he is at home there on the GBR and has many loving persons watching out for him and his development!

There are so many beautiful sea creatures which I have seen and haven't been able to mention in the previous blogs. During the 8am dive that I couldn't participate in I watched a group of trumpet fish and flute fish near the boat. The last night dive, just as I was about to jump in, a sea snake swam past. The next morning as I was about to jump in a puffer fish swam past. I saw on one of my morning dives three sting rays beneath me, one even swam into a nearby patch of sand and dug himself in, then a fish came and bothered him so he swam off. I saw and held numerous sea cucumers. During my night dive with Scott I saw 3 foot long black and white sea snake beneath me - I discovered later it is extremely venomous and am glad I didn't know that at the time. I saw many different coloured Nemo's but not the Nemo from the movie. I saw angelfish, parrotfish, surgeonfish, moorish idol's, barracuda's, so many fish. I stuck my hand in numerous clams for the joy of watching them shut and try to eat me. I scratched the back of a sea turtle. In the dive with Taka I saw a nudibranch.

I saw dolphins from the sundeck one day, and also a whale breaching in the distance. On the day boat on the way home I saw 3 whales breaching.

After every dive we would all compare what we saw, and I was one of the luckiest divers. A few of the things others saw out there that I didn't was the Nemo from the movie, a squid, and a black tipped shark.

I have a few physical reminders of my adventures. My legs are quite tight from all the swimming and I can feel my abs tightening :) I also have blisters on my feet from the fins, and scrapes all over my legs from the coral. I've been disinfecting my scrapes regularly as there are many bacteria in the ocean and it could easily become infected. Apparently coral scrapes take forever to heal, and are quite painful and itchy in the process, from the white dots surrounding a few of the scrapes I definitely bumped into some poisonous coral species.

And yet, what I wouldn't give to be out there diving right now! I shall return, and in the meantime I will live off the high from the last few days and the incredible adventure and experience it has been.

Great Barrier Reef: Last day :(

2008-07-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

6am wake up call on Wednesday was my last day of diving. I dove with Owen and Anders who were the volunteers on the boat. Daniel gave me another camera as mine had died previously and I attempted to take some pictures. I haven't seen them yet, they're likely quite awful, but it made me realise which skills I still really needed to work on. Specifically maintaining buoyancy and rapid turns. I also for the first time inspected the sand for myself, for venomous creatures, before kneeling or standing to take certain shots. I chased one parrot fish around for a number of minutes before I realised both my buddies were quite a ways in front of me and caught up to them.

8am dive was also a fun dive, I buddied up with two older guys named Fernando and Robert. Fernando was a solid diver but Robert was much older and all over the place. I ran out of air so quickly on that dive as I couldn't stop laughing the whole time. Fernando would be hauling Robert down as he bobbed to the surface, or holding onto his first stage to make him swim in one direction or another, or just manhandling this dude to generally get him to go in any sort of reasonable direction. Most entertaining dive ever! I tried to take a number of pictures of fish and coral but had to keep catching up to Robert and Fernando as they bobbed and weaved all over the place.

11am dive was my last dive! It was also the dive I'd chosen to do a boat drop for my last skill to complete my advanced adventure course. I needed a buddy for this dive and asked Dana, a girl I'd met on the boat who had just become certified if she would go with me. She agreed, then Owen and Anders decided they also wanted to do a boat drop with us. Then another guy whose buddy was ditching him asked to join our group, then one of the instructors, whose last dive it also was volunteered to go with us. So our group of 6 set off in the boat for the boat drop. Dana and I both had large tanks still from our deep dives and they are SO heavy. We both had a great deal of difficulty balancing in the boat and our back and shoulders ached by the time we arrived to the Bommi we were going to dive at.

I was determined not to be the first one to run out of air on this dive, as I was the one who had instigated the whole deal. Daniel had told me to hum underwater as it forces air regulation to keep an even sound. I hummed from the first moment I entered the water and achieved my goal, I was not the first to run out of air, I surfaced at 80 bar! Dana asked afterwards if I had heard the whales singing, I had to burst her bubble and tell her it was me humming, sorry.

That final dive was the most incredible dive ever! Even Taka, the instructor, was on a high afterwards it was so great. We went down and swam around the bottom of the bommi for a little while, then we went through numerous tunnels through the coral reef from one side to the other. It is so difficult as the spaces are typically quite small and you can barely fit through with all the scuba gear. You're also not supposed to stir up the sand so the one behind you can still see, and also not to touch the coral as you can damage it, and it can be poisonous.

I hadn't seen a moray eel, and the whole time swimming through I was peering into every hole hoping to see one, still haven't seen one and so have extra incentive to dive again! A number of times I got stuck swimming through the tunnels. I bumped my head once, and my scuba tank kept getting stuck on coral overhangs. At one point my regulator cord was also stuck and I had to swim backwards and upwards slightly to unhook myself. I definitely scraped myself a great deal on my legs swimming through the tunnels and each time I emerged I checked to see if I was bleeding to ensure I wouldn't attract any sharks. Thankfully the water pressure also keeps the blood inside your body so I didn't bleed until I climbed out of the water.

Swimming through tunnel after tunnel and around the Bommi was the most incredible dive, I finally realised that I could in fact dive and had acquired so much control and confidence in the water. Plus, if I had done that dive on my own I would never have swum through the tunnels as you never know if they will emerge on the other side. Having Taka down there with us showed us so much more of the reef than any of us had discovered before.

We surfaced, swam back to the boat, took some pictures and put away all our gear. I then went up onto the sundeck for my last hour of sunbathing before we left the boat for the day boat to go back to shore.

Going onto the dayboat was such a sad moment, I felt like crying as we pulled away from the reefs and scuba gear. I am completely addicted and would love to return for a number of months to become dive master or just to continue diving.

Arriving to shore, Dana and I realised we had acquired sealegs, we kept tilting from side to side on the dock and it took me a good hour before I could walk steadily on land. The instructors threw a party for us last night and after a quick shower we all met up again and hung out. So much fun! I'll be meeting up with many of them again this evening :)

I still am not used to shore. Every time I shut my eyes I feel the rocking of the boat, and laying in bed last night I felt as though my bed were still swaying from side to side. I also woke up in the middle of the night convinced I had mask squeeze and had to feel my face to ensure that I was not underwater wearing my mask.

I don't want to become accustomed to shore, I slept in this morning to 11 after so many early morning wakeups and dives and when I awoke the first thing I thought of was that I should be in the water right now for my third dive of the day, or relaxing after having already completed two dives.

Cairns is still beautiful and warm, I miss the ocean and all the beautiful fish and corals and amazing creatures there to see and admire - and touch :)

Great Barrier Reef: Day 3

2008-07-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

6am wake up call, no less painful than the day previously! This 6am dive was my first deep dive, which would qualify me to dive to 30 meters rather than 18. At 30 meters, the nitrogen in the tanks dissolves into the blood at such a high rate, that it is possible to suffer from nitrogen narcosis. It is also possible to get "the bends" if one surfaces too quickly, which can cause paralysis, brain damage, and even death, depending on the severity of it.

As we began our descent, I again had difficulty equalising my ears, I swam along on top of Rhi at a level I was able to equalise however, and little by little was able to descend - I had learned from my difficulties the day before :) We touched down at 29.5 meters. Rhi had brought along a couple eggs, she cracked one to demonstrate the pressure of the water as the egg remained intact as though it were still in it's shell. I played with it for a little while as some fish were circling around us until one darted directly at me and ate the egg. I jumped backwards and Rhi laughed. She then cracked another egg to give it to the other diver, who had accompanied us, to play with. He had apparently learned nothing from watching me as he also played with the fish, and we had to warn him to move his hand while another fish went in for the kill. We also looked at a red colour which appeared much browner at that depth since colours begin to fade underwater with the rays unable to penetrate that deeply. She then had me touch the numbers 1 through 12 in order while touching my nose between each number. This measured my reaction time and also indicated that I did not suffer from nitrogen narcosis so that I can safely descend to that depth in the future :)

We ascended slowly and at our 5 meter safety stop (5 meters underwater for 3 minutes to enable the nitrogen to slowly emerge from the blood at a lower pressure to decrease risk of getting the bends), I was running low on air and used Rhi's occy (second regulator called the octopus as it is yet another rope to carry around) so I wouldn't run out before emerging onto the surface.

Second dive of the day was the Navigational Dive. During this dive I had to navigate underwater first using a compass, to find my way away from and back to Rhi. Then she got us lost, and I had to lead us back to the boat. Didn't see to much that dive as I was very much focused on the compass and then on remembering the route we were taking. We did see a shark that dive, my first white tip shark. The goal for every diver is to sneak up on the shark and grab him around his body before he swims away. I remained behind Rhi and calmed my breathing to not disturb the shark, while we both inched along the ground. We got to about 15 feet away before he swam off. We then returned to the boat. Again, I ran low on air while returning to the boat and shared Rhi's occy for the last couple minutes of the swim back. It actually was good for me, swimming next to Rhi I attempted to match her breathing and became aware of why I was using so much more air than she was.

Third dive of the day was my photography dive. I took a camera underwater with me, which subsequently died about 30 seconds into the dive. Instead I swam around and practiced breathing slowly and maintaining neutral buoyancy. That was my first dive without an instructor. My buddy was a guy named Daren, and he followed me around underwater. We saw a white tip shark! I immediately slowed my breathing and attempted to sneak up on the shark. He first swam away then returned to a spot in front of me and lay in the sand, I got to about 10 feet away before he swam off!

Fourth dive of the day was my second night dive. I went with a guy named Scott who is working to become a dive master. I followed him around and we didn't see much, we did blackout our flashlights at one point and wave our hands in front of our face to see the bioluminescent algae. As you wave your hands around, it kills them and they fluoresce as they die, it's a beautiful sight and actually lights up the water quite a bit. We had a quick dive as Scott was freezing. When you want someone to see something, you shake your flashlight's beam close to theirs and then direct your flashlight to where you want them to look. For a few minutes I was peering closely at different corals trying to figure out what I was missing until I realised he just couldn't hold his flashlight still he was so cold. So we surfaced and were too cold to even stargaze that night.

Great Barrier Reef: Day 2

2008-07-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

We were woken Sunday morning at 5:50 to prepare for our 6 oclock dive! The videographer was also up filming us as we woke up and joined everyone in the saloon for hot tea before we got into our COLD, WET wetsuits.

We geared up, jumped into the water and headed out to explore the reef. Around 8meters under, I had difficulty equalizing my ears, my left ear was in a great deal of pain. I swam upwards slightly and kept trying to equalize. After a few minutes, it wasn't fair for me to hold up both Rhi's and Merete's dive simply because I couldn't equalize my ears so I returned to the boat while they continued their dive. Upon returning to the boat I couldn't bear the thought of getting out of the water. I asked the guy on watch if I could just dive a little around the boat and he could watch out for me. He said yes, assuming I would be snorkelling, I dove around for a little while and then surfaced. I realise now, with a little more experience, that what I did was stupid and I'm lucky I remained shallow and close to the boat, and that nothing went wrong.

8am, our second dive of the day - my ears still hadn't equalised from the 6am dive and I remained on the surface, boo! The videographer agreed to film us at our 11am dive so both Mereta and I could do our skits and skills together.

