I'll make this post short for a change of pace.
This city makes me really happy. Everyone is so nice to one another. I've gotten serious life advice from three out of five old men-strangers I've come across. One was really certain I could open my own small business selling anything, "NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS, YOU HEAR ME?". It was sweet. My host mom was slightly less touched when she heard of the screaming old man story though. Plus, there's this really great locally owned dumpster company that has all these inspirational sayings on them. My friend and I kind of have this running joke, "All the stuff my parents should have told me growing up, I can find on FERO garbage cans."(Kidding, Mom)
Thanksgiving was amazing. My host family took Sharon and I apple picking, and we enjoyed a fantastic family supper Sunday night. When Corey, my host dad, was picking apart the turkey to determine which parts to keep, Sharon asked if we were going to throw out the cartilage and bones. We ended up making a third pile for Sharon since Ghanaians often fry up cartilage and chow down on bone enamel. I can't complain though... The heart, neck, and tail of the turkey were friggin' delicious. Sharon's a mean cook.
Lastly, I wanted to say some of the environmental initiatives Moncton's got going on. Monday was Sharon and Miles' EAD and we went to my host mom's school to learn about it. It's a LEED school, meaning it has a certificate declaring it creates less pollution, uses less energy, and less water. They have waterless urinals! And ninety percent of their light is natural. They also have an Arbortum, a gym floor made completely out of recycled bubblegum (chewed too!) and light censors in every room that shut off all power if no movement is detected within a twenty minute period. All the temperature settings are controlled from Halifax. A group of people sit there and constantly change the temperature based on the CO2 level detected within the school to create the best oxygen for learning. It's insane. It's also a public school! But it isn't owned by the government... It's whats known as a P3 school, meaning a company owns it. I don't know all of the intricacies, but I do know they're rare. It's only been open since September, and it's the second one in all of New Brunswick. Very cool, anyway.
Personal things I've taken to, to help the environment include "scattered showers" (turning the water off in between moments you aren't using it. The steam keeps you warm, and it really does save tons of water), hiding water bottles half-filled with sand in the backs of old toilets to stop the water levels from rising so high (it's completely safe and sanitary), and walking, a lot. Fun fact, did you know it take 80, 000 liters of water to create a cell phone? Aka, STOP BUYING A DIFFERENT ONE EACH YEAR. All this info comes from a "Sources" workshop we took part in two weeks ago. Plus, watch this video if you never have, BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING (as well as all their other videos).
http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/
Well, that's all for now guys!
Oh, interesting cultural difference fact!
Ghanaians call flip-flops, "slippers" and underwear, "pants" and glasses, "spectacles". It's definitely because they were colonized by the British. It makes things confusing as hell sometimes though. :)
Sunday 16 October 2011
Thursday 6 October 2011
The Group! (Plus Katimivik participants)
The shirts and necklaces all of the CWY participants are wearing were made by my Ghanaian supervisor's brother. <3
AAAAAAACKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!
(Warning, extreme length ahead. Please read this post in parts, if at all. )
It has been so long since I've arrived!!
Two weeks and five days is like three months in Canada World Youth time, so I'll do my very best to make up for my lack of blogging. My reason, or excuse I suppose, is the lack of computer technology I have available to me... But I will make time nonetheless. To be honest, I wanted to be settled out of limbo before I started tackling the blog, so here I am!
My counterpart and host family ROCK. It took forever to find us a place to stay though, and we only moved in on Sunday (hence the limbo). Jessica (my host mom) is an English teacher and her boyfriend Corey teaches people to be pilots. They're great. Young, stick to home cooked meals, and like my music taste! I couldn't ask for more. (Plus, they have nice smelling hand soap. I really don't ask for much.) I will post photos and videos very soon!
