Helping Hands for Haitian Mamas and Babes

Here we go!!! Thank goodness the blog is reactivated for real this time. 
I just booked flights to spend 19 days in Haiti over Christmas break.

A very important thing has happened in my life since I last wrote on here- since this is my travel blog I will refrain from rambling about my life too much, but to understand this post you will need to know that I got in to midwifery school at UBC, a dream come true, as I feel I am on the path of my life's calling! I'm probably flattering myself to think anyone who doesn't know that is reading this, but I digress...

Not quite two weeks ago, my beautiful classmate, Kristi, passed on a call for help, which she received through the grapevine from an organization called Olive Tree Projects. Olive Tree Projects is run by a young Canadian midwife named Sarah Wallace and operates a maternity clinic in the city of Jacmel, Haiti. The clinic staff is expecting nearly twice as many birthing women in December as they usually accommodate, and reached out to student midwives here to come and serve as an extra set of hands. The organization who had shared this opportunity with Kristi were attempting to secure funding for a volunteers flight.

I immediately said that if it was funded, I would be there. If the money didn't come through, I told myself, I couldn't go. Having just begun some very costly education in the most expensive city in Canada and booked a trip to Europe (finally!) there wasn't much wiggle room on this decision. When the e-mail came on Tuesday after my first final exam of the term that there would be no money for flights I didn't even feel disappointed, because my perspective immediately shifted from "Waiting to find out whether I would be going" to "Okay, I have to go. How am I going to make this happen?". I had prayed that I would accept and embrace whatever the outcome while I waited for the news about funding- lots of people prayed with me!- and thought that it was an "A: money comes in, I go or B: no money, I don't go" kind of scenario. But in true "Julia's life" fashion it was secret option C that God handed me (chuckling all the while, I'm sure, at my attempts at pre-planning).

Secret option C meant "No, you will not have this handed to you, but I have given you everything you need to make a way- all those prayers have been heard". With the confidence of having previously raised an intimidating sum in just over 2 weeks (for Canada World Youth), I shook off some sticky bits of pride like grains of rice and asked my family and friends to send me to Haiti this Christmas. I love how matter-of-fact my parents' reactions were when I called them and announced my intention to raise the money myself. They, in their parently wisdom, mustn't have believed me when I said I wouldn't be going without that funding!

This is when it got really amazing. I created a crowd-funding page to make it easy for people I knew from all over to donate- and they did. I am tearing up thinking about how they did. The page went live on Wednesday night and by Friday night I had received $830. By Saturday night that was up to $1125, just over a hundred dollars short of the cost of the flight! I'm so overwhelmed by the way everyone from Mum and Dad and my closest friends to new acquaintances and people I hadn't seen or heard from in years have responded, not only with donations, but with the kindest and most encouraging words. I don't know how to thank you all enough; it's like I can't even articulate my gratitude in my heart, let alone in writing.

I will write more tomorrow, featuring an elusive Chinese herb and more details of what my time in Haiti may look like. I'm telling myself it's an ink-spilling exercise to help with writing my final paper for the term...

You can find my crowd-funding campaign here if you're interested in helping out with that final $100: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/helping-hands-for-haitian-moms/x/5640014
Any donations above and beyond what I need to pay for the airfare will go to Olive Tree Projects-I've pasted the link to their website below.
http://www.olivetreeprojects.com/about/

Developing World Connections

Hello readers, it has been too long! So, I know I lied about writing another Ghana post. This is my travel blog, and there seems to be some force keeping me from adding to it when I am not in some faraway place, or... anticipating being in some faraway place! I have some new motivation to keep myself going while I'm stuck in school, wishing I were out the travelling... I just think about how I am going to spend a month in Rwanda this summer!

I have become a volunteer Team Leader with local non-profit Developing World Connections and will be taking a Student Team to Rwanda to work work on a sustainable development project. Our host partner, Building Bridges with Rwanda, has organized the construction of a medical clinic in the small community of Kazo. Actually, the medical clinic has already been started by the community along with a previous DWC group, but has sat unfinished for several years due to local politics. I got the chance to talk to Wayne McRann, DWC's president and co-founder, at an event in Kelowna and he said that the people of Kazo are very eager to welcome volunteers again and get the funds they need to finish the medical clinic. What a wonderful chance to build friendships between cultures and respond to a real need in the community of Kazo!