11am, my ears had equalised! I jumped into the water so happy to finally be back in. We went underwater and performed the skills. The videographer, Daniel, had brought down an empty beer can so as we took the regulator out of our mouth we could pretend to drink beer underwater. He'd also brought down a pair of sunglasses, sunnies, so as we took our masks off we could put them on and pose underwater. Had a lot of fun with the beer, but again got nervous to remove my mask and didn't. We had bought some props for our skit. I won't tell you about it, as I purchased the video and hope to be able to post it in a few weeks once I'm back in NY, you need to see the corals, the fishies, its too incredible to describe even though I am trying...

Once out of the water, as I had chickened out, I had one last dive to complete my certification and also had to remove my mask 3 times in that last dive to become comfortable with the procedure. I joined the new group of open water divers for the 4pm dive and realised I had actually progressed in my comfort level, watching them perform the skills made me realise I had already improved quite a bit! It also made me confident enough to remove my mask and clear it three times, whew, done!

Then, I did my first night dive! It also counted as my first dive towards becoming an advanced adventure diver. Completing diver certification, mostly makes you realise how much you still need to learn to become a confident diver. How to remain calm underwater should anything go wrong, how to learn what can and cannot be touched, how to maintain neutral buoyancy, how to breathe slowly to maximize your air, etc. I didn't feel at all ready to become qualified as an advanced adventure diver.

My first night dive was guided and I didn't see too much, no sharks, no crustaceans. I did see many red sea bass who use the light from our torches to hunt small fish. It's so much fun to find a small ugly fish, so as not to kill the pretty ones, and keep your torch on it and watch the red sea bass trying to eat them! I did see a sting ray buried in the sand beneath me at one point. I really wanted to disturb the sand and watch it swim away, but I remembered Steve Erwin and resisted.

Day 2 ended with me as a certified scuba diver and ready for bed by 10pm. The stars out on the ocean, on the boat are so beautiful, so bright that a few of us went onto the bow of the boat and stargazed for an hour. I've never in my life seen stars like this, in under an hour we saw easily 20 shooting stars, a few of them were like fireworks, you could see the tail blazing as they burned up in the atmosphere! The milky way was so visible, and as none of us were astronomers we invented our own shapes for the stars, like the manta ray :)

SCUBA DIVING!!!

2008-07-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I began instruction for scuba diving. The day began around 730 and I was nervous! Somehow in planning this trip I had been focusing on how much I wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef and all it's wonders and beauties and it didn't occur to me until scuba instruction began that this is, in fact, a rather technical, and potentially dangerous activity! My instructor was named Rhiannon, Rhi, and there were 6 other girls in the class. Apparently it was the first class ever to be all girls. Beginning the process of learning about and assembling equipment it all seemed so complicated and overwhelming so much to remember, and if anything goes wrong underwater there are so many complications and hazards in which the best decision needs to be made for safety.

We first did a number of laps around the pool and treaded water to be sure we could all swim sufficiently well, no problems there. Then we put on fins and snorkels and practiced duck diving and comfort with breathing. Then we put on scuba gear... it is SO heavy, and also quite buoyant in water which means on top of all the equipment you also wear a weight belt to ensure when you want to sink deeper, you can. On to the underwater skills, we needed to practice removing our regulators (what the air comes out of) and finding them again underwater so in case they fall out or get yanked out underwater we can put them back in safely. We also practiced removing and clearing our masks, this was the one skill I had great difficulty with. I always seemed to breathe in through my nose once the mask was removed and consequently would swallow a great deal of water which doesn't help with performing the skill or remaining calm throughout.

It turns out that I am an airpig... the first day as I had one final skill to perform, removing and clearing my mask and replacing it, I ran out of air. So, day two once we performed all our skills under 4 meters I ended up trying that skill for the first time. I did it, with a great deal of difficulty, and once our training was over for the day spent a while practicing it in shallower water.

Of the 7 of us in the course, two failed. We had a Chinese mother and daughter in the course and the mother spoke no English which made it quite difficult for her to understand the instructions or what she should do. Consequently she did almost everything wrong and held the whole class up in learning and practicing skills. On the second day as we were practicing removing our weight belts and replacing them underwater. She took off her weightbelt and let go, so started floating up to the surface butt first while vainly attempting to swim back down and grasp her weight belt. She looked so funny floating upwards butt first grasping around I started to laugh so hard. I could barely catch my breath and was crying so hard, afterwards I asked Rhi what I should do if I started laughing in the ocean and had difficulty catching my breath and discovered regulators are delightful, you can do anything into them; laugh, cough, spit, puke, whatever needs to be done underwater can be done into them, whew!

Day 3: first day on the boat, we left on the day boat to meet up with the boat which remains out on the ocean around 9am. The sea on the way out was perfect, aqua blue like in the postcards, glassy, calm, barely any wind, sunny, all the instructors said it was the most perfect weather and conditions they had ever seen :) We also saw 4 dolphins on the way out leaping in the boat's wake!

We arrived to the boat, had lunch and prepared to jump into the water for our first dive. It was so much fun to really dive! We went under and swam around for a bit, then found a patch of sandy bottom to practice our skills in the ocean to ensure we were comfortable enough to pass. I had no difficulties with any of them, but got extremely nervous to remove my mask at 10 meters under the ocean and refused. Had a lovely rest of the dive, we were told over and over again not to touch anything underwater as there are venomous fish, snakes, corals, all sorts of deadly creatures underwater and unless you know what you are doing should never touch. Rhi picked up what looked like a large piece of spiky, maroon, rectangular styrofoam and handed it to each of us to touch - sea cucumber. There are also plants which grow out of certain corals called Christmas Trees as they look like tiny red or blue Christmas trees. These plants, if you snap your fingers close to them or wave your hand, will jump back into their holes - so much fun! Upon surfacing, I was told that in the next dive I would have to remove and clear my mask three times!

Second dive at 4pm; this time I felt so much more comfortable jumping into the water, got down and practiced our skills. I removed my mask once, removed it a second time and nearly panicked, was about to swim up to the surface and then just reminded myself to breathe, remain calm and completed the clearing. Rhi took pity on me and we swam around for the rest of the dive until we needed to return to the surface at which point I cleared my mask for the third time. At the surface I was told that in the next dive as well, I would have to remove and clear my mask three times until I was comfortable doing so... Swallowing ocean water makes you quite gassy, I spent the rest of the dive burping into my regulator to clear my air passages. Upon climbing onto the boat, I had a little difficulty breathing until 5 burps later I was good to go!

I didn't dive again that day as for the night dive you either need to hire an instructor to take you, or be certified. The next day, during our 8am dive, Merete and I (the only two to spend overnight on the boat from our class) were going to be filmed by the ship's videographer performing our skills and had also been told to bring props for skits. One prop we had found was a dinosaur egg which hatches after 12 -24 hours in water. We forgot until the evening to put it in water, then stuck a large egg into a plastic bucket on the saloon bar. All the instructors and other divers thought it was hilarious and names were thrown around for the new ship's mascot. Clare, one of the hostesses started singing a song from some childhood tv program about "--- the last dinosaur" and couldn't remember his name - she was convinced that it was Denvis. Croccy and Peter were the other two front-runners. I relaxed on the boat and went to bed early.

Cairns, no worries...

2008-07-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

The last couple days in Sydney were wonderful for WYA, we met with a number of potential friends, members and supporters who were all so excited to hear about WYA and committed fully with all their contacts, resources and support to build WYA in Sydney. Yay!

This morning I flew to Cairns. As we began our descent, appeared hundreds upon hundreds of lush, tree covered mountains. We then circled out over the bluest, greenest water imaginable - just like in a movie - I half expected Matt McConaughey to meet me in board shorts at the airport and take me on a cruise to be chased by James Bond type bad guys. Through the water were darker and lighter patches dotted with little islands and a strip of beach along the coast. I think it is the only plane descent in my life where I could not stop smiling... Cairns is a delightful 26Celsius with a breeze. I could so easily be fooled into thinking sunscreen is not needed but for the knowledge that the hole in the ozone layer is directly overhead - that and I went for a 20 minute walk and came back as pink as though I'd been sunbathing for an hour.

I've spent today relaxing and getting settled. I get picked up at 9am tomorrow morning to begin my first day of scuba diving lessons!!! I'm in a room with 7 others at the hostel, hopefully they'll all wish to sleep tonight, but thankfully even if they don't they won't wake me :) I finally found a power converter and am charging my camera battery so I can FINALLY take pictures. I also found a digital underwater camera for $40, not bad eh? I realised yesterday that although I am spending almost three weeks in Australia I will likely not meet too many Australians. During WYD I met people from all over the world, and of course the people I'll meet at the hostel and on my dive course will also not be locals... how am I ever to meet my beautiful, funny, Aussie friends?

Once my battery is charged, I will post a picture of the beaches I am surrounded by but cannot swim because I could get eaten by a... crocodile, that's right! There are Danger, Crocodile signs posted along the beach and swimming is not encouraged unless you enjoy losing random body parts - some which may be more or less vital than others. All my dreams of swimming in Aussie waters? I'll have to wait till I jump in over a coral reef and come face to face with grinning sharks and Nemo.

I shall keep you all updated as this next round of adventures begins, wish you were here with me! I'm all alone and must now leave to try and make friends :)

ps. All those Aussie phrases which are on postcards or tourist T-shirts that you think for sure nobody would ever say? They are said! In daily life! I've even heard "fair dinkum"! no worries, cheers, g'day, mate, all are common also. I've heard others which completely threw me off guard and am trying to keep a tally in my head of unique, Aussie phrases.

World Youth Day

2008-07-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been absolutely amazing! Saturday morning I travelled to North Sydney to meet up with the Filipino contingent of WYA so we could walk the 10km pilgrimage to the site for the overnight vigil. Taking the train across the bridge we saw out the windows thousands of people from around the world streaming across the bridge. There was not an empty foot of space along the entire bridge crossing Sydney Harbour. Arriving to North Sydney station every person on the train exited to begin the pilgrimage.

It took an hour for us all to find each other and begin, in that time the road exiting the station didn't empty or even clear for a minute. Trains arrived one after another, all filled to the brim. Some of the people walking were incredible; people being pushed in wheelchairs, families with small children, old people, I even saw one man of about 60 who walked with the assistance of two crutches get off to begin a 10km trek!

It was also fun to hear all the songs and cheers from the different parts of the world. Mexicans singing, Italians cheering, a group from some country in Africa (I didn't recognise their flag) walked by and all the cops turned to stare and listen as they were singing a traditional song which sounded straight out of a movie. By the end of the day all the police, security personnel, any city people recruited to keep the peace had completely relaxed - probably the easiest security job they'd ever had... They would approach different groups or individuals and just start chatting, some even started showing off different pins or souvenirs they had been given while others cheered and waved and encouraged us onwards.

The hardest part of the walk for the Filipinos was the last couple kilometres as they started to get tired and wanted to arrive and relax. The hardest part for me was the speed. Smaller legs means smaller steps and I had to keep shuffling my feet, walking backwards or finding other ways to maintain the Filipino pace. I discovered a little over halfway there, that if I held the Philippines flag, I also got to set the pace, from that point onwards, the flag was mine! So many people stared to see a tall, blonde Filipina... One woman who lived in Australia but was Filipina saw the flag and came running over to get her picture with it, and nearly tripped and fell backwards when she saw me carrying it. Then she cracked up and got even more excited to have me in the picture with her.

Many locals hung out on their balconies or rooftops to watch us all walk by. At one point, while I was waiting for everyone to catch up, some guys on a rooftop asked what flag I was carrying, then they asked where I was from and learned all about WYA as they were trying to figure out why a Canadian would be travelling with 12 Filipinos and be the one carrying the flag. Another time, as I was speaking to Ren, some people who passed us were overheard very confused that a white girl and a Chinese girl had a Philippines flag.

