There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

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Tuesday Aug 29, 2006

Very last minute preparations

This post is long overdue, I know – but I leave tomorrow and I've been maniacally trying to sort everything out. And I must admit, what with results day then my leaving party I've been fitting in a lot of socialising too... I got AAB so I felt celebration was well in order!

After results day I really felt like school was officially over, but I can still barely get my head round the fact that I'm going exactly 5,728 miles away tomorrow (the wonders of the internet). Well, I say tomorrow, but it'll take me til Thursday to get there. I haven't been on a long haul flight since I was tiny, so I'm even excited about that. But this is exactly what I mean; I feel more like a kid in a sweet shop than an adult ready to work as a journalist. Hopefully I'll settle down once I'm there but I have a feeling I'm going to spend a lot of the year in a state of fidgety excitement.

I've done a practice pack of my bag, and it took me and my sister together to get it on my back and stand me up. I felt very like a tortoise, the bag is nearly as big as I am. I'm torn between thinking that I've got too much stuff and my bag will weigh too much, and that I haven't got nearly enough to last me a year. In a way, the amount of clothes I'm leaving behind is proving to me that my mum's right, and I really do spend far too much time and money shopping!

I've just said goodbye to my little sister, Rosie, she's going camping and she doesn't get back til after I've gone. I'm feeling a little bit emotional. It's strange to think I won't see anyone I know now for a year - especially Rosie, as we share a room and so spend loads of time together, whether we want to or not! She's actually benefiting greatly from me leaving, so I've given her some strict instructions:

1. My bed stays in our room.

2. She can't pretend my clothes were always hers and not give them back.

3. My nice stilettos are not intended as school shoes.

4. She can't use my half of the room as a stable or tack room (believe me, she'd try).

5. She's not allowed to get any taller or any prettier, because she already looks like a model and it's annoying when little sisters do that!

All that said, I will miss her and the rest of my family loads. I suppose that's just what happens when you leave home for the first time. My older brother's starting uni too, so the house will suddenly seem a lot bigger for the four left behind! My family and friends have been lovely and supportive, which makes it hard to leave them, but reassures me that they'll be here for me when I get back.

My best friend's coming round later to help me pack, because he's lovely, so I think I haven't finished my emotional episodes for the day. It's weird to be this sad and this excited at the same time, I feel like I'm using up all my emotion for the next five years.

Next time I write, I'll be in Namibia. I might explode with excitement before then.

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 10:07 AM )
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Tuesday Aug 22, 2006

what to do

Argh. That's possibly the best word to describe my attitude just now. Last week I had the most fantastic chat with two gentlemen from Lakeside YMCA in Cumbria about what sounded like a fantastic opportunity working to redesign their website (including blogs as they were v. impressed having poked around our stuff here on do-it), do some event management and program promotion.

My only problem? The 3 mile hike to the nearest busstop! I know that I'd go absolutely starkers that far from anywhere. (A friend, upon hearing my whinging, commented, 'Haven't they ever seen The Shining) I think I could cope if it was just a 3-4 month summertime placement; but, I'm looking for a year-long gig and think I'd be ready throw myself down one of the Lake District's fabled hills before Christmastime.

All of this combined with some doubts (and comments from a few jerks) that maybe I'm more interested in the where and not the what of a volunteer spot (and that it's not 'real' volunteering if it's not in a third-world country) has made for an interesting few days of reflection. But, having voiced my feelings to someone in the vol world, I received some much-needed reassurance. So, a big shout of thanks to that kind person. Helped remind me why I appreciate all the folks I've met volunteering.And, also, that I really want to find a proper job (with a real salary) in the vol management world because it's such a vital  factor in keeping the vol world ticking.

So... it's off to pester the placement officer in NYC to find me someplace else 'cuz I miss long summer nights sitting outside the pub with my mates drinking cider...

Posted by Dana ( 4:57 PM )
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Thursday Aug 17, 2006

Back in the UK

(Firstly I appologise for not posting a great deal and I will do more entries on Nepal. It actually surprised me how  hard it is to get to an internet connection if you're outside a city centre or tourist area. The internet is crazy slow and keeps on cutting out, it often wouldn't allow me to log in to do-it.org... And on those times that it did, it logged me out and I lost work. Crazy Nepali internet damnit!!!)