So, this is for all the people who have said to me, "I wish I could do something like that." when they hear about my travels/volunteer experience... You're invited!

Anyone 16-29 years old can join, from anywhere in Canada, or even other countries. Just contact me at julia@developingworldconnections.org or, for more information about the organization and their purpose visit the DevelopingWorld Connections website : www.developingworldconnections.org .

A New, Big, Wonderful Adventure

I am going to.... GHANA! For three months. And Newfoundland for three months. With Canada World Youth.
Hello! I am just a little bit thrilled...

Heads up, I'm going to ask you for money at the end of this post... I really need your help to make this happen!

The exchange starts in St.John's, Newfoundland, where I will meet the 9 Ghanaians participating as well as 8 other Canadians and our 2 project supervisors. One of the ghanaian girls will become my "counterpart" for the whole 6 months; we will live in the same host family both in Canada and in Ghana and be responsible for certain group activities together.

I leave for St. John's on September 4th. In other words: I will be leaving for 6 months in 22 days.

What CWY has to say about CWY:
-Canada World Youth is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that has been offering international educational programs to youth between the ages of 17 and 24 for 40 years.
-Canada World Youth's mission is to increase the ability of people, and especially young people, to participate actively in the development of just, harmonious and sustainable societies.


What I have to say about CWY: There are just so many fantastic things about this exchange.
- I am going to AFRICA before my 20th birthday!
-The theme of the exchange is Health, so our volunteer projects will be health-related. The project in Ghana will be working on preventing and controlling malaria in young children and women of child-bearing age.
-Girl power! It is an all-female exchange.
-Learning to speak "local dialect" of where I will live in Ghana.
-St.John's is gonna be brilliant... fiddle music, Newfies (I have to learn two new languages!), ocean, visiting a whole new part of Canada.
-I will get an attestation certificate with some university credit value by the end of the program.
-Having a ghanaian counterpart.
-It is practically free. But.....


One of my commitments to CWY is to fundraise $2800. It is going really well, considering I only started on Tuesday... but I will need lots more donations to keep this commitment! By supporting CWY, you will be making it possible for young people like me to take part in the CWY experience.
If you want to make a donation to Canada World Youth and my exchange, you can do so by credit card via this link:

http://www.canadaworldyouth.org/en/Content.aspx?PageId=201&Volunteer=b9f70e8b37277      

or by cheque or cash through me. :)
Thank you in advance!
I will do my best to keep the blog lively throughout my exchange! I wonder whether the internet connection in Saltpond, Ghana is any good...

The Ups and Downs of Volunteering at Aldea Yanapay.

I have now been working at Yanapay for two full weeks and three days. Of course there´s a lot more to it than what I described in my first post on the subject and it is well past time for an update.





From Monday to Friday, 3 to 5 for two weeks I continued to tutor Yanapay´s younger children. Their prior education and attitudes were as varied as their personalities. Sometimes the poor quality of peruvian education, its inconsistency was really obvious... I taught a five-year-old who could read fairly well and a seven-year-old who barely knew their alphabet. Some days involved a lot of sighing on my part; trying to get my students to focus, not understanding a childs spanish, feeling completely useless and boring as a teacher. Others were fun and rewarding; finding a fun way to teach letters, having avid readers not want to stop for circle time, sharing smiles, hugs and high fives.

Every day after the first two hours we gather all the School One kids into a circle, holding hands, and march over to School Two for circle time. Sometimes we go as a train, sometimes we are dinosaurs, other days, jungle animals... Arriving at School Two I pry little fingers off my smock and cross the courtyard to sit with my family, who, all trying to get my attention at once, greet me with many hugs and shouts. Once we are all seated, Janek (or Raquel, or Yuri) counts to three and the school falls silent (well, most of the time). Once we start discussion it is a challenge to keep the kids quiet and focused on whoever is speaking. A lot of them are so busy raising their hands and, obsessing about what they want to say, that, when asked, they have no idea what the speaker has just said. We often get a good laugh from a little girl with Down´s Syndrome, Coral, who is prone to spout off nonsensical bits of information. For example, we were talking about birthdays yesterday and she raised her hand to tell us that on her birthday she would be turning Sunday years old. Alrighty then, Coral... Ylla is one of the youngest (and most adorable) girls. When it´s her turn to speak she uses the most hilarious, incessant hand gestures, causing everyone to giggle through her long and detailed stories.