The vigil itself was so much fun. We arrived around 3pm and quickly settled ourselves to ensure we had a spot to sleep that night. While hanging out, I started to throw a frisbee around with some Lebanese who were surrounding us. It was great fun as people came in and out of the game and lots more looked like they wanted to join but were too shy. Until at one point, the frisbee wasn't caught and nearly hit a French woman. She was so angry so I quickly pointed to myself to take the blame and she marched over to me and threatened to steal it until I reminded her that wasn't the right thing to do at WYD, then she ordered me to put it in my bag since, if she saw it again, she would rip it in half. I didn't think she looked that strong, but didn't want to test her aggression and put it away. Within the next 30 minutes everyone who had disappeared at the woman's wrath trickled over to me so disappointed our game had been cut short. I even met an Australian woman from Melbourne who plays competitively, as she came over to introduce herself afterwards.

We settled down then as the Pope arrived for a couple hours and spoke to us. After he left a few bands came on to keep the crowds awake and warm. I snuggled into my down sleeping bag (good till -7C) and slept peacefully and warmly till morning. I'd offered the day previously that if anyone froze they should let me know and snuggle in with me, but I don't think they understood what a difference a sleeping bag could make as they all shivered in their sleeping bags all night and not one took me up on my offer. When I demonstrated its warmth the next day a few felt quite sad they'd missed out. We hung out in our sleeping bags all morning till the portapotties called with undeniable appeal then grouped together for mass with the Pope.

While waiting we handed out WYA charters and stickers to passersby, hopefully we have a few hundred new members from our efforts. Many people were trading local paraphernalia and a number of us were given gifts from various parts of the world for spreading our message of dignity, win-win!

The mass with the Pope was beautiful. We all sat or stood in the early morning sunlight, or lack of at times, surrounded by a few hundred thousand young people from around the world, in silence or singing. The Pope's homily was quite catechetical and I have to admit I've already forgotten what he said. I do remember though, being quite enraptured in the moment and thinking that I absolutely must find a copy of it when I return to NY. Hint hint to all you who weren't there or have memories like goldfish as I do...

Upon leaving the grounds, security had decided to reduce congestion by blocking people at certain points. At three places upon leaving we were forced to wait for upwards of 20minutes until they opened a barrier or the gates to allow us to leave. Lucky them, they knew their clientelle and had no need to worry about brawls or anger ensuing as a result of this. Everyone waited patiently and cheered each time we were allowed to move on.

It was so nice to return to Mike and Jenny's, I joined Mike outside and I think we went through 3 or 4 pots of tea just relaxing and then had dinner altogether after watching "the Chaser's War on Everything". It's Aussie political/social satire and is absolutely hilarious! Definitely check it out if it exists on youtube or somewhere. And today? Today I have relaxed, caught up on work, delightful day.

Sydney!!!

2008-07-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Day two in Sydney begins. I arrived yesterday and dragged my suitcase for over 30 minutes as I was unsure which stop was closest to my friend's house where I was staying. I chose wrong. Arrived at 730am, was lucky to catch Mike and Jenny before they headed off to work and then, oh joy oh rapture, I had 3 full hours to unpack, shower, and get lost (on purpose of course) en route to meeting up with all the WYA people.

Wandering through Sydney was a rather strange experience. Normally when I travel, its to a place where English is not the primary language. Talking to people in Australia where all the signs are in English, I kept being surprised by how many people had Aussie accents! Until I reminded myself that I was the foreigner... Sydney is quite a lovely city, small enough to walk everywhere in the downtown but large enough also to provide surprises upon turning a corner and encounting a park, the harbour, or one of the backalley crime-filled streets :)

Pilgrims for WYD are everywhere, there are seas and oceans and rivers of orange-red-yellow backpacks. Each group has its own flag so that it feels like wandering through a moving, young United Nations. I met a group from Papua New Guinea yesterday and have added a new flag to my country repertoire. Its so much fun, everyone here wishes to meet people and discover as much as they can, being with a group of Filipinos we're meeting expat's from all over the world and I'm desperately seeking a Canadian flag now to distinguish myself.

Everyone is incredibly friendly. I'd heard customs could be quite tough but upon arriving at the airport the customs official had just papercut himself. I suggested he get his buddy to kiss it better and then asked him not to touch my passport or I would get accused of murder next time I travelled. He didn't ask any questions. Then while waiting for my luggage I thought I'd better eat my banana before it got taken away from me, and security approached me and told me to be sure I ate all my fruit before claiming my luggage as I shouldn't have any at this point. People on the streets also have all been exceptionally nice and gone out of their way to provide me with directions in my chronically lost state.

Yesterday evening we travelled to Sydney Harbour to greet the Pope. He arrived and spent quite some time waving to all the youth before getting in the Popemobile and driving to the stage. Once there he gave an incredible talk about environmentalism and the importance of stewardship, and linked destruction of the environment to many other problems in the world today due to selfishness and greed. It was quite relevant to the problems faced by young people worldwide and I'll definitely be searching for a copy of the speech upon my return.

By 6pm jetlag had hit, and hard. Once the rally ended we walked back to the downtown, stopped for some chinese food in Chinatown and then I left for home. Had a quiet evening with Mike and Jenny and then crashed, till now as I prepare for a new day of WYD and head out in a couple minutes.

The Glass is Half Empty/Half Full/Not on Fire?

2008-07-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

The last 5 days of my life have been an exercise in defining whether I am unlucky or lucky, is it necessary for unlucky to precede lucky? I type this portion of my next series of adventures from the business lounge in the San Francisco airport. Before I go further, I must backtrack. Last Thursday Anna, Clare and I embarked on a sisters' roadtrip to Ohio for Annie Seabright's wedding to Brett Bonowicz. A friend of ours, John Budnik, braved the sisters' roadtrip, our stop at some delightful outlets en route, and even found Clare's jokes funny by the end of our 8 hour drive. (Clare's jokes are very funny, some would say hilarious, we just weren't sure for the first 7 hours if John found them funny...)

Ohio... we stayed at Bissie Seabright's home, Annie's older sister and a good friend, who has a beautiful view of Lake Erie from her living room. Friday Clare and I went tanning on the beach and underestimating the sun's strength we both fried. So worth it though, the day was delightful, the water was just the right temperature and the beach was empty. Saturday afternooon we made ourselves scarce as the bridal party dressed in said living room. Maria Grizzetti and I wandered down to the beach amid a sand storm which was shortly followed by a rain/hailstorm. There is something so beautiful about being in the middle of a storm, on a deserted scrubby beach, in front of a lake that stretches in every direction. I dove right into the waves and we both could not stop laughing and screaming into the wind.

Annie's wedding was beautiful, she was married in a traditional Byzantine ceremony with the chants, wreaths, a cup and some other symbols for their life together. The reception afterwards was held at an arboretum which obviously had incredible views and paths to walk along. Later in the evening, the dancing got started, and her cousins can dance! I've never been to a wedding with such a large majority of wedding guests on the dance floor, completely drenched in their own sweat and so much fun! We danced till midnight then returned to Bissie's place where a small after party continued down on the beach. This time, the night was clear with a storm approaching so the night sky alternated between clear and wild, with grey clouds above us and a midnight green horizon approaching.

Sunday we all drove back to NY, encountered terrible traffic so that I left the WYA house at 910 for an 11pm flight. I may have a future as a NY taxi driver, I made it to the airport, while stopping for gas, by 945! Thankfully my flight was also delayed since I made it to check in at 1020... I arrived to Vancouver at 330am and discovered a quiet corner just past customs. Apparently sleeping by customs is not allowed since I was kicked out after an hour's sleep. I wandered through the airport in search of a quiet corner and had a number of maintenance people try to direct me towards a taxi. What part of "I'm sleeping here" is so confusing, doesn't everyone sleep at airports?

Vancouver is a lovely city, I took a bus downtown, which was in the midst of a freak power outage from a freak windstorm the day before, which may have made my wanderings even more beautiful with the absence of neon lights and tacky music. I discovered a free bus through Stanley park which was so beautiful, to sit and enjoy the skyline, the trees, the gardens, in my jetlagged stupor and then return to the airport made for a great day. I flew out from Vancouver to San Francisco for what should have been a quick layover and on to Australia.

Upon seeking a seat to Sydney, Australia, it seemed United had overbooked the flight by 60 people! They were asking people to give up their seats to leave on a flight a day later and in return get bumped up to Business Class. So after waking up Anna - thanks Anna and sorry! - I called Des to see if it were possible for me to arrive a day later. Whoop whoop to a night in a hotel, a shower!!! and chillaxing for a day in the business lounge. LOVE IT!

I arrived to the airport today around noon and couldn't get to the business lounge with all my luggage as it is through security. When I went to store my bags, my little rucksack was oversized. Yes, a rucksack, according to SanFran luggage storage people is an oversized suitcase, and comes with an oversized fee! I was not pleased and asked how small a nonoversized suitcase was and was shown the smallest backpack I have ever seen. You know those backpacks made like teddybears that 5 year olds wear? picture that plus plus an extra 3 inch diameter. That, my friends, is a suitcase... I first asked them to take pity on me and not charge me such an exorbitant fee, and then I got mad and told him he was a jerk, and left.

Mom calmed me down, reminded me that sitting for the next 6 hours in the airport was probably not worth $15, so I returned and asked a different guy how small my rucksack needed to become for me to be charged $8 rather than the oversized fee of $15. He asked another girl, who negotiated with the guy to only charge me $10, no repacking necessary. A small victory which made me very happy. Especially as, in business lounges there are snacks, free wifi, a tv, free cocktails, and comfy seats. Luxury! So glad Mom talked sense into me :)

And here I am, my flight to Australia leaves in 7 hours, and I then spend 19 hours of my life in business instead of economy!

Quick sneak peek at what is to come... Sydney, Australia for a week: World Youth Day and then various meetings, I'll manage to sneak in touristy adventures. Cairns for a week - scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef!!! and then back to Vancouver for another week. So excited!

Usurper

2008-02-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

Before I became president of WYA, I had the reputation as the worst intern in the history of interns. I spent my evenings and weekends partying and brought other interns along with me. This obviously led to a significant reduction in useful work that happened, for them, not for me. At that time I had endless energy and would stay up till all hours of the night, grab a quick nap between 3 and 8am, and then run to the office arriving about 10 minutes late.

NB. For any interns reading this, my productivity never suffered. You only have permission to follow my example if you have the energy to do it properly!

Once I became President of WYA, my bad habits changed. I spent so much time traveling and working that I didn't have the energy to stay up all night every night and stagger into the office late every morning. Plus, there's the whole example business. Have to set a good example for the current interns...

I did however still have my own personality. I was the only science major among WYA staff, I definitely played the most sports, I came up with the oddest ideas even in serious brainstorm discussions, I was the youngest staff member, I could still be the most extreme version of certain things. All that changed when we hired Cathy.

Cathy who joined us after leaving a PhD in molecular biology, Cathy who not only has odd ideas but brings them to completion, Cathy who does Tae Kwon Do and hip hop. At least I'm still the youngest staff member. The worst part about having Cathy here is not only am I no longer the most extreme in certain areas, even when I have weirder ideas than she does, she gets all the credit. What does she have to say in her defense? "All I did was sit there."