Sharon, my counterpart, is like my better half and mother rolled all into one. We've shared a bed since the beginning, so personal space is an unheard of concept. She's from a small village but went to boarding school in the capital city for most of her school life, like a lot of the Ghanaians. She's crazy independent, headstrong, and basically tuts lovingly around reminding me to do this and that. She also has some of the most beautiful black eyes I've ever witnessed... which gently leads us into my next topic:
The gorgeously exotic Ghanaians.
If I thought it was difficult coming to school in Canada where I was self-conscious about being a scrawny, awkward, pale female, this trip has basically caused me a miniature meltdown. The Ghanaian girls include Mary, Lokita, Priscilla, Chris and Sharon. Three of those five girls have beautifully braided hair down to their waists that put the rarity of their names to shame. Not to mention every one of them have warm cocoa skin, angular, delicate faces, full, wide-set mouths and the kind of hips that would make fun of my hips in middle school, and pick my hips last for soccer, and throw food at my hips while.. you get the point. I show up each day with hair that looks like an angry luffa resting on my head and pain in my heart that I will never be a black woman.
But it is a reality I must face.
Even one of the Ghanaian boys pointed it out.. "The women here are... shapeless."
In my defensive mind I retorted, "FLAT IS A SHAPE!!"
It's all good fun though. The group is a such a wonderful throng of kids, and I fit right in despite being two weeks late. I could tell you hilarious stories about each one of them, but without photos I feel it would begin to get somewhat dry. I will tell you though that we have wittily named ourselves Team Ghanada.
Lastly I wanted to go through my schedule and end with a few amusing cultural differences I've come across to close each blog post.
Mondays: EADs (Education Activity Day)
Basically, the entire group is paired off with a person of the other culture, given a topic, and told to plan events and lessons around it. Eric (my partner) and I were given Environment. Our presentation isn't until November but we have a few ideas up our sleeves including having a speaker come in to explain how to make a compost, the reasoning behind Moncton's Wet and Dry garbage system, and an outing to plant trees!
Tuesdays & Thursdays: Volunteer at the YWCA (Like the YMCA specifically for women, sort of) from 9-4. I do a variety of things from office work to watching kids.
Wednesdays: Same times, but I work at the Canadian Mental Health Association from 9-12 and then at YouthQUEST from 1-6. CMHA is probably the most professional place I work at. We do things like design invitations and slide shows, and put together presentation packages for specific age groups. YouthQUEST (my personal fav) can be described as follows by a fellow group member who also works there:
"YouthQUEST is awesome; it’s a resource centre for at-risk youth. They can come in, play video games, eat food, use computers, shower, laundry, get counseling, find jobs, take GED classes, and a wide variety of other things. It reminds me of a combination of JobStart and after-school care. Everyone there was very respectful, although it’s visible how these youth are troubled. My job is mostly to engage them, make sure they’re doing alright, or just talk to them." (By Miles/Dallas/Miami)
Fridays:
Work on our committees (I'm part of the Entertainment committee), plan events, and volunteer at whatever place we haven't helped the heck out of yet! Sometimes it's the YMCA, the St. George Church or the Caring Kitchen.
Saturdays and Sundays:
Chill OUT. Spend time with my host family! We haven't spent a weekend together yet and Jess' entire family is coming down for Thanksgiving starting tomorrow, so for the moment, chilling out is still a distant, far off dream that may one day be fulfilled.
Amusing Cultural Differences:
-The Ghanaians have no concept of a "nice day". This is a Canadian term meaning, GO OUTSIDE BECAUSE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO EVER AGAIN ONCE THE SEASONS CHANGE. When Sharon and I temporarily lived with my other host mom named Colleen with Zoe and Chris (two other members of our group), Zoe and I often nudged at the girls to come for walks with us while we still could. Now that opportunity has drifted away, but poor Sharon is still clinging on to those sandals of hers. I don't have the heart to tell her she'd be better off trying to get her shoes to tap dance before they'd be useful here again.
-Sharon cracked an egg with a knife yesterday, and added sugar and milk to her K.D. to make some sort of breakfast porridge. She also hates hot dogs. She says they taste like plastic, which they kind of do. Silly Canadians, forgetting to taste food!
