Calgary ALSO Slideshow

We put together a 5 minute slideshow of our experience in Calgary during ALSO last week.

Thanks again to MCC Alberta (www.mccalberta.ca) and Megan Enns (RJC alumnus!) for organizing our week!

Picnic in the Scenic Ditch

Hey y'all,
Today we had a much needed sleep-in day, and took the day off from working
because our bus was in the shop. Instead we had breakfast, cleaned up our
rooms and the camp and then were shuttled to Walmart to buy some American
snacks - lets just say that Walmart needs to restock the junk food aisles.
Then we all headed over to the Golden Corral where RJC treated us to a
scrumptious and gigantic buffet - a few boys were so excited for this
smorgasbord that they even skipped breakfast!
After loosening our belts, we all headed back to Camp Christian and waited
around until the bus was out the shop. At 3 PM we were off again and headed
out. On the bus we watched "The Witness", which was the encounter of Martin
Luther King's assassination through the eyes of Samuel Billy Kyles a preacher
standing on the balcony with him at the time of his assassination We had met
Billy Kyles when we were at the civil rights museum.
We headed right into our devotions, wrote in our journals on the bus and then
3 hours later our journey came to an abrupt halt with our bus breaking down
once again. We managed to drive to a service station and had a lovely picnic
in a grassy ditch. We are still currently hanging out in the service station
and hope to be back on the road in the next hour. Only 40 hours to go! WOOO.


Sara B and Michael E

Guatemala: Enjoying the Warmth May 4

We're back at Semilla after an awesome time working with ANADESA at Lake Atitlan. We left here at 9:00am on Wednesday May 2nd after a relaxing morning sleeping in. The so called 3 hour drive actually took 3 hours this time. We drove to the lake and then took a water taxi across. It was beautiful to see the volcanoes through the mist and to feel a cool breeze (or what we thought was cool even though it was over 20). 

After a ride in the back of a pick-up, we arrived at ANADESA where we got a tour of the area. We learned more about a massacre that occured because of the civil war, where 13 people were killed by the military. Some were as young as five. As well, we learned of the major mudslide that occured in 2005 where the damage is still visible today. 

Next came the market. Since it was the least touristy, we ended up buying quite a bit. Some of us girls had difficulty saving our money, mostly because smalll children can be very persausive. Also, there was a certain old lady that refused to leave us alone. At one point she was practically running down the hill beside me, Rachel, saying how she needed the money for shoes and tortillas. It was especially comical because she barely reached passed my elbow. Even when we tried to lose her, she would wait for us outside of every store we entered. We took Tuk-Tuks back to ANADESA where we met our host families. Some people went to a different community that was started after the mudslide called Chookmook. A lot of the host families had kids, which were fun to play with. We ate two suppers and two breakfasts with them. Some were not the typical choice: spaghetti or fried cauliflower for breakfast. 

The next morning, we met back at ANADESA for work. We split into two groups: one went to dismantle the provisional school (used while fixing the original one after the mudslide) to bring to the original, and the other leveled and cleaned the new land for the future ANADESA community center. The next time the school group showed up they had changed colour significantly, from white to RED. They had been in direct sunlight while swinging sledge hammers. Lucky that Sarah has aloe vera! The garbage pickers were in the shade and cool. Ahhh... We also got to see the REAL way to harvest fruit, avocadoes, from a tree, not the way Rachel tried.... 

After a sabrosa lunch, we split up into two groups again for the childrens activities. Half went to Chuk Muk and the other half stayed at ANADESA. We made crafts for an hour and played for an hour with 5 - 12 year olds. To some it was even more work than the morning was. Those kids have enough energy to power a generator for the whole city! After they left we got the low down on how to make tortillas the way they originally did it. They invited an old lady from the community to show us. Since she only spoke Tz-tuwill and no Spanish, it had to be translated a few times before we understood anything. The corn is cooked and soaked overnight, and then ground on a stone table with a stone rolling pin thing three times before it is ready to be made into tortillas. We all got to try and the verdict is.... Paul makes the best wife. We helped make the dough into tortillas as well, but ours were shaped anywhere close to a circle. Then it was back with our host families.