You can poll the office: who found out about coed naked nonsexual yoga, and who got all the credit? Who found out about the 7th annual no-pants subway ride, and who got all the credit? Who discovered the game of freeze-tag on wall street and who got all the credit? (For freeze tag I harbour no grudges for Cathy getting all the credit, I wasn't in NY that weekend and not only did she go, but she even wore my beer-goggles. She deserved credit for that!) For the other events, my angst runs high. Neither of us has participated in the first two events, but Cathy gets all the credit.

I guess the only bright side of all this, is if I ever want to do something really off, I just have to tell everyone Cathy made me do it, and she'll get all the blame!

Mexicali

2008-02-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I spoke at a conference in Mexicali called "Protagonists for a Culture of Life." The conference had a number of speakers from around the world; Mexico, Poland, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain and me! The conference was one of the friendliest I have ever been to. The organisers were incredibly friendly and made every effort to either speak to me in English or speak in very slow Spanish so I could understand. The participants were receptive to my talk and to the World Youth Alliance, there was so much interest and enthusiasm from the young people to join the World Youth Alliance and to become more involved. Perhaps most amazing, the other speakers also were friendly and open. Often I will go to conferences, and the opportunity to interact and meet the other speakers is limited at best. During this conference we had a number of meals together and were able to discuss each others speeches and ideas for how to collaborate in the future.Personally, the conference was quite exciting. I'm 23, live in NY, meet new interns every few months, work with the staff from around the world, occasionally play ultimate frisbee, pick-up hockey, or rollerblade around NY to do my errands. Traveling to this conference gave me the opportunity to meet hundreds of young, and older, people mostly from Mexico but also from around the world who are working to make the world a better place. Most exciting? They were excited to hear that they are not alone.

When I talk to friends on Wall Street or who work for large companies they'll often give me some advice "you know you can't eradicate poverty, right?" "look, not everyone wants to change how they live" "ok, it's great that you're working to improve the world, but there's lots of corruption and people working to destroy lives too." Exactly, that is exactly why my job is so important. More specifically, that is why it is so important to find all the people worldwide who want to improve the world, and introduce them to people who live nearby or far away who have the same goals; put them in touch, offer them resources, at the very least encourage them to do what they are passionate about and capable of doing.

Every day I receive emails from and talk to people who are passionate about changing the world and their communities, so why would this conference be so exciting? Because I can forget that not everyone spends their days speaking to incredible, dynamic people like I do. Meeting the young people, hearing from the older people, brainstorming about what each group could do to address the problems they were faced with reminded me once more of just how important World Youth Alliance is.

Why specifically World Youth Alliance? There's thousands of organisations and people worldwide doing incredible things to improve the world, many of them working in ways that WYA is not capable of working. So what is so great that we offer?

Three things:
1. We are an organisation of young people - this means that every single activity and project we undertake is spearheaded and completed by youth, under 30. Obviously we screw up a lot, but at the same time it is so empowering for a 20 year old with no prior experience to be in charge of a huge project and have it turn out ok, if they can do that, they can do anything!
2. We are international - this means that in many of our projects young people have the opportunity to meet and work alongside, and become friends with, people from around the world. In the process they have to deal with cultural sensitivity issues, and can understand the problems and solutions of people living in a country they knew nothing about prior to that experience.
3. We base all our activities on the dignity of every person - this means that no matter how irritating someone is, or how intensely you may dislike them, you still have to treat them with respect. More than that, you have to treat them with the respect they deserve. Overcoming all our personal prejudices of race, economic and social stature, language, religion, whatever else we may judge people on, and seeing them for who they are - another person who is worth just as much as we are - takes great courage. Once young people can do this, it changes their lives and how they view world problems and offers a new, humane solution to all the issues worldwide.

Attending the conference allowed me to share the idea of the dignity of every person with hundreds of other people. Hopefully the idea grabbed them and they'll now implement it in their lives and their communities. This is an idea that needs to be spread worldwide, and having the opportunity to tell more people, see their faces light up, and then to see all the ideas that flow from them of how they can improve something with that idea is so rewarding.

I also had the opportunity to improve my Spanish, which I hadn't spoken for two years. Having the opportunity to share my work and passion with hundreds of people and improve my language skills? What could be better.

New Staff at WYA

2008-01-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

As of January, we have doubled the number of staff working in our NY office, we have also added one in our European office, and replaced one in our Latin American office. I love new staff!

In Europe, Francois Jacob has stepped into his role as Director of Europe. After taking the first week to feel his way around the office and read through the archives he is now meeting our members and supporters and beginning to plan activities throughout Europe.

In Latin America Carlos is in the process of a staff transition, learning the systems, files, procedures and responsibilities of his new job as Director of Operations for Latin America.

In North America, Shannon Joseph is the new Director of North America. She is the first Director in almost two years now, and I have to admit that I am relearning my role as President now. Since I've started working for WYA I've been performing the job of President while also doing my best to keep some semblance of activity and communication alive in NA. This means I've been dialoguing and working with a number of persons who rightfully would work with the Director.

Since Shannon has begun her work, I've been able to tackle so many projects and issues which had been building and accumulating for months and had given up hope of ever having time for. She has given me a renewed appreciation for all the talented staff I have.

Two new international staff have also joined WYA. Kristen Panico is joining Maria Grizzetti on our Development team. She's already had a number of exciting, useful ideas for us to pursue which we hadn't thought of. Her experience in marketing is proving to be quite valuable to us all. Lastly, Cathy Young is our new Director of Communications. She comes to us from a background in neuromolecular research for cancer, so her new position is quite a change from all she's done before. Thanks to her background in science she is determined to meet deadlines, and thanks to leaving science is determined to discover every creative ability she has and use it for WYA's benefit.

I have only one last position I am searching for, International Director of Operations. All I will say is if this title sounds cool check out the website at www.wya.net.

So, why am I bothering to post what sounds like an annual report? Cuz it's my life! I truly do love new staff, and these amazing people make all of WYA's work possible. Since I spend the majority of my life currently trying to make our work more efficient and our ideas reach more people, anyone who contributes to this with me makes my life so much happier! Thanks guys :)

Small Joys

2008-01-09T18:30:00.001-08:00

People watching, quite possibly the best past time. My office window overlooks an arts college and all day long the street life unfolds beneath me. Early in the morning businessmen rush to work and students hang about on steps smoking or chatting. Mid-morning the construction and city workers hang about on those same steps smoking and chatting and following every pretty girl with their eyes down the block. Late afternoon the mothers and nannies push babies in strollers or chase after small children trying to get away. Evening, the street dies. We are in a residential area. Only the lone car drives by every few minutes.

It can be so much fun to people watch, to catch snippets of another person's conversation and life, to catch them in a boring moment, a thrilling moment, an emotional moment, an angry moment. Angry moments can be quite entertaining as people bare their soul to the world around them in an effort to express themself to whomever they're walking with or yelling at on a cell phone.

Different parts of the city bring about entirely different personalities. People watching in Central Park, Harlem, Wall Street, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Queens, even on 5th Avenue in comparison to York. Even the homeless seem to select the parts of the city that reflect their personality. Homeless people in Central park are often much friendlier than homeless people curled up outside a store on Lexington - perhaps because they're also just visiting for the day and consider it their vacation.

If you people watch in one area frequently enough, you'll notice the regulars, those who have the same schedule. If you switch your schedule, you'll discover a whole new group of regulars. I love naming regulars on personality. This was much easier in university when regulars could be spotted in the cafeteria based on class schedule, regulars in NY are hard to spot unless you yourself are a regular. It has happened before that after naming a regular I've become friends with the regular. It is so difficult to remember their actual name , I always feel that the one I've given them is just so much more appropriate, Adonis is so much more unique than Jack, Fraggle Rock is so much more unique than Lisa. Of course, rarely does Lisa appreciate knowing her past name was Fraggle Rock no matter how striking the resemblance.

I only hope people don't misunderstand me, I don't follow people. I watch people, you do too. You just may not have taken it to an art form which gives you so much joy as this gives me. Try it. Listen to three words of a conversation, watch the person's gait, check out their shoes and hair, and then try to imagine what they ate for breakfast, what they enjoy doing in their free time, what sort of work they do. Chances are that all of your surmising is wrong, but that's ok cuz you're not their shrink, you've just gone outside of yourself and entered another person's life momentarily. Who doesn't like making new friends, or at least watching potential friends walk by?

In praise of beauty

2007-11-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

Since yesterday evening, the most transformative realisation has occurred. As of 2pm today I find it impossible to not smile. Why? Because I have teeth again! After 4 days of hiding my face from the world, practicing my seductive "Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen lips closed and slightly upturned at the corners" smile, discovering what the strong silent types might experience in their daily life, and cancelling all unnecessary appointments, I am confident to again walk down the street, flash my pearly whites and engage people in conversation.

So the realisation is that it actually doesn't matter how you look "oh, your missing teeth are barely noticeable," what's important is how you think you look. Today as I walked down the street, I wanted to grin at everyone, I wanted everyone to notice my smile, I wanted to bare my teeth just so people would stop and say "are those new? how lovely." Of course, the reason I want to do this is because they look like they were never broken and so no one will notice they aren't mine. For the past few days, I've huddled in my corner office avoiding human contact, and to be perfectly honest I've been quite cranky. I blame my crankiness at least partially on starving (liquid diets work so well, I've discovered, because they cause you to lose weight regardless of whether that is the primary goal or not). Today I finished every sentence with a smile, if I forgot to smile I played with my teeth until I remembered how nice they were and smiled. I wanted to speak with people, to be in public, to smile!

So for everyone who is debating a new haircut, or whether to join the current decades' fashion trends, or to get braces, my advice is to do it! You may not realise just how cranky you currently are, until you rise above yourself and can't stop smiling with inner joy at how lovely you think you look, even if no one else agrees.

Of teeth and frisbees...

2007-11-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

Years ago in University I took a course called Mammalogy, the study of mammals. As part of this course we analysed different mammalian skulls; beavers, coyotes, moles, etc. and we learned to identify animals down to a species sometimes based only on the teeth. Teeth are pretty special.
Years ago in University I also started to play a sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Yes, this sport, so misunderstood and never heard of, is actually one of the best sports in the entire world. I would know this because I've played most sports in the entire world at least once. At the same time as I played Ultimate I also played Ice Hockey and Rugby. Of course every time an injury happened it always got blamed on rugby, but it was generally the fault of ultimate. My rugby and hockey teammates would laugh at my third sport, but in all honesty I truly find ultimate more challenging in many ways than hockey or even rugby - minus of course the continual fullbody contact.
Most of you have probably never seen a game of Ultimate Frisbee. Most of you, in fact, likely associate frisbees with dogs catching them in their mouths at a park. Well, if I had in fact made the connection between my study of mammalian teeth and the differences in capabilities between said teeth, I might have averted a disastrous mistake.
This past weekend, I went to an ultimate tournament in Bridgeport, CT. My team was a random assortment of random players from random teams, and we decided that we didn't want to win the tournament since it was cold and we would have then had to play an extra game. So we enjoyed our spiked cider and played as hard as we felt like playing. Two of the guys on my team loved to huck (that means to throw the frisbee really far) and I love to run deep (that means to run all the way to the other side of the field) and catch, so we made a great team. Our final game was against a team even less competitive than we were; we at least had talent which we decided not to use whereas they had no talent and tried to use it. Final point of the game, as I ran to catch the frisbee, the girl defending me decided she didn't want me to beat her and instead pushed me. This resulted in the frisbee being caught not by my hands, but by my teeth.
This is where mammalogy could have been useful. Apparently dogs have much stronger teeth than humans. I fell to the ground and realised I had tooth pieces floating around inside my mouth, and carefully spat them into my hand. The doctor on my team informed me that these should be stuck in a container of cream (like strawberries and cream?). I traded a cup containing teeth for a cup containing ibuprofen. I think I got the better deal.
In the meantime I've discovered lisps don't really get you anywhere, it is not cool to show up at work looking like a jack "o" lantern, and front teeth are really useful for chewing. I've also discovered why liquid diets are so great for losing weight. Should I ever need to lose weight in the future I'll just ask someone to chuck a frisbee at my front teeth and wait a couple weeks before getting them fixed.

news

2007-10-25T09:09:00.001-07:00

I decided recently that I should be more aware of what is happening in the world. Online newspapers make my job especially easy, and I'll freely admit to enjoying the BBC. Part of my job being to interact with people from all circumstances all over the globe, I've found it quite important to be aware when there is civil war in one country, elections in another, riots in another, the list goes on. Reading the news, simply to read the news, can be extremely boring since there are always wars, murders, new discoveries, opinions don't often change, it can all seem the same on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis.