-Ghanaians say good luck when you sneeze instead of bless you :)
Fun, fun stuff!
I will write much more frequently about day to day events, promise!
Yayyy!
It has been so long since I've arrived!!
Two weeks and five days is like three months in Canada World Youth time, so I'll do my very best to make up for my lack of blogging. My reason, or excuse I suppose, is the lack of computer technology I have available to me... But I will make time nonetheless. To be honest, I wanted to be settled out of limbo before I started tackling the blog, so here I am!
My counterpart and host family ROCK. It took forever to find us a place to stay though, and we only moved in on Sunday (hence the limbo). Jessica (my host mom) is an English teacher and her boyfriend Corey teaches people to be pilots. They're great. Young, stick to home cooked meals, and like my music taste! I couldn't ask for more. (Plus, they have nice smelling hand soap. I really don't ask for much.) I will post photos and videos very soon!
Sharon, my counterpart, is like my better half and mother rolled all into one. We've shared a bed since the beginning, so personal space is an unheard of concept. She's from a small village but went to boarding school in the capital city for most of her school life, like a lot of the Ghanaians. She's crazy independent, headstrong, and basically tuts lovingly around reminding me to do this and that. She also has some of the most beautiful black eyes I've ever witnessed... which gently leads us into my next topic:
The gorgeously exotic Ghanaians.
If I thought it was difficult coming to school in Canada where I was self-conscious about being a scrawny, awkward, pale female, this trip has basically caused me a miniature meltdown. The Ghanaian girls include Mary, Lokita, Priscilla, Chris and Sharon. Three of those five girls have beautifully braided hair down to their waists that put the rarity of their names to shame. Not to mention every one of them have warm cocoa skin, angular, delicate faces, full, wide-set mouths and the kind of hips that would make fun of my hips in middle school, and pick my hips last for soccer, and throw food at my hips while.. you get the point. I show up each day with hair that looks like an angry luffa resting on my head and pain in my heart that I will never be a black woman.
But it is a reality I must face.
Even one of the Ghanaian boys pointed it out.. "The women here are... shapeless."
In my defensive mind I retorted, "FLAT IS A SHAPE!!"
It's all good fun though. The group is a such a wonderful throng of kids, and I fit right in despite being two weeks late. I could tell you hilarious stories about each one of them, but without photos I feel it would begin to get somewhat dry. I will tell you though that we have wittily named ourselves Team Ghanada.
Lastly I wanted to go through my schedule and end with a few amusing cultural differences I've come across to close each blog post.
Mondays: EADs (Education Activity Day)
Basically, the entire group is paired off with a person of the other culture, given a topic, and told to plan events and lessons around it. Eric (my partner) and I were given Environment. Our presentation isn't until November but we have a few ideas up our sleeves including having a speaker come in to explain how to make a compost, the reasoning behind Moncton's Wet and Dry garbage system, and an outing to plant trees!
Tuesdays & Thursdays: Volunteer at the YWCA (Like the YMCA specifically for women, sort of) from 9-4. I do a variety of things from office work to watching kids.
Wednesdays: Same times, but I work at the Canadian Mental Health Association from 9-12 and then at YouthQUEST from 1-6. CMHA is probably the most professional place I work at. We do things like design invitations and slide shows, and put together presentation packages for specific age groups. YouthQUEST (my personal fav) can be described as follows by a fellow group member who also works there:
"YouthQUEST is awesome; it’s a resource centre for at-risk youth. They can come in, play video games, eat food, use computers, shower, laundry, get counseling, find jobs, take GED classes, and a wide variety of other things. It reminds me of a combination of JobStart and after-school care. Everyone there was very respectful, although it’s visible how these youth are troubled. My job is mostly to engage them, make sure they’re doing alright, or just talk to them." (By Miles/Dallas/Miami)
Fridays:
Work on our committees (I'm part of the Entertainment committee), plan events, and volunteer at whatever place we haven't helped the heck out of yet! Sometimes it's the YMCA, the St. George Church or the Caring Kitchen.
