Guat Goats Update 6

So, this is our last blog from Guatemala because we will be shipping out tomorrow at 4 am. 

Here's how our last full day went. We awoke and debriefed on the roof of Semilla with Adriana. This took up most of the morning. There was a consensus that it was a positive experience. After this debriefing we took a van out to Antigua, the historical capital.

Once in Antigua, Geraldine gave us a mini tour and we split up into different groups. The guys split up into a group and so did the girls (dedicated Mennonites all). Who knows what the staff did. The guys spent a long time following Matt, who was quite determined to find a specific restaurant from his book. We didn't find it. We found the Gigantic Hamburger. The girls ate at the first restaurant they found. 

After lunch we finished souvenir shopping. We used our remaining Quetzales to buy the said souvenirs. We regrouped in the Central Park, where approximately 300 people tried to sell us flutes and bracelets. There was also a man who chased around his sons for quite awhile. He was a hoot to watch. We were also interviewed by some students taking an English course.

We then headed back to Semilla. We met Adriana and presented her with thank you gifts for her leadership. Adam had quite the speech. Well said. I wonder how much time was spent rehearsing. Adam says twice through with Cassy, and four times in front of the mirror.

Hillary is off to bed, but the sensible folk are staying up and packing. We'll try and blog from the airport tomorrow.

Jordan, Ryan and Hillary

PS If you ever need to find a bathroom in Guatemala, consider purchasing the book entitled "Donde esta el Baño: A Guide to Guatemalan Bathrooms" by Adam Rempel (This book may not be written yet).

Edmonton day 4

Well our last day of ALSO has ended. While technically ALSO week ends on Friday. We are just going to be traveling back to Rosthern or as the habitat for humanity people write it Rawsthorne. We worked our last day in the glorious spring sun. Sound nice? Well it would have been if the sun didn't cause the snow to melt turning the construction site into a giant mud pit. Tyler LeBlanc didn't seem to mind though. He loves the mud. People were sliding around making a fool of themselves and it was great fun. 7 degree weather made it feel like spring. Finally. All went well with us except for Zac. Let's just say he hammered the wrong nail. He messed up his finger pretty good. He got all bandaged up and chilled out for the rest of the day. He's all good now.   

 

For supper, Bakers' grandma and grandpa invited us all to their condo where we ate great food and played pool. Ryan (wood) and Tyler (Desroches) played a game of pool which took a lot longer than expected. Tyler immerged victorious after a long battle over who got to sink the 8 ball. We then went our separate ways, girls to Bakers' grandmas apartment, and guys to the hotel. Somehow in the midst of it all we found time to work out and write this. What a day.

Your (insert word here)

Patty, tylers, and Mike

Calgary: Final Day

The day started out at the Salvation Army again where we were on lunch and cleaning duties. Half of us were in the kitchen, chopping, dicing, making sandwiches, or moving food from one area to another. The other half packaged bread and cleaned with a spiffy scrub brush with steam coming out the end.

For lunch we again ate with the clients at the Sally-Ann, having conversations with some new friends.
After lunch we did a lot of walking and C-Training to to the MCC office where we were challenged to build a shelter with minimal supplies (four cinderblocks, some bricks, eight beams of wood, three tarps, a hammer, string, some tape, and a lot of nails), and fifteen minutes of time. It was a lesson in patience for all of us and we had to build with imagination. MCC material resource coodinator Linda asked us questions about what we would bring with us if we had to leave our home and wouldn't know if we were coming back.

After we packed relief kits for families of four, we went to their conference room for a presentation on MCC Alberta and HIV/AIDS. Abe Janzen and Kim Thiessen told us about the programs in Alberta and then we watched a compelling documentary on HIV/AIDS called "Living with Slim." This was the end of our information load for the week and it was an interesting note to end on. We highly recommend watching the documentary which is about seven children who have HIV/AIDS and how they are dealing with it. Abe said that it was on of the best documentaries on the subject he thought is out there.

Debriefing followed and we talked about our week and the CASA program. It was cool to see what everybody took away from the week and the different opinions on everyone had.

Supper took place at Dan's house, and we'd like to give a big thank you to Ric and Laurel for having us over and serving us the delicious food. We played lots of games and laughed enough to last us a year! The guys enjoyed playing golf on Wii and the girls played various card games.

Now we are back at Dalhousie hanging out and enjoying our last evening here. Later on we'll clean up and pack before bed. Tomorrow we set off for Saskatchewan, or according to Joel, "On the open road, runnin' back to Saskatoon!"

Dalhousie Community Church where we stayed.

Just one of the many things we learned about homelessness in Calgary this week.

The MCC Alberta building where we were this afternoon.

Jocelyn and Gwen filling out assessment forms for the CASA program which we participated all week.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support on our adventure!

Signing out for the last time,

Judith, Gwen, and Sam

ALSO Saskatoon Day 4

ALSO Saskatoon finishes it last day of service today at Habitat for Humanity, Vincent Massey School and the SPCA

Kyla and Johnathan help to prepare a special salad lunch for the entire student body.

Phoenix reads with a student.  

Does the mountain look any smaller?

Gerry learns the meaning of 'measure twice, cut once'.

Jesse and Kiersten give a little TLC.

The group will spend the last day of the ALSO week at the MCC Offices .  The day will be spent reflecting on the learning of the week.

Guatemala Number 5!!!!

So, we hear you've been rather frantically checking for updates of our journey. Do not fear, we lived. Gandalf protected us. 

"Hey Ryan! Are you gonna run for co-prez tomorrow?" -Adam "Maybe they can't tell that we're white." -Cassandra

We left bright and early on Sunday at 6 am. We drove a long ways to San Marcos. It was aboot 5.478 hours. There was not much notable activity during this journey, except the purchase of a gigantic hackeysack. Also, our driver, Mario, was unable to be present on this trip, so we got a new driver, Raoul. I think he is Fidel Castro's long lost brother. He had a sweet beard.