Since travelling and meeting people from so many different countries the news now takes on meaning to me. When I read of a car bomb in Lebanon, I realise that is the same neighbourhood I stayed in the week previously and perhaps people I met or drove past were injured or killed. When I read of electoral difficulties in Thailand I can email a former intern and find out if this is something that could cause a split in the country. Electoral issues are a common thread: corruption in the Philippines - WYA members are putting their lives in jeopardy to monitor the elections; corrupt elections in Nigeria - hopes of WYA members for a better leader are dashed. When I read of genocide in the Sudan, I remember what WYA members in Rwanda told me about surviving and rebuilding from their genocide. So the news is no longer something I read about that is happening somewhere else, but it is almost like an international blog of issues directly affecting people I know, or work with, or work for, or will hopefully meet someday.

Then there are the special interest stories, just this morning I discovered a blog about moustaches. I realise a blog on moustaches has nothing directly to do with promotion of human dignity, but it's so funny I highly suggest everyone to follow this link! http://mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.blogspot.com/

The next article I happened to read was about evolution of the human species into a super race and a subhuman race - didn't we already get over this post-Hitler? Based on sex selection the super race should have smooth, clear skin (sounds like a Neutrogena ad), symmetrical facial features, athletic build, men will have large penises and women will have perky breasts. The subhuman race will appear like hobgoblins. Did I forget to mention that of course the better looking race is also more intelligent since studies have clearly proven the genetic link between good looks and intelligence? Now I don't wish to disparage Dr. Curry, I'm sure he doesn't realise he's following in the footsteps of eugenicists, but does it concern anyone that this could be considered a serious enough topic that he was able to get a PhD based on this theory, and published in the BBC? Do we really want to encourage these people through providing them with academic credentials and press? enough said...

On a much cuter note, there was also an article about the most recent winners of the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. There are some incredible pictures for any wildlife fans out there.

Thoughts, at last :)

2007-10-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

The difficulty with beginning a blog just as I embark on a tour of 4 countries in Africa, Lebanon, and the Philippines, is that once I've returned home there just doesn't seem to be the same excitement to write about. Of course, random exciting things always happen, but how to compare a weekend in Paris to my first taste of Nigerian food. Or how can I possibly compare taking pictures with Hezbollah in Lebanon to my daily life in the office in NY? This is my life, the travels are exciting, the people are incredible, and every day I wake up and come to work... same as everyone else.

Beirut, Lebanon

New Brunswick, Canada

Road Trip! NY

Soapsuds in a fountain in Paris!

So, brief update, we started with a new batch of interns 3 weeks ago. The interns are from the USA, Canada, Philippines, and Mexico. They're a lot of fun! Normally there is a period of relative calm after interns arrive, they're all kind of nervous, thrown into a new city with new people and new experiences, and they all want to make a good impression. This batch was somewhat unique... First day, they were all

volunteering to work, were going out shopping with each other and in fact quite loud. I don't think it helped that the night before their first day of work Phil (the International Director of Operations) and I took them out to a nearby pub :) Culture of dignity requires an EXPERIENCE of dignity, right?

The week after they arrived I flew to Mexico for the weekend, at this point you all roll your eyes and say "yeah, right, I thought her life became boring after all her travels?" ok, so I still travel, I've just already been to most of these countries so they're no longer exotic :) Back to Mexico, our members in Queretaro organised a huge youth conference by the title De Mente Joven. In spanish this means "take action youth," in English I know what your thinking, demented youth is not what we advocate is it? This conference was incredible, most of our members in Queretaro are in highschool and the conference had 4,000 participants. Pretty impressive for a group of highschool students to organise a conference with local celebrities, a band - the backstreet boys of Mexico, and of course, WYA!

Since then, we've all been settling in. I've given the interns all multiple projects so all the work that's needed to get done for months is getting done, I love interns! Two are monitoring the UN, one is working on an International Film Festival for '08, one is working on international conferences to commemorate our 10 year anniversary in '09, one is working on HIV/AIDS conferences and prep, bioethics research, university campus groups, monitoring online members' training, developing a brochure, press articles, CityAdventure in NY this Nov., etc. Haha, and the best part is that usually some of the interns really struggle with doing their projects well, these interns have so much initiative that I sometimes struggle just to keep up with all they are doing. Plus, of course this is all taking place in one office, did I mention we have 4 more?

So my life is busy, lots is getting done, progress is being made, and I even find time to play ultimate frisbee :) I spoke at a conference on Social Justice and Poverty two weeks ago at St. John's University. The professor who introduced me read my bio, all the usual bio "accomplishments" blah blah blah, then he cracked himself up and said "I think the most remarkable aspect of the young lady about to speak, is that on top of everything else she has accomplished she is so talented she plays a sport with a name as fierce as, Ultimate Frisbee!" Of course the entire room cracked up, and my incredibly intellectual opening lines were useless, so I told a story instead...

Ok, enough news for one go, this has got to be information overload after months of silence...

A picture of my family, extended version :)

NY!

2007-03-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since the last post. We had a beautiful gala with all the WYA staff from around the world, our International Board Members, WYA interns, many friends and family all in attendance. During this gala I became president of World Youth Alliance and Anna was able to fully claim and enjoy her title as Founder. We were both able to experience and enjoy our new roles in a follow-up trip to Lebanon.

We travelled back to Beirut to meet up with many more young people, and continue to begin the work of WYA in the Middle East. Anna spent a great deal of time working to develop a curriculum which will incorporate WYA materials into a high school curriculum. In this way high school students will be able to study the WYA training sets with guidance from their teachers and to help in completing their high school studies. The training materials currently cover the WYA philosophy on the dignity of the person, UN language which has shaped and been shaped by WYA, developmental issues, and other movements and philosophers who have impacted the development of the ideas WYA works with. Through incorporating this into a high school curriculum the materials will also incorporate local heroes and cultural references to give concrete examples of how this message can be lived in their society and culture.

While Anna was busy working on curriculum, I met with over a hundred youth. The great majority of youth I spoke with became members and understood so clearly the importance of the message of dignity for their lives and for the Middle East. Many of the youth had already begun their own organisations which focused on economic opportunities so youth wouldn't have to resort to terrorism and violence, and on cultural ties which are shared and can bring young people together. They immediately understood how important WYA was to bring them together with other young people they might never meet and to begin to change their society.

We have many members from Lebanon and the Middle East enrolled in our online training program and I look forward to great things happening from WYA members in the Middle East. They are absolutely capable of making the transformations which they see need to happen.

Upon my return from the Middle East, a new batch of interns had arrived at WYA headquarters in NY. We have 8 interns at the moment. We have one Filipina, a Mexican, a Canadian, a Thai, and 4 Americans. They are an excellent batch with quite a range of interests and talents. One in particular introduced himself in an unforgettable manner by pranking the founder. Danny is hilarious and has pranked almost every staff and intern at some point or another, but also takes getting pranked quite well. He is working to organise an Emerging Leaders Canadian Policy Seminar in Ottawa at the end of September. Part of the organisation process involved calling numerous hotels seeking a discount. Clare and Ines, two other interns, decided to return his pranks and called pretending to be Laura from the Sheraton. Laura offered to Danny free hotel rooms and suites for all the WYA participants and guests. She also demanded within 30 minutes to have an organisational profile, letter from the president, and speaker bios. Poor Danny was so excited and panicked trying to get everything done. Then Laura called back, said they now wished to host the event at the Sheraton, to cater the event, and also to open up all their press contacts to WYA. Danny didn't even get off the phone but sent Jordan to get me. I didn't dare break Danny's heart further so I asked him to request a letter from the Sheraton confirming all they had offered on Sheraton letterhead.

Clare and Ines were so shocked that I would turn on them, but came rushing downstairs to say he'd been punked! It took a while for Danny and the rest of the interns to believe that not just the press and catering, but even the rooms were all part of the same prank. He took it pretty well and even managed to wait two weeks before pranking Clare.

So, now we're heading into the middle of our second internship of the year, projects are coming along nicely. We're all wary of getting pranked, and have started Wednesday lunches all together to get to know each other better.

That's about all for now.

Gawad Kalinga Immersion Day 3

2007-03-08T15:58:00.001-08:00

Thursday morning was our last day of GK Immersion. We said goodbye to our families, a number of the SIGA kids came to say bye, even Aliah was there. Instead of going back to build at Talanay, we toured a number of other GK sites. We visited another site nearby which was also under construction. We then visited Baseco, a slum beside the site of what used to be one of Manila's busiest ports. Baseco is one of the most dangerous areas in Manila. There are high crime rates and the police are almost entirely ineffectual there. GK now houses a few thousand families and within the GK site there is almost no crime and the difference in the people who live there and just outside is incredible. It is possible to look down the streets of GK to the very end, and see thousands of shacks at the edge of the GK site. It is possible to glance across the water and see a few meters away people living in shacks, then glance around and see people living in beautiful, clean cottages.

The people in GK Baseco are so friendly and so grateful for what they have. We stopped into a little classroom which was 4 meters by 8 meters. In one corner was a little play area for the children and the rest of the room was filled with tables, chairs and books. The teacher told us how he was able to teach the children thanks to the generosity of their international friends. He was especially pleased to point out the play area. This was a 1 by 2 meter area in which was a little plastic slide, some books, some stuffed animals and a few other toys. He told me this area was donated by the son of an international company, they had a plaque on the wall in his honour, he emphasized numerous times that the son donated this area personally. I felt so ashamed listening to him. That play area probably cost a total of $200. To anyone in the west that is NOTHING.

If we each contributed that amount to organisations such as Gawad Kalinga, and even more than that cared about the people who are living in such terrible conditions. If we didn't support greed and corruption through carelessness and the desire for our own comfort, there would be no need for this man to be so grateful for a plastic slide donated by the president's son of an international company. Gawad Kalinga is very careful to honour their international friends who make their work possible. Every street and house is named after the person or company who donated to make that possible. To the people living on those streets and in those houses, those international donors are really their friends, people who finally took the time to look past the misery of their conditions and realise that they are people who deserve a nice house and a clean neighbourhood and water, and a place for their children to attend school.

The difference these houses has made to those living in the communities and those working to build new communities is incredible. For the first time in their lives they are treated with respect, and looked on as part of the solution to the problems in which they live. The rich who generally ignore them and look down on them donate the materials but more than that come and work beside them to build their houses.