After a sad goodbye to our hosts we tried to meet at ANADESA. The Chuk Muk group took a half ton public taxi. We fit our group in it squishily, but there were 28 (Larry counted) in it this time. We sure didn't go very fast. Then we headed back across the lake to Panajachel for a few hours and lunch at the market. Not too much money was spent this time. 

Once we reached Guatemala City, we went to the cemetery. It is very easy to tell who is the richest and who is the poorest. We even got to see the crypt of the richest family in central America (it is shaped like a pharoah's tomb). We also saw an execution site on the edge of the dump. We thought we had seen some poor people in the places we stayed, but the really poor ones, were the ones running after the dump trucks to sort through the garbage. It was a very changing experience to see. Next we saw the Civil Rights museum. It was really interesting to see Canada's treatment of the First Nations people right up beside the Holocaust. We probably could have gotten more out of it, but it was all in Spanish. 

We're enjoying our choco-bananas and a relaxing evening back at Semilla before our last and hopefully glorious day tomorrow at Antigua. 

See you all soon,

Raquel y Sarah

Calgary ALSO - the journey home

Friday was a travel day home. The van was pretty quiet as the students seemed fairly tired from all the thinking/learning/working they did this week.  There is a lot to think about and process. 

Maybe we'll have one more entry after we've had our Calgary ALSO presentation in chapel. We'll see...

We stopped in Drumheller for a quick photo-op. But the t-rex is so big, you can hardly see us standing at its feet.

Vichael was especially pumped to take a picture by the t-rex!

Outside of Drumheller, we visited some hoo doos.

...and did a bit of "mountain climbing"

Holly seemed the most excited about this part.

Luke was the first out of the van and fairly well ran to the hills to try some climbing.

It's all about the Kids: Saskatoon ALSO Day 4

Thursday of the Saskatoon ALSO experience saw the Vincent Massey group continue in the classrooms in the morning.  They continued to build on relationships that they developed with the children, and also prepared to say good-bye, seeing as this was their last day at the school.  Thanks to the students and staff at Vincent Massey for a great experience.  There is so much good being done at this school! 

The other ALSO Saskatoon students spent their morning at the "Youth Unchained" conference at the new Cathedral in Saskatoon. 

This conference was planned by the Saskatoon chapter of NASHI, an organization that works to end to modern-day slavery and human trafficking.  The Cathedral was packed with youth from Saskatoon-area schools.  The keynote speaker was Craig Keilburger, the founder of "Free the Children", an organization that works to raise awareness of the plight of working children, mostly in the field of unfair labour practices in the developing world.  Craig spoke for an hour, but kept the student's interest with his passion and gripping message.  He encouraged the students to not wait to take action, but to take action against injustice now, while they are young just as he did as a 12 year old.  "The world can't wait".  Why is human trafficking an important issue today?  Here are some stats from NASHI's website:    

GET THIS:
1.  Human trafficking is modern day slavery
2.  Against their will, children are pulled out of orphanages and sold
3.  27 million men, women and children are held as slaves
4.  It is the fastest growing organized crime activity in the world today
5.  Each year 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade
6.  There are more slaves in the world today than ever before in history
7.  The average cost of a slave around the world is $90.
8.  An estimated 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse and torture
9.  The internet is fuelling the need for more trafficked children
10.  Canada is ranked as a destination of trafficked victims – domestically and globally

After taking in the conference in the morning both groups met at Bishop Klein community school where Vice-Principal Kris Hanson toured the students and showed them what things were happening to address some problems facing this community.  The students from Vincent Massey did not have far to walk as Bishop Klein in Vincent Massey's 'sister catholic school' just down the street.  Mr. Hanson organized some speakers that met with our student's in Bishop Klein's chapel.

From there we headed north to Camp Kinasao to begin the reflection portion of the ALSO experience. 

 

Edmonton #4

what a day. working with habitat was great but unfortunately today was our final day. we worked hard on the houses and had a blast.after fighting with acoustical sealant for two days we managed to get one house almost completely vapor barriered. at 4 o,clock, we left the site but not before we got pictures and shook everyones hand thanking them for the chance to help out. for supper, Sir Attema of Edmonton arranged a picnic at a beautiful park. thank you to him and his brother Jason for bringing us drinks. we ate, played Frisbee and football, and Liam discovered hot root beer tastes great. Liam was pumped because he managed to catch a pigeon with his bare hands. it started pouring rain so we ran to the van and headed back to Kings College.

while at habitat, a few of us got some new names.