me with some of my Uvitas

After circle time we have our family classes. I spent two weeks in the maroon smock of familia Uvitas with Natalie as my co-teacher. At first, I found my family overwhelming; they have a lot of energy, to say the least. A couple of especially loud and overbearing kids changed the dynamic of the whole class. Anderson always always wanted to be talking and sometimes would even raise his hand shouting, "¡Profe, profe!" the whole time, without having anything to say. When we called on him he would just umm and ahh incoherently! In my family I learned some important phrases very quickly:

Sientete. - "Sit down."
¡Cuidado! - "Careful!"
Calmense. - "Everyone calm down."
¡Chicos, silencia por favor! - "Kids, quiet, please!"
Escuchen su companero, por favor. - "Please guys, listen to your classmate."

A lot of the time it felt like the kids were paying zero attention and couldn´t possibly have taken in any of what we were trying to teach them... But when it came down to it, they were really excited to learn. Actually, I think that´s were a lot of the shouting and craziness stemmed from; everyone wanted to talk about our topic at once! I was constantly surprised by how much they would remember. The first week our theme was to sing a song in english, about nature. When we all put our heads together, we were able to create beautiful costumes and learn, by heart, the words of the song Natalie had composed to the tune of "You are my sunshine." When our Friday show came along, we presented what we had learned to the whole school and it turned out amazingly. The best part though, was the next week, when my family kept bursting into choruses of, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make the trees grow. You make birds sing."  They wanted to sing it before tutoring, while making costumes for the next weeks show, on our walk from rock climbing... The song became sort of our family anthem. Even our next presentation, which was about Colombia (featuring Shakira´s World Cup song) and which I thought was a somewhat of a disaster, was a favourite of all the other volunteers.

presenting what we learned about Colombia

This week I am working with familia Sol (Sun), who are 11 and 12 year-olds. I miss my little Uvitas. Even though they were crazy and exhausting, I find Sol more frustrating. The problem is that they have Attitude with a capital "A". It´s easier (I said easier, not easy!) to get them to pay attention, but harder to command their respect. Sometimes they are sweet and affectioante, but it doesn´t feel real.  When I wait with Sol in line to wash our milk cups and the Uvitas come running out of their classroom to wash theirs yelling, "¡Profe Julia!", telling me how much they miss me and asking when I am coming back to them I can tell where I am wanted.

I don´t know how people can stay here only a week. Even after two and a half I still have so much to learn... In some ways I still feel like a newbie, yet at other times I feel I am an old hand; like when I translated for the english-speakers at our Friday volunteer meeting.

I left this update too long to give a full account of all the joys and frustrations of working at Yanapay (fun kids, working with limited supplies), but I will say that it is both uplifting and frustrating, energizing and exhausting, but most of all wonderful, just plain old wonderful.

Con Amor,
Profe Julia de Canada

Profe Julia de Canada.

As I approached the door with some of the other volunteers, two girls eagerly waiting to go in greeted us; "¡Hola, profes!" ("Hi, teachers!"), hugging and kissing each of us in turn. I stepped inside to find a courtyard whose dirty walls were crumbling, held up by posts leaning on the uneven stony ground. A pair of dirty white ducks drank from a faded plastic water basin. A handul of equally dirty dogs darted around our ankles. I ducked to avoid the laundry hanging low on wires strung across the space between houses. The next door led into the school. Colourful murals and neatly kept walkways, wash basins with towels hanging at the ready for little fingers, hand-painted signs over every door, "Arte", "Biblioteca", "Baño Yanapitos"... A place for every thing and every thing in its place. An oasis in the crumbling side streets of Cusco.