Saturdays and Sundays:
Chill OUT. Spend time with my host family! We haven't spent a weekend together yet and Jess' entire family is coming down for Thanksgiving starting tomorrow, so for the moment, chilling out is still a distant, far off dream that may one day be fulfilled.
Amusing Cultural Differences:
-The Ghanaians have no concept of a "nice day". This is a Canadian term meaning, GO OUTSIDE BECAUSE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO EVER AGAIN ONCE THE SEASONS CHANGE. When Sharon and I temporarily lived with my other host mom named Colleen with Zoe and Chris (two other members of our group), Zoe and I often nudged at the girls to come for walks with us while we still could. Now that opportunity has drifted away, but poor Sharon is still clinging on to those sandals of hers. I don't have the heart to tell her she'd be better off trying to get her shoes to tap dance before they'd be useful here again.
-Sharon cracked an egg with a knife yesterday, and added sugar and milk to her K.D. to make some sort of breakfast porridge. She also hates hot dogs. She says they taste like plastic, which they kind of do. Silly Canadians, forgetting to taste food!
-Ghanaians say good luck when you sneeze instead of bless you :)
Fun, fun stuff!
I will write much more frequently about day to day events, promise!
Yayyy!
Friday 16 September 2011
"Tomorrow Untrodden"
Hey Y'all,
So, I'm sitting here in my room at 12:55 a.m., the night before I leave, thinking about what I'll miss the most from our wonderful town. Indescribable people? Snow? Stars?
But then I remind myself to digress and think instead of what I'm looking forward to most...
For those of you who aren't in the know, I'm heading off for six months tomorrow with Canada World Youth. It's basically been my dream since my wonderfully handsome brother (ha), Phil, went away a few years back. I'm "stoked", as the young in's say. It will probably change my life and it's a change I've anxiously been waiting for. My good friend Devin told me I would definitely return with some sort of worldly moustache but I'm hoping it was a metaphor and not actually the difference in myself I've been looking forward to...
The more perceptive of you may have noticed my blog name was wittily crafted out of a cheesy One Republic lyric but I stand by it! Ghana (one of two destinations that I will be spending three months in) is said to be an extremely gracious country filled with cheery Ghanians and I'm very optimistic about the time I will be spending there.
On a final point, the title of this blog is a Flashbulb song that hopefully will symbolize new beginnings in my life forevermore. It's very special to me so check it out!
I'll try to write whenever humanly possible but only if I have something somewhat interesting to say.
I promise my six month trip won't make me one of those obnoxious bloggers that think you're intrigued by what colour my bedspread is.
Cheers!
So, I'm sitting here in my room at 12:55 a.m., the night before I leave, thinking about what I'll miss the most from our wonderful town. Indescribable people? Snow? Stars?
But then I remind myself to digress and think instead of what I'm looking forward to most...
For those of you who aren't in the know, I'm heading off for six months tomorrow with Canada World Youth. It's basically been my dream since my wonderfully handsome brother (ha), Phil, went away a few years back. I'm "stoked", as the young in's say. It will probably change my life and it's a change I've anxiously been waiting for. My good friend Devin told me I would definitely return with some sort of worldly moustache but I'm hoping it was a metaphor and not actually the difference in myself I've been looking forward to...
The more perceptive of you may have noticed my blog name was wittily crafted out of a cheesy One Republic lyric but I stand by it! Ghana (one of two destinations that I will be spending three months in) is said to be an extremely gracious country filled with cheery Ghanians and I'm very optimistic about the time I will be spending there.
On a final point, the title of this blog is a Flashbulb song that hopefully will symbolize new beginnings in my life forevermore. It's very special to me so check it out!
I'll try to write whenever humanly possible but only if I have something somewhat interesting to say.
I promise my six month trip won't make me one of those obnoxious bloggers that think you're intrigued by what colour my bedspread is.
Cheers!
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