Hope became Holly

Crystal became Quartz

Paddy-Teddy

Say eh Wah- Sally

Landon - curly

well we are on our way home tomorrow. looking forward to it.

-Paddy

Ocean View

Today was quite exciting for one big reason. We all went to the Dauphin
Island, which is located at the Gulf of Mexico. For some of us, it was another
visit to the ocean but there were some people who saw and touched the ocean
for the first time. It was exciting and very adventurous for everyone.
Unfortunately the beach time was cut short, due to us getting an eviction
notice. Mike, the man who evicted us, ended up being a part of hurricane
Katrina and was able to share his story and experiences with everyone before
we left the beach. One the way back to Camp Christian, we had more bus
troubles. Everyone was tired, hungry and some were still in their swim suits,
so not everyone was happy. The bus broke down once for about a half hour, and
then again a few minutes later for around an hour or two. Everyone ended up
getting shuttled back in a rented van back to camp. We all were very hungry
and were pleased to see spaghetti on the table. After supper, everyone had a
shower and came back feeling clean and happier for devotions. We then
celebrated Jared's birthday with a rice krispie football cake.

Trissy Murphy and Steph Willie for the group

Calgary D4 - avoiding a single story

Today we had an impactful presentation at MCC Alberta. One of the things we watched was a TED Talks video entitled "The danger of a single story." See the bottom of this entry for the embeded video! So worth watching!

We took city transit and walked a lot today. We were heading to the bus stop to wait for our transfer.

Right beside the bus stop was somebody's shelter built into a tree.

     We arose from a deep slumber at 5:30 AM today to help pack up the cots, and to clean up the remnants of a large breakfast that was cooked before we woke up. 

     Due to popular request, two pots of coffee were made for us, and after consuming a few cups, we hopped on a bus headed for The Mustard Seed. However, due to a few mix ups and a general mass of confusion, we ended up getting lost, walking across the over-pass twice, (on which Jess "Pretty much crapped my pants.") and ended up taking a tour through the CUPS building.

This was posted in CUPS - Calgary Urban Project Society in downtown Calgary.

Outside CUPS. The wall mural was painted by a Paul Driediger. Anybody know him?

     On the way to CUPS, we walked around downtown Calgary, and I couldn't help but to notice that within the difference of one block, the scene had completely changed. One minute, we were walking amongst a bunch on "suits," and by the time we had walked down one sidewalk, we were surrounded by blue collar workers and various people in dingy, grimy clothing.

"The Family of Men" - a sculpture in downtown Calgary right near the Drop In Centre.

     Shortly after, we took a lovely walk by the Bow River, and took a distant glance at the drop-in center, while comparing the old area to the new. Recently, that whole area of the city has been completely renovated to attract more people, remove negative connotations, and to "clean up" that part of the city. The Calgary Drop-In Centre (D.I. for short) is apparently the largest of its kind in Canada, and the second largest in North America! Seriously, it's huge!

Walking along the river in Calgary.

At MCC Alberta packing school kits.

Cloie packing relief kits at MCC Alberta.

Jess and Ursula filling school kits at MCC Alberta.

Vichael was so proud of his box castle!

After we were done, we prayed over the the kits, asking for God's blessing and safety.

     To conclude our week, we stopped by MCC Alberta headquarters, packed some school and relief kits, then proceeded to listen to a few different speakers talk about MCC.

     As for the remainder of the evening, I'm not sure what we are doing. I'm assuming we won't do anything physically aggravating due to the early wake up. Tomorrow, we wrap up and head back to Rosthern, concluding our ALSO experience.

Travis Hebert

Calgary, Alberta

May 3, 2012 

THANKS MEGAN ENNS & DAVID ZENTNER AND MCC ALBERTA for coordinating our week. It was awesome!

Here is the TED Talks video mentioned a the start of this blog entry. Please watch it. It's around 20 minutes long.