Once in San Marcos, we met up with the MCC worker in the region, Nate Howard. He had a sweet beard. We had lunch with him at a local diner. A crazy man came in three times to talk to Daryl. We understood nothing he said, and the last time he just nodded his head and walked away. We tried some pineapple pop called Tiky Piña. Delicious. The waitresses were in love with Matt. They kept taking pictures of him.  We checked into our hotel and then had some free time to explore the region. Adam searched for soccer jersey's but failed. He had a sweet beard. Kate was walking around with a group of people and a drunk man would not let go of her hand. He kept following our group too. This said group also visited a park which will henceforth be called Couple Central. Couple Central had so many couples. Most did not have sweet beards, but had sweet kissing skills. Katie had someone practice English with her. He told her she was beautiful. Afterwards we went to mass. I almost puked, Hillary almost puked, Daryl almost puked, Katie almost puked, and Luke almost puked due to the sickness afflicting our group. It was a nice service, even though most of us had no idea what was said. Those who were not sick went to get some sweet tacos.

It was a great day on Monday. While the group was not feeling 100%, we were on the upswing. We were rudely awakened by a group of noisy hikers (Luke, Matt, Adam, Israel, and Kate), who were climbing with Nate to the community of Tonina. By the way, if Ryan Wood is reading this, Tonina means Big River in Mam. We were awakened later by a tremor. Then we were finally gently nudged awake by Jimbo. We ate breakfast, then hurried to catch the chicken bus that left at 9. Once close to Sibinal, our destination, we exited there and caught some interesting taxis into town. Eight people climbed into one Toyota Corolla, which ended up bottoming out numerous times. A kid sat on the drivers lap as well, Cassandra sat on Geraldine's lap, and four people sat on the back bench. The car was not turned on during the downwards sections. The remaining five of us climbed into a pick-up truck with some strangers with a lot of cargo.

Meanwhile, the fellows on the hike who all had sweet beards (including, but not limited to Nate, Adam, Luke [sort of sweet], and Matt) were well on their way. The Hike According to Luke owned. Their hike included waterfalls, volcanos, geckos, a snake (according to two sources), and ridiculous inclines (roughly 45 degrees).

The rest of us took a pick-up truck up the said 45 degrees to Tonina. The road was quite sketchy, but I was impressed that we made it there safely. It took 2 hours to go 12.5 Km. 

Once at Tonina, we took a tour of the local agricultural projects. We lost Kate. We weren't sure where she went, but we knew she was sick. Jim, who had a sweet beard (yes mom, he's growing a beard), used his sweet detective skills to deduce her location. Kate argues she used her skills, but we all know she has none. Actually, she just went to the bathroom.

Later that night, we gathered with the community for a cultural exchange. Among notable acts were: the school kids interpretation of North Americans, Matt leading Father Abraham, Ryan, Jordan, Luke, Hillary, and Katie's rendition of Padre Nuestro (much too high), Nelson (a local schoolboy) and Israel singing a song, and eight of the kids performing a cultural dance.  We could tell our visit was a big deal due to the long speeches and the singing of the 8 minute long Guatemalan national anthem. Then we headed out with the families we were staying the night with for our homestays. Ryan and I walked for what seemed an eternity uphill. It turns out that Adriana walked an eternity plus 5 minutes. Hillary, Katie and Geraldine walked 5 seconds. Wow. That must have been an exhausting trip Hillary!

After a night full of struggling to communicate and great hospitality, I awoke to a great view of a sun rising behind a volcano. We had breakfast and began our descent to the work site. The work site was in a village called La Linea. We painted and stained two buildings of the co-op that we were working with. Meanwhile, the rest worked on the bathroom and digging trenches for a concrete retaining wall. When the concrete crew came across a rock too big to move, they whipped out a sledge hammer and broke it into more manageable pieces. Unfortunately this resulted in more than a few shards of rock flying out and hitting more than a few people. Luckily, Hillary had her glasses on! We were treated to lunch of chicken, and some amazing, hand-cut french fries from the ladies of the community, who were on the job site at six in the morning getting lunch ready for us. We went back to work, but the water system stopped working, which meant that the concrete project was delayed a bit. Eventually however, the water started flowing from the top of the mountain, and we were on our way. After work, we met with Juan Pablo, the leader of the co-op in La Linea told us about the history of the community and the project. Before boarding the chicken bus out, Hillary, Luke, Matt, Ryan and I (Jordan) ran down to Mexico to take a picture. That makes three Central American countries on this trip! WOOO! We took a chicken bus on the awful roads back to Sibinal where we ate supper and spent the night in a cozy hotel.

Once again, we were rudely awakened at five in the morning, this time by a chicken bus driver who was way too fond of his horn. We lost count at forty honks. Good thing we had to wake up at six anyways to catch the next bus out to San Marcos. Due to the early morning, everyone was asleep on this ride. We ate breakfast in San Marcos, and said farewell and thanks to Nate for leading us for the past couple days. Before he left he gave us one hundred pounds of coffee for us to bring back. We boarded another bus (not a chicken bus, rather a Greyhound type deal) and rode all the way to Xela (three hours). Hillary was treated to a semi driver on the way who looked to practice his English, especially his flirting skills. We got off and were swarmed by a few taxi drivers looking to drive us. More than a few had sweet beards. Luckily Adriana had arranged taxis for us, so we walked past them to the cars waiting. These took us to the central square, and from there we walked to our hotel. Adriana gave us all fifty Quetzales for lunch. The five boys found a nice little restaurant and had sandwiches and cheese burgers to go along with our chocolate covered fruit for dessert (not as sweet as it sounds and definately not as sweet as the beards). The girls just ate ice cream for lunch. Katie accidentally screamed at a poor little Guatemalan lady at Saritas just saying "Chocolate Waffla!!!!" over and over again. Nice attempt at Spanish Katie. Us boys went through the park to a small market in Xela. On the way, we passed a man with literally the sweetest beard all of us had seen all trip (sorry Raoul). It hung well past his chest. Something all of us can only dream of. Among notable purchases were soccer jerseys (finally!) and a sweet leather hat found by Ryan, bought by Luke. Adam and Matt took the rest of us boys on a wild goose chase until we finally found the one store that sold jerseys, but due to a miscommunication error, Adam and Matt spent twenty minutes in the store while the lady there was on the phone. They thought she was ordering in a jersey from the other store in Xela, but wasn't actually and they didn't realize it. The girls meanwhile had a relaxing afternoon looking at the shops, with Kate and Katie buying Spanish DVDs. Hillary didn't because she "isn't stupid". They also bought pop in a bag because the shop wanted to keep the glass bottles. We ate supper at a sweet, old restaurant.

