I'm home!

Hello friends and family!

I have returned from an amazing journey to South America this summer where I spent 4 weeks in Guyana working on our volunteer literacy project. 

We did not have the internet access we thought we would, which made posting on this blog impossible. 

You have been an integral part of making this project possible, so I want to share some of our adventures with you. It will take me some time to write our story concisely (I know you don't want a novel!) and get pictures ready to share, but I haven't forgotten about it! I expect to have a video and some great pictures to share by the end of August, or early September at the latest. 

Thanks for your patience! Hope you've had an amazing summer! 

Christine

Here's a teaser:

 This is me working with a student at the primary school.

 This is the High School classroom that I worked in helping out with the remedial program.

This is a picture of the main road in Mahdia, the community that we worked in. (Can you see the mountains in the background? It's cloudy...)

We Have Arrived!

Hello from Georgetown, Guyana!

We arrived in the wee hours of the morning on Monday and have been staying at a youth hostel. The flight threw us for a loop (we didn't sleep well) but we've now adjusted and are feeling pretty good! I am writing this from an internet cafe in town so I only have limited time. We have organized everything to bring out to Mahdia and we will be leaving a bit earlier than planned - tonight! We are all excited to get to Mahdia and get started on our project. As for new experiences - we experienced our first blackout (they happen regularly), traffic is very fast, but the people have been amazing so far. We got cellphones donated for our trip and they are a lifesaver.There's not much else to report since we've only been here a day, but I'll leave you with one story:

The lady who has been doing the cooking for us has been amazing. She told us that her husband saw the guitars come in and said that he wished he was lucky enough to be in the community we were going to because he loves to play the guitar but he does not own one. Since we have four, we decided to give one to him. He was so happy - it was truly amazing. To be able to give such happiness from such a small act is just awesome. 

Looking forward to sharing more stories later - but rumours are internet will be more sparse in Mahdia so I don't know when or if I will be able to update again. Don't worry if you don't hear anything - we are doing well! 

Hope all is well with you all! :)

The Journey Begins...

Hello family, friends, (and anyone interested)! Welcome to my travel journal! I have heard we will have sporadic internet access throughout our trip, so I hope to update with photos, stories, and memories on a somewhat regular basis! So check back about once a week :)

I am writing this the night before I leave for my 5 week journey to Guyana to complete a charity project for Youth Challenge International. We are going to be developing a library in Mahdia, Guyana, and working with teachers and community members to help improve literacy in the community. Hopefully, our efforts will have a sustainable impact on community ability and strength. 

So many boxes of books!

It may not seem like it, but this project has been a year in the making. I signed up for this project last August and have been planning, fundrasing, and organizing a lot alongside some amazing people for the past year to prepare for this project. We have shipped hundreds of books to Guyana to help build a library for the community we will be visiting, which took hundreds of man hours to collect, organize, pack, and ship. We also had to raise $3000 to fund the project as well as pay for flights and medication out of pocket. We had some great fundraisers - a Glow-In-The-Dark Mini Golf party, a Mardi Gras Masquerade, and a dinner at Caribbean Desire in Mississauga! Thank-you to everyone who contributed through time, donations, or any effort to support us. We appreciate it SO much, and can`t wait to show you what your contributions have achieved! It is almost unbelievable to me that we are going to finally see it all come together in a matter of days!

Books ready to be shipped to Guyana!

I promise I will not be too long-winded in my posts... ok, well I will promise to try... haha. I leave tomorrow (July 10th) at 11:30pm... that`s right, the red eye... and will arrive in Guyana in the wee hours of the morning. 

I am excited to broaden my perspective on life and the world, to learn from both my teammates and the people I meet in Guyana, to appreciate what we have here in Canada, and most importantly to do something that can have a positive impact on the world. Be the change!

So, hopefully my next update will be full of pictures and stories of the first few days of our project! Keep your fingers crossed for us! (Safe travels, moderate weather, no malaria, that kind of stuff ;)

Christine