    

Edmonton #3

Day Three. well we got up early this morning and made our way to St. Albert to work with Habitat For Humanity. we had people putting up vapor barrier, building a deck, and even on the roof of the houses. we had a great time working on these houses and made some good memories im sure. myself (Paddy) and Mike came to Edmonton last year and recognized some of the workers and they recognized us. one of the favorite stories of the day is Shane and mike were up in a lift doing some work on the side of a house. mike ended up hitting his finger with a hammer and when he shook his finger, the lift operator thought he was giving the signal to go down. Shane was a bit confused. After coming back to kings college, and eating supper, our fearless tour guide took us on a safari to West Edmonton Mall. here's the catch. we had to hand over our phones, iPods, wallets, cash, and even mikes smokes. we went to the mall with nothing. it was a real eye opener to see how the world is different when you have no money. anyways, we are all tired and we work again tomorrow so auf wiedersehen. a new blog is coming tomorrow.

Paddy

Calgary ALSO D3 - Inn From The Cold

 "Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth."  This was posted inside the StreetLight Mobile Drop-in Centre we visited this morning.

SMOOTHIES FOR BREAKFAST! Kirsten is the smoothie master!

     We missed the night on the streets, but the agency must have wanted us to learn a thing or two anyway, so they opted to give us a tour and speak to us about the general overview of their facility and mobile drop-in center. They run a program call StreetLight, which is a double-deck bus that ends up on the streets twice a week and gives youth, aged 12-24, a chance to hang out, ingest a warm meal, and play video games. After we received a guided tour of the bus, we were taken inside their building to be educated on youth who are on the streets. A large portion of the youth they take in are first generation immigrants who simply struggled to make ends meet.

Youth For Christ mobile drop in centre.

The afore-mentioned sign.

Yes, that's right - ages TWELVE to 24! This mobile drop in centre hits the streets at least twice a week to offer a safe place to hang out all night.

We spent the afternoon at Blackfoot Crossing, a first-nations reserve, just over an hour outside of Calgary. After a bison burger, we went on a guided tour throughout the museum. Basically every essential fact of first-nations culture was covered in this massive building.

Outside the Blackfoot Crossing Interpretive Centre in the Siksika Nation just outside of Calgary.

Inside the Blackfoot Crossing. What a beautiful centre!

     When we returned to our current residence, we were immediately put to work, preparing supper for a group called Inn From The Cold. This group sets up in the church frequently and offers to take in fifteen people to serve supper, give them a place to sleep, and then, bright and early, provide breakfast for the guests.
     Once again, as a collective group, we spread ourselves out among the tables and made a second attempt to associate with individuals who are experiencing homelessness. This time, our guests were far more willing to sit with us strangers. Two ladies actually remained at their table from supper, completely engaged in conversation with students, until the time they went to bed.

Preparing supper for Inn From The Cold

     Something I found quite peculiar in itself, and was completely unexpected to me was the amount that our guests ate. I had expected all of them to be starving, and in desperate need of a meal, but some of them hardly ate at all, and only one man went for second helpings. I'm not certain if they just weren't hungry at all, or they may have not been wanting to accept the fact that they needed a meal badly. I'm not making the assumption that they are desperate, but perhaps they have a certain level of pride behind their decisions.
     I was also surprised by the number of people who had iPods and cell phones. I guess it just goes to show that lack of affordable housing is for more apparent than lack of employment. As our first guest speaker said, "What would you need to survive on the streets?"  

Setting up the beds for Inn From The Cold.

We have no pictures of the clients who stayed for night to respect their privacy. It made a very large impact on us interacting with the families who need the service.

     According to several sources we heard from today, there has been a large influx of children and families in need of a place to spend the night. This has come as a surprise to many people as they are used to having a male majority in need of a temporary home, and also because there has been an increase in family housing establishments. This evening we had at least two families and four children, and even an expecting mother.
     Tomorrow, we will be up at 5:30 serving breakfast for our guests, then we will go to one of the largest shelters in the city; The Mustard Seed.

Travis Hebert

Calgary, Alberta

May 2, 2012

     

A Day in the Trenches: ALSO Saskatoon Day 3

Today was a day to hunker down and get the job done in rainy Saskatoon.  On this the third day of our ALSO week all three Saskatoon groups found themselves at their service assignments.

At Vincent Massey students continued assisting in the Pre-K, Kindergarten, Grade 1, 3, & 4 classes.  Some highlights: Morgan is becoming attached to the little ones, Mackenzie and Tandy helped decorate the gym for the airband competitions tomorrow, and Nick discovered his inner teacher in the grade 4 class.  All the students continue to report enjoying themselves, and agreeing that taking care of young ones for an entire day can be exhausting! 