The evening was spent playing cards, with Ryan and I (Jordan) pulling out a clutch Kaiser win. Jordan bid ten no, but lost the first trick, yet we still won the hand by dumping the three on them. Our record is now a sparkling 10-0. 

Today we spent the moring relaxing at an amazing hot spring in the mountain. The water was flowing straight from the mountain and boy was it warm. I mean REALLY warm. No one got all the way in the hottest pool. Ryan got to his thighs, but was slightly afraid to go any further. Here we noticed Daryl's uncanny resemblance to Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. We drove the rest of the way back top Semilla sadly, in a slightly smaller bus. My leg room was barely less than adequate. Luke and Kate had some interesting sleeping habits. Both involved their heads bobbing back and forth, into people, then shooting straight back into normal, erect position. Katie and Adam's shoulders are slightly bruised, but not quite as bad as Luke's head. We spent the rest of the day at Semilla being vegetables. Katie finally got her Chocolate Waffla, but sadly it did not live up to her lofty expectations. We said our goodbyes to Israel and Sylvia who are leaving tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we are headed to Antigua for our last full day here in Guatemala. Shopping and sightseeing are on the agenda.

Whew!

Jordan, Ryan and Hillary. (with comments from Adam and Katie after Hillary went to sleep)

PS. You may have noticed a theme. We mentioned a lot of sweet beards. Namely, that were grown by people from our group. That is because, as of March 20th, we decided to grow Guatemala Goatees, or Guat Goats for short. We'll be showing them off at school Monday (including Jim). Prepare yourself Canada. The Goats are Coming!

Mississippi: Thursday

Jenn:Dear family and friends, so today we got reminded of back home and of all of you guys since it is pretty chilly over here.. About plus 11.. brrrrrrr. It got sunny and hot by the afternoon.
Alain: Every day keeps getting more tired and more tired and the time till lunch feels longer and longer.
Jenn: Today was good.
Alain: Lunch was good.
Jenn: At lunch some of the Habitat home owners came to speak to us about their experiences with hurricane Katrina. Their stories were really interesting.
Alain: and overwhelming.
Jenn: After lunch our fearless leader Dan (from H for H) took us on a little field trip down the street to see some of the completed houses. They are all eco friendly. Yay! Alain: Then we started building walls and put up siding. Tonight we'll have a lovely sssssupper in the Mockingbird Cafeeee together with a bunch of H for H staff and Mississippi natives.
Jenn: Well that's all folks, showertime!!!!!!   :)

Jenn and Alain

Edmonton Wednesday

Today was the warmest day we have experienced this year, but along with heat comes melting. The work site had almost been transformed into a river as the snow keeps melting and softening up the ground. You have to love walking around in half a foot of slippery, slimy and nasty mud, and having about a pound of this mud stuck to your steel-toed boots at all times. To be honest, I would rather be working in colder and more convenient conditions, where you can work for your warmth and stay clean. For the most part our work stayed the same: drywall, building walls, clean up, framing, etc.

After work, we were given $20 for each group of three, which was what bought our supper at McDonald's. We all found it pretty easy to get a decent meal for only $6.66 per person. We then made a trip to the Boy's and Girl's club, where we met some great people and played some basket ball. Joe Lee and Mike were our representative RJC players, but they had tough competition from a kid named Alex. After getting back to the hotel and filling in our journals, we all relaxed and settled in and got ready for an early night of sleep after such an exhausting day.


Written by Tyler Desroches, Tyler Leblanc and Patty

Today was the warmest day we have experienced this year, but along with heat comes melting. The work site had almost been transformed into a river as the snow keeps melting and softening up the ground. You have to love walking around in half a foot of slippery, slimy and nasty mud, and having about a pound of this mud stuck to your steel-toed boots at all times. To be honest, I would rather be working in colder and more convenient conditions, where you can work for your warmth and stay clean. For the most part our work stayed the same: drywall, building walls, clean up, framing, etc.

After work, we were given $20 for each group of three, which was what bought our supper at McDonald's. We all found it pretty easy to get a decent meal for only $6.66 per person. We then made a trip to the Boy's and Girl's club, where we met some great people and played some basket ball. Joe Lee and Mike were our representative RJC players, but they had tough competition from a kid named Alex. After getting back to the hotel and filling in our journals, we all relaxed and settled in and got ready for an early night of sleep after such an exhausting day.

Wednesday in Calgary

The morning dawned early when we were awakened very early at 7 am. Okay, so it wasn't that early, but after last night's movie, it felt extremely early. After breakfast we left late and got to Inn from the Cold after an uneventful train ride. At the Inn from the Cold, we listened to Bonnie and Jessica talk to us about Homeless Awareness Calgary, an organization for which they worked. Part of the morning was playing a fun but challenging game called "Standing Room Only." The objective of the game was to stay alive and gain status. Some of us were business owners were responsible for properties, while others were given the task of trying to fight off homelessness. It was a good game and made us all think how hard it actually is to live in the real world if you are not born into a good family or home and already have money.

We finished the morning early so we went to the Olympic Plaza Park for lunch. It was a gorgeous day today and we had lots of fun hanging out on the steps and observing very entertaining Calgarians (such as a man doing strenuous stretching.) While we were there a film crew was setting up for "Dear Santa" a movie set in Chicago at Christmas time.