The first area is School One, for the kids aged 4-8; the second, School Two, for the 9-13 year-olds. The other volunteers and I went up to the supply room to deposit our stuff and put on our smocks. While we were doing this many kids had come in and were now bouncing around the courtyard in School 1. As soon as I walked in I was jumped on by one kid after another, each giving an enthusiastic hug and kiss on the cheek. Yuri, the projects director and founder, practically had to pull them off me and shove me into the tutoring room so I could have a few minutes to get acquainted with my work space for the week. I didn´t have long, but then again, it doesn´t take long to get to know a 5 by 9-ish room! I was especially glad to discover that there was a paper lantern hanging at exactly the right height to hit your head on, just like in my Sunday school class at home! Sarah, the other girl working in tutoring, gave me the briefest of lessons on what to do and before I knew it, little Flor Evelin was sitting next to me, waiting for me to begin! I started by asking whether she knew how to write her name (she did) and then whether she knew the alphabet (some of it). We spent the rest of our time together reviewing the alphabet by laying out flashcards in order and matching upper and lower-case letters. Flor, naturally, asked me every ten seconds whether it was time to go to games yet... at last it was and my second student came in. Angela was also six but barely knew any of her letters... so we started at the very beginning, "a very good place to start". Where Flor was bubbly, confident and unfocused on her work, Angela was quiet, timid and studious. It was amazing to see her smile as she wrote a "B" after my example!

After our first class time we have the "Circle of Expression", so all of School One made a "train" and marched over to the School Two courtyard to sit with our "families". The families are divided by age group and assigned a pair of volunteers each week. This week I am with familia "Uvas" (Grapes), who are mostly 8. Since it is summer vacation here and the beginning of a new year, Monday´s circle was mostly a revision of some rules and an explanation of some differences in the program for vacation time. When it was time to introduce the new "professores" a boy named Josué was practically jumping out of his skin to be the one to do it. He went around the circle and asked each of us our name and where we were from. There are volunteers here from England, Spain, the United States, Denmark, Australia, Holland, Peru and France. When Yuri asked the kids what they knew about Canada a ton of hands shot up! They mentioned maple syrup, bears, languages spoken and our flag. Apparently they studied Canada a few weeks ago. After circle time we piled into the library at School One (in an orderly fashion) to watch "La Princesa y El Sapo" (The Princess and the Frog). Sitting on a wooden bench in that darkened room filled with childrens laughter, a girl from my family cuddled up on my lap, I was so grateful to have found a place with so much love in it and to have the opportunity to serve passionately at Yanapay. Entering the school through that dank and decaying yard was a perfect metaphor; You can emerge from the squalor to find another way of living.

4, 14, 34, 26

I leave for Peru in four days, fourteen hours, thirty-four minutes and twenty-six seconds.

Actually, 4, 4, 16, 19 might be more accurate now that I am flying to Vancouver, but I'll just let the little ticker on the right have its say. Even in the time it took me to write that (and figure out the updated countdown) I have come that much closer to what feels like my impending doom. Despite my usual optimism, you could say my enthusiasm has fizzled somewhat since October. I feel more like I'm about to walk off a cliff than onto a plane. Why!? This is what I've always dreamed of; I have been waiting to travel, really travel since I was like, twelve... so what is wrong with me?! Maybe it's just that I have forgotten to look forward to all the amazing things I will experience and am clinging to all the good times I have here at home. (My stomach churns when I think of leaving all you amazing people for so long!) Maybe I'm afraid of being forgotten. You know... out of sight, out of mind. What about when I get back? Will I be able to get everything I need together for university? Will I be able to find a job? Don't get me wrong, especially you people who are prone to worry (Mom), I have everything I need as far as passports, vaccines, insurance go. I have confidence in my own travel smarts and God's plan for me. I'm not worried about missing my plane in Mexico City or contracting thyphoid in the Amazon. I just seem to have convinced myself that I'm not going to have fun. That everything happening before and after my trip is more important than what I will do during.

I believe that once I get on the plane in Vancouver (or it might take until I get off the plane in Lima) I will be filled with the joy of possibilities and the excitement new places. I know that I will. And then my journey will start fresh and I will embrace it with open arms and a smiling face. You can expect many happy reports from me in the next few months. I already feel better in writing this; releasing all my negativity, admitting I have doubts but also remembering that they shouldn't be given so much importance as to affect how I anticipate my trip or, more importantly, my focus on Jesus, who died so I could live life to the full! (John 10:10)

Please pray for me as I go and for Aldea Yanapay, where I will be volunteering. Please don't hesistate to comment on my blog posts (it lets me know that someone reads them!) and stay tuned for said happy reports of my adventures! :)

with love,
Julia

 ^"So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Matthew 6:31-33

Introducing... Aldea Yanapay♥

I thought I would post a little something to show you why I am so excited about spending five weeks in Cusco. Enjoy! :)