After Baseco, we toured a site which will soon begin construction. A group of children gathered round me as we walked through the site, and every time I smiled at them they would huddle together and giggle. Ren translated for me, that as the children would giggle excitedly and talk amongst themselves they would say "the white girl smiled at me." They were so excited just to look at me, catch my eye, smile and then turn to their friends and tell their friends I had smiled at them.

We sat down in a room for our final talk about Gawad Kalinga. A number of volunteers who were touring the site to plan the build joined us. At the end, they asked us to share our experiences, and all present turned expectantly to me. I didn't know what to do. As I'd spent two days building with those living in such conditions, I'd actively been helping them change and able to be their friend. At this point I was only able to see them, to smile at them, to leave them. I'd been telling myself all morning to be strong, not to see their poverty, but to see them for who they are. But it is very difficult to view someone as a fellow person and then to view the conditions they live in without strong emotions. So I tried to share my thoughts and couldn't, I just cried. I cried and tried to stop, to thank them for all they were doing, and for the incredible experience they'd given to me but I couldn't, all I could do was cry. My sharing was not what I intended it to be.

I finally stopped crying and we took a picture all together, at which point Tam asked me what I thought of Gawad Kalinga. Talk about terrible timing. I managed to hold back the tears since the children were all waiting for me, looking at me, and I wanted to at least leave them with a smile. We walked back to the van, and I chatted somewhat with the children asking them their names and ages. One little girl left the group and came with me all the way to the van, where we hugged and then I left.

Gawad Kalinga Immersion Day 2

2007-03-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning we woke up at 6:30 so we could get to Talanay early for more work. We rented a jeepney to go to the other site, and a number of the SIGA kids skipped school to come help us build. It was the first time any of them had travelled to another Gawad Kalinga site, and they enjoyed the experience, although they said it felt a bit strange also. Having helped to build their own homes they were already experts and many commented that it was nice to help those in another community who were trying to achieve what they already had. Wednesday morning some of us again painted others of us helped make concrete. They had a big pile of sand that had to be sifted to remove the rocks. Two people held onto either end of a large sifter and shook back and forth while other people shovelled sand from the pile onto it. Once the pile of sand was big enough, the two people emptied the rocks onto a separate pile, while others filled up bags with the sand and transported them to another place where it was mixed with water to become concrete. The local kids were eager to help and loved sifting and shovelling sand. They'd work hard, tire quickly, and then run around for a bit before returning to help. A couple little boys climbed a tree nearby and would return with handfuls of small, red fruits from the tree which they encouraged us to eat. Even our Philippino friends had no idea what the fruits were, so I ate them and hoped I didn't become sick.

At breaktime the women were true to their word and gave us putopao. Putopao are little rice bread rolls with some sort of filling inside. No one in the community has a stove, so they must have gone to the local bakery to make them for us. They were so thrilled to offer me their local specialty, of course I was thrilled to eat it by then. I ate lunch with my sister Ann from Brookside at a local woman's cottage who owned a little sari-sari, a store which sells almost anything the community could need but in tiny packets for one meal or one day, which is all the people can afford to buy at a time. During our lunch break we sat outside and gradually most of the children came to play near us. One little boy in particular was such a clown, he would run at top speed towards almost anything or anyone, swerve just before killing himself at some incredible angle, then stop and grin at us waiting for approval. Philippinos, as a nation, are not camera shy. Once I took out my camera, the kids spent the next hour coming up with creative activities, poses, faces, anything so I would take a picture of them. I let one of the kids take a picture with the camera, and after that they all wanted to try so I had to tell them it ran out of batteries so I could get it back.

In the afternoon we taught a SIBOL class at the local school, of children 3-7 years old. Charisse and Ren taught the kids some english words, then we drew pictures together. One little girl came to the session late. There is a morning and and afternoon session of school for the children. This little girl generally attended school in the morning but she'd heard a foreigner was attending their school only in the afternoon so had gone home and cried to her mother. Her mother had then spoken with the teacher and she had received special permission to attend school in the afternoon to meet the foreigner. In my group, I had the little girl who arrived late, another little girl and a little boy. We each drew for each other what we wanted the other to have. Every single child in that school drew a house. A house was the best gift they had ever received, so when they thought of generosity they thought of giving a house. We then read a story to them, I read in English while Tam read in Tagalog. We sat at the front to read, and while I was reading one little girl began touching my leg, then another girl joined in, a little boy, then half the class was touching my leg. I think they wanted to check if my skin felt different to theirs. The teacher of course was mortified and told the children to sit back and stop touching my leg. Two little girls were quite creative and then draped themselves across my knees so they could continue touching my legs without getting in trouble.

One beautiful thing about my encounters with all these children, in all the GK communites I visited, was how open they were, within seconds I became their Ate. We didn't speak the same language at all, so instead they introduced me to their games and invented other ways to get to know me. One little girl named Aliah, from Brookside, about three years old attached herself to me within seconds of seeing me. For the next three days we were practically inseparable. I became her Ate, her horsey, her amusement park, and she became my little shadow. Her mom came up to me the second night and told me that Aliah wanted to sleep with me, it was heartbreaking whenever her mom had to take her away and she would cry to come back to me. When she did return she'd run up to me all smiles and pull at me until I picked her up.

Wednesday night we had our second talk on honour. I spoke on behalf of the WYA about Dignity and Honour. I mostly wanted to convey to the youth how special they are. They've come from tough backgrounds and haven't experienced much privilege yet they had been so warm, so generous, so happy, so filled with hope. So I spoke about dignity with them, and how it tied together all our experiences, and what they could do as part of the WYA to bring their experiences to others and how they could also continue to improve their lives and their communities through living out dignity. Their levels of english comprehension varied, so I tried to speak simply. One funny aspect was that I was playing with Aliah before I went up to speak. I knew I couldn't leave her behind or she'd be sad, so I just brought her up with me, sat her on my hip and had baby in one hand, mic in the other. Of course, all the kids thought it was hilarious to have me speaking to them holding one of their babies. After a while though my arm grew tired and I had to put her down. Without me holding onto her, she took one look at the crowd and ran for the nearest break in the chairs to escape the staring eyes.

WYA has volunteered for a while with another GK community, Castaneda. A number of the youth from that community drove an hour and a half to join us for that evening. Erika told me after my talk that one of the boys from Castaneda started to cry as I was speaking. After I finished speaking, we had a party together. Greg is a rapper and also breakdances, so he started the festivities, another volunteer did some freestyle. The SIGA kids performed a number of hiphop dances for us. They compete with other GK communities, and always win. They choreograph themselves and could win against many groups with professional choreographers, they were quite impressive and danced for more than 15 minutes with all the moves perfectly memorised. They called on a number of us volunteers to freestyle at one point, and I became one of the lucky victims. Greg, Zeus, some of the SIGA kids, myself and Gail were chosen to freestyle for everyone. Thankfully Gail and I were equally terrible, since everyone else chosen was a great dancer.

We also cooked everyone dinner, we made spaghetti and Erika brought chicken. Philippino style spaghetti would not be appreciated in Italy. Philippinos love everything sweet, including spaghetti. I don't dare give away the recipe but the kids loved our spaghetti, they gave us the highest compliment - that it tasted like McDonalds or Jollibee spaghetti.

Gawad Kalinga Immersion Day 1

2007-03-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning Renelyn, Tam and some others participated in a Gawad Kalinga immersion. Gawad Kalinga is an organisation which works transforming slums. They work with donors and the people living in the slums to build cottages. For people to qualify to have a cottage built for themselves, they first need to work a certain amount of time building cottages for their neighbours. The children are also enrolled in schools and in youth groups for their age. Healthcare is made available to the communities and different experts help with talks, with skills, with seeking jobs. The most important part of Gawad Kalinga is that it doesn't just give the poor what they need, the poor become partners in transforming their communities and themselves. There are homeowners associations, and the president of the association is typically the last one to receive their own house.

Our immersion consisted of working in one slum site, and staying in another community which had already been transformed. Tuesday morning we drove to Talanay and spent the morning painting - one important aspect of Gawad Kalinga is to make the communities beautiful, so the cottages are all painted bright, warm colours. There were a number of children who gathered to watch us and play nearby. The children all help whenever they're allowed, they tried to help us with painting but were shooed away by their parents for wasting paint. Another aspect of Gawad Kalinga is that the volunteers don't just come in, work, and leave. It is important that the volunteers meet and get to know the people living there, so breaks are scheduled frequently to allow opportunities to chat and hang out. During these breaks there is of course always food. Philippinos are very hospitable and very generous, even the slums we were always offered more food than we could eat. Our first morning break they made chocolate rice porridge for us. The whole time I was eating, the women watched me to ensure I liked it and asked me frequently if it was good. Thankfully it was delicious so I could honestly reply that I loved it. Afterwards they asked if I'd ever eaten putopao, and since I hadn't they promised me we would have it the next day for our snack.

After painting all morning we drove to Brookside, the Gawad Kalinga community which is already a community of beautiful cottages. We arrived at lunchtime and were taken to the school where there were some hotplates to cook on. Greg, our rapporteur with GK, asked the women how to cook rice and they went into detailed descriptions so I finally mentioned that I know how to cook rice. The women were so excited, they asked "you know how to cook?" yes, "you know how to cook rice?" yes, "without a rice cooker?" yes. So then two of them followed us down for proof of this novelty. I will confess the rice was a little mushy, the pots were designed to cook for upwards of 40 children at a time, so cooking for 7 was hard to measure but the women were still impressed.

We then walked up a little hill to the community center. In each GK community they organise productivity activities to allow the communities to be self sustaining. In Brookside the women bead flip-flops. We spent three hours beading flipflops with them, and not one of us finished a whole pair. Of course, the women were much faster than we were but it is quite a lot of effort, they sell the flip-flops for 100 pesos - the equivalent of $2USD. Each woman receives for the sale of one of her flip-flops 15 pesos. They are lucky to sell 3 or 4 flip-flops each/week. These tiny amounts of money enable the women to buy food, school supplies for their children, and mean the difference between surviving and begging.

Upon arrival to Brookside we were each given families, we ate and slept with our families and hung out with our brothers and sisters, I became Ate (big sister) to a fourteen year old girl named Ann. Tuesday evening, we all met in the community center for an evening activity with SIGA, the community youth group. GK focuses on hope, heroism, and honour in transforming the slums. There is a Tagalog word, bayani, which roughly translated into English means "one who carries a home" or hero. We listened to a talk on hope given by one man who used to be a millionaire and gave it all up to work full time for GK. The president of SIGA also spoke about hope, the president is 17 years old and studying information technology in university. He spoke about growing up in a slum and the transformation that happened to his life when he was able to live in a house, attend school and receive the opportunity to attend university and have hope for his future. He was shy about his english and interjected many of his sentences with "parang" rough translation "like." This caused the other kids endless amusement and him much shyness but his talk was beautiful.

Mabuhay Manila!

2007-02-25T23:17:00.000-08:00

I left Lebanon and met up with Ann in the Dubai airport, together we flew to Manila. We arrived to 33 degree weather! It is so hot here, I understand now why Filipinos have a reputation to bathe three times per day and use lots of cologne and creams in between so they always smell nice. I've decided when in the Philippines to do as the Filipinos do, and never leave home without a bottle of Johnson's baby cologne. Ann and I were met at the airport and taken through the ambassador's passport line, Erika met us at baggage pickup, what a lovely welcome.