Following lunch we set of for the Alpha House, which is a place that takes in intoxicated people experiencing homeless for the night. As soon as we got there we were put to work making Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches. Our impressive record was 704 sandwiches in 82 minutes. If you care to do the math, our spm (sandwiches per minute) was about 8.5! Another highlight of Alpha House was the tour in which half the group was rattled when one client decided to throw a shoe at us. Because of our stellar assembly line, we were done 1/2 an hour early, so we got some free time downtown.

After a delicious meal at Milestones, we went back to Alpha House for the Night Tours. Because there were so many guides and so few of us, we were split into groups of two and got to take a personal tour of the core of downtown Calgary with someone who has experienced or is currently experiencing homelessness. All of us came away from the evening wiser and astonished at what we saw. If ever you get the chance, we highly recommend it!

We are all very tired now, so we are going to bed now. Thanks for the prayers and support!
Judith, Gwen, and Sam

Pictures from Calgary!

Hello hello! We finally got a card reader, so here are the promised pictures! The first is of us preparing pizzas and almost setting the church on fire.

 Hanging out after supper in the foyer.

Walking in downtown Calgary on our way to Streetlight.

 Getting on the C-train!

 Evan and Dan cleaning glue off the walls of the Streetlight trailer in a creative manner.

 The Streetlight Trailer that goes into the downtown area twice a week for a couple hours.

We ate lunch today at the Olympic Plaza Park, then had some time to waste, so we took some pictures.

 The movie "Dear Santa" was being filmed while we were there and this sign was there. Jocelyn and Gwen thought it was a good picture opportunity.

This afternoon we were at Alpha House making sandwiches. Due to our pro assembly line, we made 704 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Hope you enjoyed the pics! Thanks for the prayers!
Judith, Gwen, and Sam

Mississippi: Tuesday and Wednesday

Since  ALL Y'ALL have been sittin' up where it's chilly, we thought we'd tell y'all 'bout our last couple'a days here down south. On Tuesday, it was cloudy, which wasn't a bad thang' cause on Monday, we all became a big bunch'a 'red necks' (sunburnt, youch!). But today, we had everythang from pourin' rain to a little bit of sunshine. Although it slowed down our progress, we still ended up with blisters on our hands from all the hammerin'.
On Tuesday we headed'er down to Gulfport after our day of work for power-shoppin' at the outlet malls. We got to enjoy many'a lightin' flash, and got to see the roarin' waves of the sea the whole way thar. When we got to the malls, we all ran through the rain and were delighted to see the many stores for everyone, such as NIKE and Bath & Body Works.

Wednesday was a full day of work, but was cut (haha) a little short  for two reasons. Most of us went for a visit to Pass Christian for lunch with Billy Morgan, but Karalee and Luke DE headed'er to the ER where he got 5 stitches on his pinky joint. They missed lunch, but we enjoyed a good ol' home cooked meal, consistin' of spaghetti, salad and freshly baked desserts. For our second dessert, we had story time with Billy, a Hurricane Katrina survivor and MDS homeowner. He had interestin' stories that y'all should'a heard, and a very infectious laugh. Some of us spent our evenin' explorin' Bay Saint Louis and interminglin' with the Saint Stanislaus students, who don't get to see girls very often! And weren't really supposed to talk to us. Shhh!

Y'all better stay tuned for some more updates in the near future!




BYE Y'ALL!!!

Macaila and Sara B

Saskatoon SPCA

Five students have been working at the SPCA. Their duties have included laundry, food prep, cleaning, and animal handling.

Matt spends some time with a corgie mix pup who needs gentle attention.

Crystal and Jessie unpack inventory and document it - a job that saved the regular staff a lot of time!

The SPCA handles many kinds of animals, including rabbits, hamsters, fish, turtles, birds, other exotic animals, and of course dogs and cats. The cats seem to be the most numerous.

Kelsey's favourite was one of the rabbits in the exotic animals area.

After the morning jobs which involves a lot of cleaning and food prep, the afternoon is spent mostly socializing the animals which is an important part of their preparation for adoption. Here Jessie and Kierstin spend time in one of the cat rooms.

The students have learned a lot about the Saskatoon SPCA. Contrary to popular belief, the SPCA does not have a minimum stay policy, and euthanize animals only when absolutely necessary.

ALSO Saskatoon Day 2

ALSO Saskatoon eagerly began their service projects today.  We had three groups serving at different locations in the Saskatoon area.  

The largest group of students went to work for  Habitat for Humanity.

The cool temperatures, ice and snow made the work challenging.  The yard was first cleared of debris.

Most of the day was spent moving a mountain!  Kyle, Say Eh Htoo and Landon chipped away at this frozen pile of dirt.  It all had to be moved into the basement of the home. 

Gerry did his best to keep up with the guys.

Ms. Heinrichs, Vice Principal of Vincent Massey Community School (and Sara's mom)  was instrumental in bringing our group of students to help out at her school.

Brett makes a 'buddy'

Laura helps out during story time in the pre-kindergarten class.



Another group of students spent the day at the SPCA.  All three groups with spend the next 2 days at these locations.  We are looking forward to learning new skills, building new relationships and serving to the best of our ability.

Edmonton Day 2

Day 2

what a day. the guys had to wake up at 6 just so we could eat and pile into the van to go get the girls. we then drove to the habitat build site where we were greeted by the other volunteers. we were given our work boots, safety glasses and some awesome blue and pink hard hats. Zach was lookin' good in his pink hard hat. our crew of 14 people were divided into 3 crews. framing, drywall and site clean-up. the clean up crew did stuff like hauling lumber and sorting it, removing nails from scrap wood, putting building paper on houses, putting plastic on windows and staircases, relatively simple carpentry tasks and other things. drywall crew did just that. they put up drywall on some of the more complete houses. when Tyler L was cutting the access hole to the attic, he got covered in drywall dust. he was truly Le Blanc (the white) lol. framing crew did more building tasks such as building ramps, stairs, etc. it was a great first day on the job and if the mud stays reasonable, Im sure it will only get better. 

supper consisted of chili and chips at Bakers' aunts house. (not the same chilis as last night.) the food was great, the hospitality was wonderful, and all the guys watched a movie on bakers' uncles 55" tv with insane surround sound. it was so awesome. a big thank you to them. on the way back to the hotel, Zach felt the need to stop at shoppers drug mart to get some cough syrup. it ended up with almost everyone buying something. Mike and Vicheal went to Wendys instead. Mike finds it hard to find a washroom in Edmonton. we are all looking forward to tomorrow and hoping everyone else has a great ALSO experience.

your friends, Patty, Tyler and Tyler.