The Nine o'clock News is always full of the bad things that people have done to others. Whether it's a murder, a bomb on a plane, a city being blown to pieces where hospitals and schools topple like playing cards and families cry at the top of their lungs for the loss of their loved ones amongst rubble and gunfire. Sometimes it seems as if the media forgets the virtues of human nature. Tears sell papers, despair presents itself as a bank cheque and fear is the icing on what often appears to be a big fat nihilistic cake. Yet the news is something you can switch off, you can put a paper down after breakfast, finish your coffee and go out in to the world of Converse shoes, Pop Idol and big red London buses.

Things are different however, when you step off an aeroplane with a rucksack over your shoulders and a belly full of tasteless airline food (or at least the vegetarian option isn't too hot). You find yourself ripped away from the comfort of double glazing and smoky pubs and public transport that doesn't appear to be falling apart. You're in a different world; you can't change the channel, no matter how many street children beg you for money to eat, no matter how many sad stories you hear. You are forced to look for the good things in the terrible events happening around you; otherwise you might just go crazy. 

            "It changed my life", it was incredible. And I can't speak for everybody else in our group –after all, we don't share the same brain-, but being unable to flick over to Jerry Springer or Only Fools and Horses did me a world of good, not because I ever enjoy hearing bad news but because there is no better way to recognise a good person than to see how they put the effort in to being a candle for somebody who at the time is experiencing a period of darkness. So many individuals go through ordeals in their life that you and I sat in our comfortable computer chairs behind a glowing screen cannot imagine.

It's something you have to try not to dwell on and sometimes it can be hard not to lie awake at night wondering how the world can be so cruel to these beautiful children  and how somebody will sell out every moral fibre in human existence to exploit these innocent and vulnerable individuals to make money. None of us know the background stories of the ring masters from whom the children were rescued. Perhaps they have hungry families to feed, maybe they lie awake at night haunted by the cries of the little people whose childhood they have stolen. It's not something any of us will know; we can only be happy that knights in shining armour such as the rescue workers are willing to go on such dangerous missions and that wonderful organisations such as the Esther Benjamin Trust and the Nepal Child Welfare Foundation exist to try and rehabilitate these children and that they have incredible individuals working both to build a future for circus children and also to bring these ringmasters to justice for their barbarity

When you meet people like those I've mentioned above it changes you. The ordeals of others put your own worries in to perspective. The warmth and affection of the girls in Hetauda who seem to have so little by our own Western standards can teach you more than a million self-help books. How somebody can go through hell, yet still retain a degree of faith in human nature. Maybe the world doesn't revolve around the sun, maybe it revolves around hope and friendship and family and on building new beginnings. That sounds a bit cheesy doesn't it? If so, I apologise.

 I could write a million things about what we experienced in Nepal. Sitting on the floor and eating rice with our hands, Danni's beautiful open-air concert in Durbar Square, the elephants who's bristly thick skin made them appear a bit like giant long-nosed pigs, Paul's little fan club who he carried about, one on each arm... The football club, playing games with the little ones in Kathmandu, being fooled in to believing we have lice by the girls in Hetauda. Nepal was an experience none of us will ever forget and being back home in grey England is something that we will all take time to adjust to.

Posted by Selina ( 10:34 AM )
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Tuesday Aug 08, 2006

mamma always said...

Mamma always said, 'if you can't say something nice, then don't say it at all.' That's my rationale for having disappeared for a while. Things haven't been going well in my search for a vol spot. My dream position still hasn't been decided (first applied at the end of April) and I'm now beginning to think it never will.

But, on the up side...they have put me forward for a new spot up in Cumbria - not sure how i feel about that as I've only been through on the train (looks even more desolate than the Highlands) and heard iffy things from an old flatmate who was from Cumbria. However, I have gone back through my travel journal and looked at my comments about accepting my vol spot up in Edinburgh and I had the same misgivings and ended up falling in love with the place, so who knows?

Well, as I hauled my backside outta bed at 6:00 (indiana time) to wait for a call from Cumbria that never came, I'm going to say night night for now and head off for a nap in the staff room!