Our first day we had dinner with Erika and her family, Renelyn - the next Director of Asia Pacific, Tam - the Director of Operations, and Michelle - our favourite and best lawyer, no introduction necessary. Thursday we rested then went to the pearl market in the afternoon. It was slightly overwhelming to wander through aisles of pearls and always be confronted with yet more aisles of pearls. Ann was the best bargainer of all of us, and helped me out with my last purchase to get a better price. The Philippines are wonderful, all our meetings revolve around food and the food is delicious. We're fed lots of delicious mangoes, although apparently its the off season so they're not as sweet as normal. I can only imagine how many I would eat during mango season.

Friday we toured Intramuros, that is the old section of Manila which was built by the Spanish centuries ago. The Spanish largely ignored the Philippines who were able to keep their language and traditions alive, the greatest impact the Spanish had was to convert much of the Philippines to Catholicism from Islam, although the Philippines remains Islamic in the south. The Philippines was sold to the Americans during the Spanish American war, at the Treaty of Paris, and then became an American colony. The Americans considered the Filipinos to be "little brown Americans" since the culture was so readily accepted with all the technology it brought. Manila has a glorious past, it used to be called the pearl of the orient and was a beautiful city. During WWII, the Japanese invaded and General MacArthur left with his famous words "I shall return." He did return and to prevent the Japanese from keeping Manila he bombed it completely, Manila was the second most destroyed city during World War II. The Japanese for their part decided that if they couldn't have the city neither could the Filipinos, and they proceeded to massacre thousands of Filipinos before they were killed.

Manila is now a sprawling city with much of its beautiful, colonial architecture destroyed. There are slums scattered around and "informal settlers" even in the wealthier neighbourhoods. WYA here is partnering with an organisation called Gawad Kalinga which builds homes in the slums through partnerships among those living within the slums and those who donate the money. They work on the principle of building more than just homes and for people to donate they must work to help build the homes themselves. They've also started to implement programs for the children and for the sustainable development of the communities through agriculture and other means.

Saturday we had a Track A accreditation session with the interns here. There are four interns and they were quite shy at first. Their responses to the questions and about WYA were very insightful. At one point we asked what is the internship program. Mikho responded that "it is the best program in the world." Michelle responded that it "familiarizes you with the WYA database" and you "learn how to make coffee." Mikho also told us that the WYA is fun because youth equals fun, and that he had an acronym for fun: Friendship in the United Nations. When we discussed solidarity and poverty I asked if it was better to speak with beggars or to ignore them if you are unable to help them. Michelle stated that its hard to give money because often they don't receive the benefits of their begging since they are part of a syndicate, but its also hard to say no to a street child who desperately needs food and help. She said the hardest is to look them in the eyes as they're begging because it hurts. When you're stuck in traffic and their faces are at the window and they stare at you asking for money what do you do if you have no food or money, tell them you have nothing? When they continue to stare at you do you look back and smile at them, do you just stare back at them, do you look away and pretend they're not there? There was nothing more to discuss after that, it hurts to look at someone who is reduced to begging and it hurts to give knowing it doesn't help them and it hurts to not give knowing they need it.

After the accreditation session we went to Erika's house for a tea-party. Many members and friends of the WYA were there; the national committee members, Tam's and Ren's parents, some professors, representatives from other organisations, it was good to finally meet the people I've heard so much about and who are working so closely with Erika, Tam and Renelyn to bring WYA to Asia Pacific. I was especially excited to meet Aliah, a member from Mindanao in the southern Philippines. She's done so much work for the WYA and has so much initiative. I was able to meet her, and learned of some other activities and ideas she has to lay the foundation for the WYA and get more young people involved in Mindanao.

Sunday Tam and I went to the beach. We drove to the north to the west coast and swam in the South China Sea. We were hoping to surf but the waves were too small so we swam instead. The water was beautiful, warm and clear. In fact Tam and her friends felt the water was slightly chilly and not very clear, but compared to the Atlantic it was lovely. The beach is from volcanic ash so was rocky and tough in places though a nice white sand in most places. We ate lunch at a turo-turo near the beach, a small cantina with home cooked food. Turo-turo means point point, so called because the food is already there and you simply point at the foods you wish to eat, it is so cheap we ate all we could for less than $1 USD per person. The drive to the beach took 2.5 hours, and 5 hours to return to Manila. Being a Sunday evening the traffic was intense, even more so than usual.

Today we met up in the morning for a strategic planning session to discuss current and new programs to implement here and throughout the region, of course it was quite exciting and we all have lots of work to do to implement our ideas. We ate breakfast during the meeting, and then had lunch after our meeting. Now we're heading to the office and will meet with Tam's family for supper of Chinese food. It would be so easy to become fat here since the food is pretty international but the best is taken from all the cultures. Pa alam - goodbye!

Meeting Lebanon

2007-02-25T23:10:00.001-08:00

Monday and Tuesday Anna and I went to a number of meetings. We spoke at two universities and to a number of intellectuals and interested persons. I was so impressed by the reception of the WYA. The youth and professors immediately understood what the WYA does and enquired about how to become involved. Our introductory sessions in both universities quickly took the form of strategic planning sessions. They informed us of their activities, their contacts, their capabilities and asked what our plans were for the middle east and how we could collaborate. In one university, the dean asked about our training program and offered to incorporate it into the university curriculum, as well as beginning a WYA chapter sponsored by the university so that students could receive credit for submitting their answers. At the other university, the students are already working with thousands of school children throughout Lebanon and the middle east region, helping students to discuss and solve problems through dialogue rather than conflict and were eager to incorporate the message of the WYA into their program.

Our reception was quite amazing, I couldn't get over how quickly they understood the importance of dignity and how willing they were to make it work. One student offered this insight "in Lebanon we have 17 official religions and we suffer from religious conflict, each religion closely allies itself with a political party and we suffer from political conflict. Generally peace is sought through politics and inter-faith dialogue, those aren't working for us and we see dignity as the solution where these other methods fail." Needless to say, there is a great deal of hope for peace in the middle east with young people working to promote the dignity of the person within the region.

My last day in Lebanon, Habib Malik and another professor Bassam Lahoud took us sightseeing through the south of Lebanon which was the hardest hit during the war of last summer. All the bridges in southern Lebanon had been bombed, while most have already been rebuilt many are still under construction or have yet to be touched. We toured Tyre and Sidon and witnessed bombed out buildings, and also areas which already appear beautiful. In Sidon we walked through the remains of an old fortress built by the crusaders, the fortress was built on Roman ruins and had columns incorporated into the walls for additional strength. The fortress overlooks the Mediterranean sea at a port which is still used today. In Tyre we walked through a Roman archaelogical site. The Roman site was built on top of a Byzantine city, and in many places archaeologists have exposed the layering of Roman over Byzantine in the architecture, along the pathways, and in the decoration. Some cities in Lebanon are composed of as many as 17 layers, as different civilizations have built on top of previous civilizations. In a country with such a long, diverse history, it is hardly surprising that it has such great religious and cultural diversity. This diversity offers many advantages in the art, the culture, the food, travel, and many other areas. Currently it is not treasured as it should be, and in such a tiny country each group is vying for complete power over the others rather than seeking to work together.

We drove to within 20 km of the Israel/Lebanon border, but were unable to drive any closer. One reason being I had to return to Beirut on time to catch my plane. The second reason being that within those 20 km are numerous roadblocks which would take hours to go through and of course the border is also closed. We ate supper at a restaurant in a small city within the mountains east of Sidon. The restaurant was a unique experience as the owner and his wife informed us upon arrival of what they were serving for lunch, aka what we would be eating, and subsequently brought out appetizers and dessert for us. It was much more similar to paying grandparents to cook for you than to eating at a restaurant. Thankfully Lebanese food is quite tasty and so we really enjoyed our meal. Lebanese hospitality is much more than pleasant rumours, Anna and I were continually fed traditional Lebanese food during our stay, and since it is healthy and delicious we happily ate all we were offered.

Flying into Beirut

2007-02-19T11:12:00.001-08:00

Not literally, I landed quite safely at the Beirut airport which has undergone much construction since the war of last summer in which it was bombed. Beirut is beautiful, its right on the mediterranean. The city is mostly white houses and buildings overlooking a turquoise and deeper blue sea. We've been lucky to have lovely weather while here, although rain was forecasted it's been mostly sunny and warm during the days. Up in the mountains its chillier and breezier but close to sea level I can even go without a jacket if I'm walking.

The Lebanese should all be fat, they've shown us such hospitality that except for upon arrival I haven't had to buy any food and go to bed pleasantly stuffed each night. There is snow in the tips of the mountains! It is possible to ski in the middle east. We've been told that in April it's possible to ski in the mountains, drive one hour to the sea and then swim! Imagine what a blissful day that would be.

Habib Malik has set up a number of meetings for Anna and myself. The first day I arrived we went to his house for dinner and met with a number of intellectuals and professionals in different fields. I truly believe genius runs in families, his cousins and relatives were the majority of those we met and were all such accomplished and distinguished persons. It was a fruitful meeting with much enthusiasm generated about the future of the WYA in Lebanon, and commitments to help however they could.

Saturday morning we spoke at an inter-faith organisation called CrossTalk. There are classrooms for children from 3 years to adults, where they can meet and discuss the commonalities and differences of their faiths in a positive manner and also participate in cultural activities together. We presented the WYA to a number of the older students and some of the teachers who were all excited for the WYA. A number of them were amazed to learn how many members WYA has, and as one boy stated "I didn't realise there were so many good people in the world, I thought it was mostly evil but now I see it isn't."

Anna and I then spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday touring nearby Lebanon. We visited the Virgin of Lebanon. A statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, located at the top of a hill near Beirut This statue is quite large and looks out over many cities and can be seen at night for quite a distance illuminated on the hillside. We then walked through downtown Beirut. Many buildings were harmed or destroyed by bombs in the war last summer and the buildings are either under repair or being rebuilt. The downtown is beautiful but almost deserted. We had a spanish photographer take our picture - he was so excited to see tourists! We also met a rather odd journalist, an american girl living in Lebanon, who interviewed us on a home recorder to tell her friends back home that it was safe to travel to Beirut, two other americans alive in Beirut as proof.

We walked through the gallery districts which were empty and were told that the benches in the square could not be sat upon because security was so strict, if someone sat down for a substantial length of time they would be asked to leave by the military or police (who were standing nearby monitoring) since it would look suspicious. We then walked by the government buildings where protesters representative of every political party are camped out in front. The protesters have divided their tents into areas representative of their party. The protesters are separated from the streets and buildings by barbed wire and armed barricades, while we were there however it was quite quiet. A number of young men/boys were playing soccer in the streets just across from their tents. Women covered from head to foot walked past the guards nonchalantly, while others relaxed in their tents watching television. I tried to take a few pictures and learned quickly that it was absolutely fine to take pictures, but just had to warn anyone who might be in the picture first. Some of the protesters are quite important persons in the party, the country, or their religion and object to having their pictures taken. I'm sure there are also enough tourists and journalists always taking pictures that they've had to implement the rules to protect their privacy somewhat.

We left the tents and walked a block down through designer stores and fancy cafes. There were three young boys playing soccer in the streets while the father looked on from a distance. There was a soldier in the center of the square who also joined in the game whenever the ball came close enough for him to participate without leaving his post. It was amazing to see this young soldier, not more than 25 years, playing soccer with three small boys while he carried a massive gun slung across his shoulder. Life goes on even in the midst of war and conflict.