Hi From Calgary!

Hi everybody, in case you haven't heard, we all made it safe to Calgary; all fourteen of us! The trip here was full of the unexpected. Sam actually made a sandwich last 30 minutes, podcasts about injustice made everybody upset, and candy lasted way too long during petty competitions.
We left yesterday at 9 am, got to Calgary right before supper, and made tasty pizzas for to eat. (Thank you Dalhousie Mennonite Brethren Community Church for letting us use your ovens even when we smoked out the kitchen and almost set off the smoke alarm. Thanks to Tiera and Hannah, that didn't happen.)
After supper we played cards, listened the radio (yes Evan, there are classical music stations!), and explored the open areas of the church. Really quite an uneventful but interesting day.
This morning we woke up at 7 am, had breakfast, and set off on our first day to explore inner-city Calgary. Thanks to the public transit system and our guides Kari and Kristen, we eventually made it to the Salvation Army (interesting detours included getting off at the wrong C-train stop, going down the wrong construction sidewalk, and finding the wrong door into the Sally-Ann, which was locked from both directions!). Once inside the elusive building, half of us went to the kitchen to prepare food in hairnets and aprons and the other half went to the laundromat to do some spring cleaning. It was an interesting morning full of fascinating people. In the kitchen, vegetables were chopped, bread was sliced in large quantities, and sandwiches were flipped. In the laundromat, walls were washed, windows were mostly cleaned (streaky, but at least you can see through them now) and grime was expelled.
For lunch we got to eat with the clients at the Sally-Ann, where Joel met a man named Blair and conversed about many intriguing topics.
Next was more public transit, this time with buses to a parking lot which held a truck and trailer belonging to Streetlight, an organization that works with homeless youth. The trailer is a mobile drop-in for Calgary's Street Kids, but it needed a little TLC. We had lots of fun organizing their fully-functional kitchen, and cleaning everything that had a surface. Dan and Evan were pros at washing ceilings without  ladders by the end, Gwen and Sarah had oodles of fun scrubbing floors, and Hailey's a master at stairs. Right now, we are settling down for a wonderful meal of taco salad and perogies. Yes, we know you're jealous. The cooks, including Erin, Sarah, and Hannah, are dancing away in the kitchen creating all the food. Activities at the moment include basketball in the gym with Parker, sleeping upstairs with Jocelyn and Hailey, and hanging out on the comfy couches in the foyer.
Today Mryna was unable to join us on our adventure due to an unfortunate sickness called the flu! Jim, you will be hearing about this when we get back, sorry she didn't authorize it with you, but we figured it would be hard to get in contact with you.
Tonight we hope to do something extravagant like relaxing in the city, maybe taking in a movie, or doing some coffee shop exploring.
Tomorrow, comes the long awaited Night Tour, among lots of other things. We'll keep in touch and hopefully have pictures for you in the next couple of days.
Thanks for the prayers and support!

Your faithful bloggers,
Judith, Gwen, and Sam (who is busy in the kitchen but will hopefully be here next time.)

Mississippi Trip: Sunday and Monday

Preface: we have limited wireless access so sorry for the delay! We are doing our best to keep you updated!

Paul almost lost it on Brendan. Brendan deleted the very long blog we just wrote, so here's a shorter version! So we woke up on Sunday, went to an awesome church with lots of great singing and a very inspirational pastor. Then we went to the dollar store for lunch, Paul enjoyed his fruit cup. Then we headed to a swamp tour to see some alligators. It was really awesome and educational. Captain Drew told lots of jokes and Captain Ted grew up on the Bayou and told too many stories to believe all of them. After that we headed to Sonic for a less than mediocre meal. Nic never did get his milkshake. The next day we started working at our site where it was quite sweltering outside. We had a lunch break then went to the Bay St. Louis community center to move furniture (700 chairs). As a reward, we got a city permit to have a bonfire with the wood pallets from the furniture on the beach. The bonfire was needed. It was a place of Zen XD. Paul got a really bad sunburn and Brendan's leg is quite injured.

 

CAN I HAVE A WITNESS!?

 

Brendan and Paul

Edmonton Blog. (Guys edition)

Well... we arrived. It was a long trip but somehow we managed to get through it. I must say, I never thought that sleeping on the floor of the RJC vans would be comfortable but John sure made it seem so (what was even more amazing was he was able to do it with his seatbelt still on). The trip was around 7 hours long and John was saying it felt like only minutes.

The guys were lucky enough to have gotten rooms at the super 8 (Thank you Sherwood Dodge Chrysler) while the girls are sleeping at John and Kaitlin's grandmas (just as sweet). For supper, we made our way to down town Edmonton where we had an amazing cultural experience outside of our normal boundaries. We also ran into our first of what I assume will be many tests of our manhood.  There were these dainty little peppers from Hades. They were quite possibly the hottest things we have ever eaten. Us being intelligent creatures thought it would be fun to bring a few back to the hotel. After dropping Kaitlyn, Mackenzie and Nancy off at Bakers' grandmas', we drove to the hotel were the Tylers, Mike, and myself (Patty) head to the nearby McDonalds for dairy products in preparation for the main event of the night. I think you can tell where this is going. The four of us manned up and ate the deadly chilli pepper. All I can say is wow. That was stupid. For a pepper that is only about 1 ½ inches long, they pack a ton of heat.