 

 

Posted by Dana ( 6:52 PM )
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Friday Aug 04, 2006

Training for a year... In a week

I've just been on my training course back up on the Isle of Coll.  At first I was a little sceptical that a week's preparation would help me that much, but it was absolutely great! In all honesty, I don't feel that I know exactly how to run a newspaper, teach in a primary school and whatever else I'll end up doing, but I at least feel more confident that I'll be able to learn once I get to Namibia. 

We had teaching practice, which I actually quite enjoyed even though it was odd doing primary school lessons for a group of 18 year olds. Then for journalism practice we were dropped off in the village for half an hour and told to gather enough stories for a 2 page newspaper, then we had to learn how to use the program to publish the paper - it was a mad rush but we did it, and were probably more proud than we should have been for such a short edition! There were four of us doing journalism, two Namibia volunteers and two Cambodia volunteers. So, logically, we declared ourselves an independent republic - the smallest in the world - and called the paper The Nambodian News, then giggled for a very long time. Ok, we hadn't been sleeping much...

I met my partner who I'll be living with next year, and she's lovely - I'm so relieved! I was going through horror scenarios in my head where I was paired with some kind of unwashed psychotic inbred, but luckily Project Trust didn't seem to have many of those going. My partner's called Bozena (pronounced Bo-jay-na, with a soft j sound); meeting each other and starting preparations for leaving next month (next month! Eek!) made us both more excited for the year than we'd ever been before.

The moment when it hit me and the other volunteers on the course that we were REALLY going was when they handed out the plane tickets. Obviously we'd all been thinking about it a lot, but still everyone had their own little stunned silence as we looked at the tickets that would take us 5,500 miles away. As it's a return ticket, I was actually holding 11,000 miles in my hands - how often do you get to do that?

I'm actually already excited to see everyone from my training course on Debriefing after our year away, it was such a fun group to be in.  There were volunteers for Japan, Namibia, Honduras, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Guatemala, so it'll be fun to hear about all the hugely different experiences everyone's had, and probably go on about my own at great length!

Anyway, I got a bit carried away and I've written too much. So I'll go now.

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 3:19 PM )
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Wednesday Aug 02, 2006

holiday Club '06 + FUNDRAISING!

well still fundraising...what a suprise eh?! But also been doing something new. My local church have a holiday club every year. It runs for a week with activities from 10 till about 12.30/1pm and we have kids from 4-8. Ive been volunteering there since monday, and I just love it. I get to wear a snazzy t-shirt...ok sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but there you go. what I love is the kids. When we all move off to do different activities I go help with craft, which lets me get really messy! Yesterday we were making trumpets, and so we all smeared glue everywhere and made everything multi-coloured! Ive been helping out for a few years, but every year it shocks me how much I enjoy it.

As Im sure everyone in a dull job understands; I get really down hearted with the monotony, I enjoy clothes but after 8 hours of advising what colour suits people best, I must admit I couldnt care less what they wear or buy, so its a great relief to spend some time doing something I truely love, and that represents a future to me. I really want to become a teacher and make education interesting for kids, and every time I do something practical with children it just re-enforces how much the job would suit me.

Im also looking into some different volunteering, which is PAT dogs. We have 5 dogs at home, and I really want to do something practical with my old cavelier (Tommy) who is too decrepid to go for walks or swims like we used to. Plus I want other people to benefit. PAT dogs go round people in need of comaradery (cant spell) or would benefit from interaction with animals such as people with disabilities, people in nursing homes etc and they just stroke them and play with them. Not quite sure how much I can class it as me volunteering because all I do is hold on to one end of the lead. So I go to a talk on that next week to see if any of our pets are suitable, and how much commitment they require because obviously I dont want the people we visit to get attatched to Tommy, and then him stop visiting because Ive gone to Tanzania.

Added to all of this is the continual fundraising! now go £1500, so I'm exactly half way there, but still to collect £700 of that. Now writing to all my companies I have in mind to get some more money, and then once that is sorted I'll hopefully be in the local newspapers Chichester and Bognor Observers, but there is little point going ahead with that until I have sponsorship to advertise...if that makes sense.

sorry Ive written so much about...well....nothing!

em

Posted by Emily ( 12:23 PM )
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