At Farm-in-the-Dell it was a rainy day, but that was okay because it was bowling day!  The clients and students continued to interact with one another by showing off their favorite bowling moves, and playing Bingo!

At Habitat it was muddy, so muddy that the site shut down at noon.  Johnathan M. slipped in the mud and somehow Keita, who worked like a beast, didn't get dirty at all.  The rest of us got trenchfoot  (History 20 students should get this WWI allusion).  the build site is right beside an electrical station complete with barbed wire fencing which added to the trench warfare ambiance.

With our plans changing a bit for the day we travelled to the Habitat Restore and toured their office building in the afternoon.  What an amazing organization!  I would encourage anyone to volunteer here.  One of the day's highlights was presenting the $1,000 cheque that RJC students and staff collected earlier in the year in our Change for Change fundraiser.  The Habitat staff was touched by this gesture, and the Executive Director even met with us to thank us.  She also shared about how Habitat uses all the donations to fund families, not for administration costs (these are paid for by the income from the Restore).  The volunteer coordinator brainstormed with the students about how to make the experience better for future groups.  She said that if she wants to get things done she likes to work with motivated high schools groups because they are keen to see change, and willing to try new things, and are open-minded.  What an encouragement!

Tomorrow we are back in the schools and attending the Youth Unchained conference in Saskatoon before heading up to Camp Kinasao to debrief. 

 

That Rain Cray & Sunburnt and Givener

Hi. It's Mookey Mike and Carrot Step Eric Epp. This is Alabama blog for day 2
and day 3. The team was a bit stranded when the bus broke down L but that's
okay because enterprise saved our souls, we rented out a beast of a van that
even our tallest friends could fit in. Jordan Nickel we are looking at you.

When we finally got to the site, there were many jobs to go around for all.
The sun was shining and beating on our sweaty backs. After the first day we
all got an idea of what we were there to do, we cut, we placed, we washed, and
we cheered YAY! Everyone was really getting' givener especially our new buddy
Jack of Americorp and his alliance of peeps. During lunch we got a nice cold
house to eat in, we had sandwiches and the works it was awesome. Afternoon
givener consisted of much of the same stuff except it got a bit toasty which
burnt our sensitive skin. After work we took the van back to the camp but had
to wait for there were only 15 seats. So in the meantime we watched our buddy
Jack go for a couple laps around the block. When we got back to camp we went
to the mall Yay, shopping! We got a lot of stuff but maybe a bit too much.
Everyone could agree that Koozy looked extra cutalicious in his new threads.
We got back a little late but everyone was fatigued and went off to Snoozy
land to visit Mr. Sandman.

In the mornin' we got our not so trusty bus back and Les was looking extra
happy. When we got to the site that weather wasn't looking so promising. We
took most of the same jobs except some people got drafted to different teams.
It seemed that everyone was floored by how much flooring was getting done son.
It started to rain late in the morning which left everyone a little
unmotivated but after lunch we kept pluggin' on. Les showed up early and the
house down the street was getting a lot of attention. We couldn't make it to
the ocean due to the weeping of Mother nature. We got back to the camp and ate
some dogs which were deeeeeee-licious.

Sincerely, Your good pals: Monkey Mike and Carrot Stepp.

Edmonton #2

Day 2 and what a day it was. We started the day bright and early and headed off to the native healing center. We talked about native religion issues and learned a lot. after the native healing center, we headed to a campsite run by the healing center. there we gathered firewood and had a contest to see who could start a fire with only three minutes to prepare. Mike "Mikey" Ayam and Hope "hopey baby" Barilla won. after spending a few hours out in the bush, we came back into the city to enjoy some Ethiopian cuisine. very tasty. Our trusty, Native, Edmontonian, Dave then proceeded to lead us on a tour of downtown Edmonton to see how some of the poor live. it really helped open our eyes to see people look at us like we were aliens and to feel like we just didn't belong in that world. What was really quite amazing was to see how a single street divides the poor and wealthy of parts of Edmonton. all in all, today was a great day and we are very excited for tomorrow when we get the opportunity to work with Habitat for Humanity.

-Paddy  

oh. one more thing. Mr Josef Beug turned the big 16 today. Happy Birthday!