                

Tomorrow, we venture forth to new ground as we tackle the work Habitat for Humanity throws at us.

Written by Patty and Tyler L (not that Tyler at all) and Tyler D.

The contestants in the chilli challange.

 

 

 

ALSO Saskatoon Day 1

 ALSO Saskatoon began it's week of learning and serving at the MCC offices in Saskatoon.  The morning was spent in workshops lead by Dana and Miriam.  They lead us through a variety of activities that helped us explore diversity and challenged our ideas about what is 'normal'.

Students discover that what is normal for one is not normal for another.

Laura ponders the defining moments in her life.

Landon and Kiersten work on their personal stories.

A simple card game showed us what happens when the rules are interpreted differently!

We were divided into three groups for an inner city plunge for the afternoon.  Group 1 explored poverty in the inner city.  They visited organizations that assisted this group like the Salvation Army and the Food bank.  Group 2 explored issues faced by immigrants .  They visited organization like the Open Door Society.  Group 3 explored the issues surrounding disabilities. They visited the Crocus Co-op (mental disabitity) and the Saskatchewan Initiatives Council (intellectual disabilities).

At the newly relocated Crocus Co-op

The end of the day brought us back to the MCC offices to journal about the days activities.

Students journaling in the atrium.

Hey Y'all From Bay St Louis

Today we woke up at 5:30 a.m. and made our way to New Orleans; 6 hour bus
drive! Yahoo! We arrived at the French Quarter at around 2. Once we made our
way to Jackson Square, we dispersed into our respective groups and just went
off to have fun. Some went shopping, some ate, and some watched the various
street performances. We all now had the chance to sit down at an actual
restaurant; a nice change from greasy fast food. We in particular, went to a
typical Southern cafe, and quite enjoyed ourselves. We got to experience
eating ALLIGATOR. It tastes like chicken. Literally. Personally I thought it
tasted exactly like squid but whatever (I am not gonna argue with the girls).
Apart from the food, it was nice to experience the southern culture, such as
the funny accents, friendly people, and a certain dude with a massive afro
wig(and I mean MASSIVE -- Parker's got nothin on this guy). It was a fun
time for everyone, and we are looking forward to our swamp tour tomorrow.

Sincerely,
David Wiebe - with Brittany Olsen and Caitlyn Hegedus

Update 4 From Guatemala

El Salvador was cool. We're back. Shippin' out tomorrow. Thanks for reading! Just kidding.

We left bright and early on Thursday morning, leaving Semilla at 6. We picked up Adriana and Caitlyn, an MCC SALTer who joined our trip, on route. Fortunately, before we got too far out of the city, Mario, our driver, remembered that we needed an important document to allow him to drive us over the border. We sat around for about an hour waiting for Antony, the MCC director, to drive out to where we were parked to give us this document, because the traffic into the city was awful and it was unrealistic for us to make good time going in. So we sat about. During this hour Geraldine and Jim broke out breakfast. Yum yum yum, pandulce. If you're interested, Ryan and I (Jordan) improved our Kaiser record to 4-0 in the time between then and now. The girls and Adam also realized that Cassandra is overcompetitive at card games.

There wasn't much to tell from there to the drive to the border. We didn't end up at the crossing we wanted to, but we made it more or less. We took the scenic route (got lost) to La Linea (the community we were to work at) through San Salvador. We discovered we had just missed Barack Obama by a day. ¡Shucks! See, our Spanish is improving! We did end up at La Linea and had some delicious chicken. We met the local MCC workers there named Lynden and Elizabeth. We were formally introduced to the church and its community afterwards at the new building they had for a church. After this, we were given a tour through their community. We visited the "old city" where the community lived before tropical storm Ida and mudslides destroyed much of the housing there. We were able to visit their old church. It had an incredible view, but the ground underneath was slowly receding (like Ryan's hair will be) so that the building was unsafe to worship in. We spent the night at San Martin in a convent/retreat center run by Catholic nuns.

The next day we went to see the "promised land." This is the land La Linea was planning to purchase to move their community to. They need roughly $30 000 more to buy it. Since they do not own the land they are on, if the railway company, whose land they are squatting on, decides to develop the area where they live, then the entire community would be homeless. To avoid this conflict, it's imperative they buy this land. It would give them a chance to get them away from the violence from the slum, reclaim an abandoned coffee plantation, and be able to grow gardens, mangos, oranges, guavas, avacados, plantains, and bananas. This is a big deal. I'm not sure how happy I would be to go back only because of the sketchy infrastructure. It's not exactly 4 lane highway.

One part of our experience was the cicadas. Man can they produce noise (Ryan thinks this is a little bland. He would have preferred scream). People really mean it when they say the forest comes alive at night. Wow. Ryan and Hillary, who was wearing ear plugs even, were also not aware that roosters crowed at 3 am. Kate, Katie, and Hillary finally broke down and pet their first puppies here. I'm surprised it took so long. I was getting sick of hearing them say how much they wanted to pet the dogs. Good news, it only itched for about an hour afterwards.

A note on the food of La Linea. Holy smokes! Delicious man! I've never had more delicious fish in my life, and I've been to some good fish places. Wow! I dedicated an entire page in my journal to this fish. Hillary didn't have it. What a weiner. We ate it on a beautiful courtyard surrounded by fruit trees, a duck, a few chickens, a parrot, and a spectacular view of the valley. After this fish, the local co-op brought out some goods for us to purchase. They make some wonderful hammocks. I'm sure it was the best day of sales they'd had in a long time.

The day continued with a parachute game with the smaller children. It was pretty hot. I think that's an understatement. The one person in our group who doesn't burn got burnt (Hillary). The amount of perspiration on mine and Ryan's back was quite gross. Matt's white shirt was not a solid choice. Lucky for us, we got to sweat more in a soccer tournament! The girls brought home gold, but they were led by the soccer star Caitlyn. The guys did not have such luck. We had Matt, and the rest of us gave our best. We lost out in the first game. Some highlights were being the fan favourites, Me (Jordan) taking out the net after saving a goal, and the aforementioned person missing various opportunities to score. Sorry team. As it turned out, Adam scored the only goal, surprisingly not with his face. The church team, who we were playing, ended up winning the whole thing.