Sunday we visited the tomb of St. Charbel. St. Charbel was a lebanese monk and mystic who lived in the hills and had the stigmata while alive. Many miracles have been attributed to him both while he was alive and after his death and he is highly revered by the Lebanese Christians. I should mention that in this tiny country which takes 2.5 hours to drive from tip to tip without traffic, inhabited by 4 million people, there are 17 official religions. There is no problem here of indifference or disbelief, rather the citizens must work to understand and appreciate their differences. As one member stated today "we have the same problems as the rest of the world, we're just more upfront with them and in a smaller country so we're forced to confront them."

Sunday we were able to visit the city of Byblos, this city is apparently 5,000 years old, has 17 layers from different civilizations and proudly sent off the Phoenicians to enlighten the rest of the world centuries ago. There is some beautiful architecture and scenery in Byblos. There are gardens filled with orange trees, avocado trees, almond trees, olive trees, pecan trees, etc. There is such a beautiful contrast among the orange trees dripping with large balls of sunlight scattered through the greenery, beside the almond trees in full bloom with delicate white petals, beisde the olive trees with their silvery green leaves, a little slice of paradise. The Lebanese say that when the world was created Lebanon was the macquette for the rest of the world since it has everything here - mountains, valleys, beaches, snow - the rest of the world received the fruits of God's experimentation within Lebanon which got expanded to larger expanses in the rest of the world.

delayed

2007-02-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

Although I have now been in Lebanon four days, I will finish with events in Kenya before proceeding to keep the stories mostly chronological.

My last two days in Kenya we spoke at two of the best high schools in Kenya. During my talks I asked the students, if they could speak to the ambassadors at the United Nations to request focus on certain areas what would they ask for to improve the world for the youth? The students listed a number of areas: education, job availability, good governance, healthcare, opportunities for children to develop their talents, opportunities for travel, end to racism, end to conflict, and other areas. When I then mentioned what the youth had focused on back in 1999 for the founding of the UN they all gasped, they couldn't believe it, they looked at each other in shock, discussed it amongst themselves, stared at me in disbelief. Finally after two or three minutes I was able to regain their attention and move forward to discuss the WYA. They were so excited about the WYA, right away they all signed up made plans to begin a WYA club at their school with the full approval of the faculty. They also asked us if we would allow them to help us with marketing and fundraising. Of course we would, they were so excited to learn that while learning about human dignity they could actively promote it also, I think the WYA in Kenya has an excellent future if these students remain committed and take their ideas to fruition.

On Valentine's Day Mr. Beauttah invited us to attend a fundraiser at Mamba Village where he works for an organisation which works to empower women and young girls through education, skills training and microfinancing. I sat at the head table with Ann Seabright, the Vice President of Kenya, the Director of the organisation, and the owners of Mamba Village. They were all quite excited to learn about the WYA and the VP of Kenya is now a friend of the WYA! He seems to be a great man and really understood the purpose of the WYA and fully supports it. Mrs. Muturu - the wife of the owner of Mamba Village, was seated to my left and she engaged me with questions about the WYA. Finally she just loved it and stated that "if young people respected their own dignity and the dignity of others, we wouldn't have problems with conflict, with corruption, with starvation, with abuse of women, with pornography." She got so excited, she introduced me to her adult children who were there and told them all about the WYA. She so fully understood all the implications of persons living their dignity.

Mr. Beauttah mc'd the ocassion. He introduced the Director of the Kianda foundation, who spoke a few words. Then, without any prior warning he introduced me and asked me to speak! I had no desire to speak at a fundraiser for another organisation, in front of the VP of Kenya and without preparation. I breathed deeply and pretended as though this happened all the time, stood up and spoke briefly about the WYA. I was grateful I'd previously been speaking with the director of Kianda foundation about how our work overlapped through the understanding of dignity and its applications for the women they work with, so I was able to mention that in my remarks. There was a male singing group and a famous Kenyan singer there that evening, so once the dinner was over and the VP left we relaxed and danced.

There and back again...

2007-02-14T00:58:00.000-08:00

Sunday afternoon we travelled back to Kigali and had a brief meeting with the World Youth Alliance committee members there. We then went to Eric Kacou's house for supper, he works for On the Frontier and helped us arrange transportation and lodging for while we were in Rwanda. We discovered upon arrival that it was his birthday and he'd invited another friend over. We had a lovely mix of Indian and West African food; fish and fried bananas actually taste really good together! He asked a number of questions about World Youth Alliance and proposed a number of ideas of activites and new areas for us to reach out to more people. His ideas were so great and so numerous, I didn't want to take notes in the middle of dinner so I instead concentrated on each idea he gave so I could remember it afterwards. Apparently Winnie and Ann felt the same, the minute we got back to the hotel we had a brainstorming session to be sure we wrote down all the ideas he'd given to us so we could use them for the future.

Monday we flew back to Nairobi arriving in the evening. Mr. Beauttah had arranged for a transportation minister to meet us. He helped us get through the visa qeues much faster and we also learned a lesson; when travelling through Kenya en route to somewhere else we will from now on be Transit, it is less than half the cost of a tourist visa!

I arrived to Nick and Caroline's the earliest i have yet, around 6pm. Caroline and I walked along a dirt road to Strathmore University so I could access internet. She has an office here, which I have faithfully visited the past three mornings. The road at one point dips somewhat so that it is always full of dirty, muddy water. There are two ways to cross, you can either jump from rock to rock through the puddle if the water level is not too high, or you can balance along a little concrete railing that crosses over sewage water. Caroline prefers to stone hop, while I prefer to balance since I am generally in sandals. Last night though there was a downpour and today we both had to cross over the sewage water since all the stones were drowned.

Yesterday we met with a member from Uganda, Saidi. He became a member of the WYA just over a year ago after he discovered us online. He then attended an international leadership conference here in Nairobi along with representatives of the WYA from a number of different African countries. Since returning to Uganda he has recruited 600 WYA members! He has recruited politicians, VIP's, friends of the WYA, and of course, members. He has taken so much initiative! This coming November the Commonwealth meeting is happening in Uganda, and Saidi has already registered the WYA as one of the official youth organisations to participate in the Commonwealth youth meeting just before. He is very respectful in his speech, and has great respect for Winnie and Esther. He refers to them both as Mama Esther and Mama Winnie. He was then excited to see once again Mama Ann, I however am called "my president." When he speaks to me or to another about me or in front of me he acknowledges "my president." We had lunch at Strathmore university hosted by Mrs. Beauttah.

We then went to the Bomas, which is Swahili for the homesteads, where they show traditional Kenyan dances. The dances were beautiful, and I must run now so will continue later...

DRC

2007-02-12T22:50:00.000-08:00

Goma is a town which used to be a lake. There is a live volcano just outside the town, and apparently over hundreds of years of eruptions, the lake filled in and became populated to become the city of Goma. Just 5 years ago, the volcano erupted again and lava submerged half the town. Close to the Rwandan border the town is normal, but halfway through the town, the roads give way to scraped over hardened lava. The old roads are about 6 meters under, and there is a lot of construction activity throughout the town to rebuild. Due to the recent elections and rebel generals in the mountains nearby combined with rebuilding efforts post-volcanic eruption, there is also much UN activity. Every 3rd vehicle is a UN vehicle of some form, and we drove by buildings or signs for probably every single UN agency which exists, from UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, just UN, etc.

We were hosted for lunch by a lovely family who own a house situated on Lake Kivu. They have a beautiful house, and we sat out on the terrace overlooking the lake while chatting. Jacques invited many MP's, journalists, and other persons of importance to join us for lunch. I was unable to meet with them, I was extremely grateful to the family for offering me a bed to lie down on so I didn't stare at them all like a wet, moldy, blanket since I felt pretty sick. Ann and Winnie said the lunch went well, and the conversation was an interesting mix of French, English and Swahili as people tried to communicate however they could.

Jacques had organised a conference for us nearby along with a number of other organisations. I sat at the front with a representative from UNA, someone who worked with the pygmies in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and a member of another NGO. We also had some local artists. One poet, Theophile, came and presented a poem about peace and solidarity, while a singer, Tonton Sambo, and rapper also presented some songs along the same theme. Winnie gave a brief introduction to the WYA, and then Ann presented her work as chair of the WYA board and why she travelled to Africa, then I spoke about some of the ideas of the Alliance. I tried to give a 5 minute introduction to human dignity, freedom, responsible stewardship and solidarity and how they lead to peace. Jacques translated for all of us. Poor fellow, a couple minutes into my speech he stopped, turned to me and said in a little voice "cette philosophie..." I was very impressed and grateful for his translation. Without him, the only message I could have conveyed would have been "je ne pas parle francaise..."

After our seminar Jacques and the WYA members there presented us with T-shirts produced for the recent elections encouraging young people to vote. One member also came up to me and handed me a portrait he'd sketched of me during my talk. It is actually very good, he even captured my hair flying away in the heat :) which of course I would have preferred that he left out. We then went to a local restaurant for drinks with the members and other speakers. It was great to be able to meet with them, they're all very excited about WYA and ready to take a lot of initiative. This was the first time I really wished I spoke french since I was only able to communicate with a few of them.

The next morning we attended a local Church in Gisenyi which was all in Kinyarwanda, I didn't understand a word of course, but I enjoyed the singing and clapping. Ann loves the children here, and halfway through Church a little girl left her family towards the front, walked all the way to the back and plunked herself on Ann's lap, she didn't leave her place until Church was over. Speaking of Ann, she is quite a celebrity here everywhere we travel. They are all grateful that she has travelled to Africa to be with them, but once she mentions she has 10 children it's over. From that point on she is their mother, and they love her, and they introduce her to everyone and say "and how many children do you think she has?" small pause for effect "10!!!!" gasps of disbelief from the listeners who then look to Ann for confirmation. Ann only has to give a slight nod and smile and they crowd up to her and tell her she is African like them, and how wonderful to have 10, they are so excited to meet a westerner with more than 2 children!

Kigali to Gisenyi

2007-02-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

After leaving the children behind we set out on our drive to Gisenyi in the northeast corner of Rwanda along Lake Kivu. The drive to Gisenyi is beautiful, we travelled through the mountains along narrow, winding roads, the occasional pothole which became more occasional the farther we drove from Kigali. Rwanda has such beautiful vegetation, it is unlike any other country, flora, vegetation I've ever seen. The mountains are lush, with vivacious red dirt (vivacious really does describe the dirt even though those two ideas are generally not coupled), banana trees growing alongside the mountains, chocolatey brown rivers and waterfalls, small villages snuggled close to the roads composed of either huts or little brick buildings. The scenery was so beautiful, and varied, and a photographer could spend months there and produce multiple books and still not run out of material. The Rwandese are very industrious, the roads have a steady stream of human traffic walking, biking, carrying food, items, babies, anything that could be carried. If these people were to enter the Olympics for distance running, the competition could change, every day they trek up and down mountainsides carrying loads of bricks, carrots, bananas, trees, water, everything they could possibly need on their heads or pushing bikes, or in other contraptions they've invented.

We arrived in Gisenyi around 7 and bedded down for the night 15 minutes away from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Saturday we met with our member Jacques from the Congo for breakfast and then travelled across the border. We walked across the border beside Lake Kivu. The border is quite an interesting place, security must do its job since so many people were clamouring to get visas on both sides, but I don't know how they keep track of who has visas since there is such a crowd of people at the windows and away from the windows they don't check too closely. I've got to run now. Caroline is letting me use the internet at her work, but it's getting dark now and we need to walk back to her house. I'll tell more about DRC when I get another chance.