In the evening, the church youth came to our abode and gave us a proper send off. We played some mixer games which including me breaking the game up for a few moments by speaking in a universal language, also known as passing gas. Whoops. At least some good came out of it. I will be remembered there! Perhaps not for the right reasons though. They sang us a song, and we gave them some gifts of appreciation. I sang Last Saskatchewan Pirate backed up by our group. We really need a whistler. They presented us with the trophies from the soccer tournament. The girls won theirs fair and square, and the guys were given the trophy won by the church team. Guess what? The guys was bigger and better. We had to carry ours on the bus and the girls packed theirs away in a backpack.

We took Israel and Sylvia back with us. They are "youth" from the community (24 years old). Interestingly enough, Israel's favourite sport is American football. They will be coming with us to San Marcos and Quetzaltenango. Our drive back was quite uneventful.

Hey mom's, the guys did laundry! Impressed? I thought so. Just be warned, it may not happen when we get home.

In the next couple of days we will be in San Marcos, Guatemalan La Linea, and Xela (Quetzaltenango). We may or may not have internet so we'll see what happens.

¡Feliz noches chikos y chikas!

Jordan, Hillary and Ryan

PS Currently the room was filled with an unbelievable amount of sarcasm directed at Cassandra's knowledge of computers. I'm surprised the walls didn't fall down because the room was bursting with it.

Hello from the Mississippi Trippers

Ooh hey, didn't see yeah there.

So we're still alive. The bus ride was long (36 hours), greasy and uncomfortable. But we survived through movies, ipods, and sleeping in the aisles awkwardly. Easy to say we've never looked better. We're learning important life skills that we've seemed to have forgotten. Like sharing. We slowly, but successfully shared two single gas station bathrooms between all 31 of us while getting ready for bed time on the bus. We missed our opportunity to visit the Museum of Civil Rights, but "fortunately" got to tour the "wonderful" and "exciting" Graceland. in Graceland we got to sign the wall outside of Graceland (as seen in this photo) we arrived in south haven at around 6:30 this evening. After glorious and well needed showers we set out to experience the comfort food of the south. Deep fried broccoli... delicious. After our phenomenal meal we are finally settling into our rooms for the comfort of a real bed and a good nights rest. tomorrow we will be visiting New Orleans touring the french quarter. we are looking forward to the weather (expected to be 29), trying new food, and shopping. Good night Canada, stay classy. p.s have fun in the cold. :)
Sincerely,
Ryann and Kirstin.

Guatemala Update

So, as you probably know already, we're not in El Salvador. What's that, you want to know why? Well just sit down and I'll tell you a tale.

It all started yesterday at 5:30 AM. The children were running and screaming, awaking the shallowest of sleepers (so of course not Ryan). We awoke and had breakfast at Semilla and went over our plans. We were to go to the market and a human rights museum featuring the exhibit "Why we are who we are." In the afternoon we were to travel to San Salvador and spend the night there.

So we travelled to the market. On the way,we saw a man herding goats in the middle of the main plaza. The thing that alerted us of his presence was the cracking of his whip to keep his goats in line. At the market, we were given the task of "buying" basic necessities for a standard family of four on what would be an average farmer's budget (50 Q or 6 dollars). My group was fine (Ryan, Jim, Jordan, and Luke), but I'm sure the other groups were not as great as us. Hillary's group was approached by a drunk man, who told them he loved them forever. We had a tough time finding items to supply a family for one day at a reasonable price. Most of the items surprised us. We asked for prices on various things including tomatoes (5 Q/15), beans (10 Q/lb), a chicken (40 Q), and toilet paper (4 rolls/ 22 Q). Based on these prices it would be hard to supply a family sufficiently since you would likely only be able to buy the most basic of things. Some of the participants also felt uncomfortable asking the prices without intent of buying goods since this was these people's livelihood.

After this, we went to the artisan market. There was a lady there wearing 6 hats, 10 table runners, and large amounts of clothing and bags. The strange thing was she was wearing them all in the heat that was roughly 27 C. A friendly man tried to help Luke find an adequate belt. He was quite determined to sell him a belt, and even went about looking in various stalls to find a proper fit. Luke had no choice but to buy this belt after he put in so much effort to find a good belt. The guys bought a few machettes, and a couple other gifts for various people, which may or may not include family members. This opportunity to buy gifts at the market gave us a chance to practice our bartering skills. I can quite confidently say I was the best. Some were better than others of course. We were all ripped off in the end.

Next stop on the tour we went to the museum. The exhibit mainly talked about the indigenous groups and their rights, and the bloody history of the people. The exhibit was interesting, but we were quite limited by our minimal knowledge of the Spanish language. It was definately worthwhile, but we're still processing what we got out of it.

We came back to Semilla for lunch and packed our stuff up to head out. We ate some delicious chicken. Shortly after lunch we were introduced to our driver, Mario. As fortune would have it, we needed gas. We proceeded to stop at a shell station which housed the cafe called "On The Run." Where's this going? Well, as Adriana returned from purchasing gas, two men came to different windows. One pulled out a gun and pointed it at Mario. He demanded all of our money. Needless to say, we handed what he wanted over. Among notable things stolen are Cassandra's passport and Gerry's camera, along with a lot of MCC's money. Remember the name of the cafe? Pretty coincidental eh? I thought the mood was quite dark in the van afterwards. I looked at the name and started laughing and sharing what I was laughing about. It cheered Hillary up at least. We immediately went to MCC afterwards and debriefed about our experience and our feelings surrounding the event. Thankfully everyone was fine.

So now we had to figure out how to get Cassandra a passport. She did her thing at the Canadian Embassy today, securing a passport for our travels set for tomorrow at 6 in the morning. We slept in this morning and played Kaiser (Jordan and Ryan up 2 games to 0 over Matt and Luke, who think they're going to win the third) while she was doing this.

We also had the pleasure of heading to the community of Lo de Carranza in the afternoon. We met up with Manuel, who was part of the experience of last year's group. We toured the neighborhood as well as checked out the church and the preschool in the area built by past RJC trips. During our tour of the neighborhood, we got to check out some houses in the area as well as meet the locals and interacting with the kids.

On the way back, we encountered a bus that blocked the two lanes of oncoming traffic while trying to turn left, but the traffic headed the other way refused to let him in. The bus driver behind us got quite upset and furiously honked his horn in vain. We also encountered the longest red light in the history of the world. We sat at the light the in the time that it would take approximately to read this blog twice.

We leave tomorrow bright and early for El Salvador.

Your Intrepid Explorers

Jordan, Ryan, and Hillary

PS Thanks Hillary for going to bed and waking up Cassandra so she could proofread. We already know we cannot rely on the sppellcheck feature. I think we're good for next time though, and I'm not sure if I want to see Cassandra after she's prepared for bed again.

From Guatemala!

So, we had a fantastic day of flights that resulted in a few stories, a couple of missing essential components, and a confiscated bottle of hand sanitizer. We had somewhat of a scare right off of the bat when the nice lady from Air Canada announced our plane to Calgary may or may not be landing, which would have forced us to reschedule our entire flight scheme. However, the plane landed 1 second after she announced this. Thank you for not looking out of the window, Air Canada lady. So we made it to Calgary. Then I (Jordan) go through security. I let them zap my ticket and I walk through the metal detector. I get to the other side and the nice man asks for my boarding pass. I fail to find it. Fortunately for me, they found it under the table on the other side of security, so they searched my bag next. Then they took my hand sanitizer. I thought, "how the heck did this thing get through Saskatoon?" It's a pretty big bottle too. So we are about to board our plane from Calgary to Houston when the guy checking our boarding passes notices an incredible amount of Mennonite names. He then asks if we're from Steinbach or something.

Next on the itinerary, we land in Houston. We're all pretty hungry at this point. Almost all of the guys looked into getting some Texas barbeque. We find a joint and I request a BBQ sandwich. A meat slab the size of a football field is produced, accompanied by a word I cannot write on this blog, which was announced by the Texan behind me. If a local was impressed, you know it had to be big. Next we hear the PA system calling for Kate McArthur to go to gate E10. She lost everything. If you thought my boarding pass situation was bad, you should not read the extensive list of things she lost: her passport, all of her money, all of her boarding passes, her baggage claim sticker, her drivers licence, her pride, and a pack of gum. While this was happening, we all watched March Madness. At this point, a friendly Guatemalan man came to talk to us about the nuances of bartering and specific sites we should visit. Also, he highly recommended a chicken place in Quetzeltenango.

Next we boarded our flight to Guatemala City. Matt unnerved a lady sitting close to him. A friendly chap served us a microwaved burger in a plastic bag. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, death by... who knows what's in that thing. Whatever it is, it can't be good for ya. We did end up arriving at our destination relatively unscathed (remember Kate's pride), although Cassandra did somehow manage to get stopped and patted down at every possible security checkpoint, including experiencing the (in)famous FULL BODY SCAN. We were greeted by Adriana and Antony in a new van with a fair bit of headroom. Hillary could stand up in it, but that's not saying much. We spent the night at Semilla. We were all happy to be here. Especially Adam (insert mile wide smile here).

I was rudely awakened by a man mowing his lawn at 5:30 am. We gathered for breakfast in the dining hall and discussed our plan for the day. Adriana picked us up and brought us to the MCC Guatemala El Salvador head office. We were formally introduced to Adriana and our itinerary for the next 12 days. After this review, we were given the long answer of everything that is done by MCC in Guatemala and El Salvador. We were served a delicious lunch made by a very very nice Guatemalan lady. Much better than that burger yesterday.  After lunch and a quick soccer match where Adam found a way to get hit in the face multiple times, we travelled to the City Cemetary and did a scavenger hunt to find graves of historical figures in Guatemala's history. We observed the obvious juxtaposition of mausoleums for the rich and a wall grave for the poor, indicating the great disparity between the poor and the rich. We ventured to the edge of the cemetary where we viewed the dump. There was an incredible amount of vultures and an incredible amount of people looking to recycle the garbage that was incessantly being brought in. Afterward, on our way out, Gerry McLellan was approached by a local man who had a little bit too much to drink and was looking to practice his English. Way to be a sport Gerry. I (Jordan) was also gawked at by a number of Guatemalan girls who were perplexed by my height and pale complexion. All of this was followed by a spanish lesson where we were introduced to our new Spanish names. Notables include Gerry being changed to Heraldo, Luc to Lucas, Jordan to Hordan, Kate and Katie to Katerina I & II, and Jim to Diego.

For the next couple of days we will be in El Salvador working with the locals of La Linea. We're looking forward to connecting with the local youth there.  We will most likely be out of contact, so check in again on the weekend for our next update.

A special thanks to the spell check feature of hotmail, which only told us that most browsers do this automatically. You're a champ.

Salud!

Jordan, Hillary, and Ryan

Crossing Borders With Care - Guatemala 2011

Our Guatemala/El Salvador adventure begins soon!  Today in Chapel our group was "commissioned' by the RJC community as we prayed together for safety and a wonderful time of great learning, new friendships and adventure together.

We will be leaving this Sunday morning and after a long day of travel via Calgary and Houston we will begin our service and learning tour in Guatemala City with MCC's Connecting People's program.  We anticipate visits to El Salvador, Guatemala City, San Marcos and the cloud forests, Xela and Antigua.  We have a busy itinerary with many unique and exciting experiences in store!

We will post on our blog as time and technology permit.  We look forward to learning in very practical terms what Christ meant when He taught to "love your neighbor as yourself".  We appreciate your prayers for our group and your interest in our adventure.

Adios!!