The countdown can begin!

Hello everyone!

It's been two weeks since my training on the Isle of Coll (see photos below), and I still miss everything about it. The people, the island, the fresh air.  I left on the 30th of November and spent a couple of days with my family in London. We went to a couple of Christmas markets, which made me feel very festive. And London looks amazing with all the christmas lights! They really go for it, don't they?

I continued my long trip to Coll on December 3rd. The train to Glasgow was about 5 hours, but combining it with reading, sleeping, listening to music and looking at the landscape outside (when we got into Scotland the views were incredible!) the time passed by quickly. In Glasgow I met up with a couple of the volunteers I knew from the selection course and we all got the coach to Oban together, We arrived at 9 o'clock, and it would've been more sensible to go to sleep straight away because we all had to catch the ferry to Coll at 5 o'clock the next morning, but we ended up staying up a bit too late chatting about the past 10 months and our project. Luckily the ferry provided loads of space for sleeping!

When arriving on the island we were collected by some of the Project Trust staff and were driven to the other side of the island to the Project Trust centre. All the volunteers agreed that it seemed like it was only 2 months ago since we were on selection, not 10! We were all very giggly and excited, yet we didn't know what to expect when we would arrive at the centre. Nic Smith, who drove us, could hardly bear our excitement any longer when we saw the end of a rainbow! A childhood dream come true!


When arriving at the centre we all had to settle down in our rooms. I was together with my three Sri Lankan partners, Rosie (whom I'll be living with), Gemma and Josie. (from the first day onwards the three of them had very bad colds so they snored really badly in their sleep, which meant I hardly could sleep at all. But my tiredness only kicked in when I arrived back on the main land!)
We were told what to expect from training. There would be sessions about health, dealing with problems with our partner, dealing with problematic children, learning more about the culture, learning how to teach, and many other things. Our first day wasn't too busy, but the following three days were packed from 9 o'clock in the morning until 10 in the evening! It didn't feel nice to constantly be inside, so whenever we got the opportunity (we usually tried to eat our lunch very quickly, so we would have about half an hour free time) we got outside to have a quick walk. The first day we went up onto one of the cliffs and the sea below uswas very active and it just felt really epic to stand looking out onto a wild and choppy sea.

These pictures were taken on the first day, we had quite a lot of time to walk around then, but the following days were really busy, so we would only have about half an hour to go out. Another unfortunate thing was that the days were really short. The sun came up at 10 in the morning and went down again at about half past 4. But look how incredible it was in the hours when the sun did shine!

(The beach was my absolute favourite place to go to)

I loved the lighting in this one as well. From left to right this is Gemma, Josie (both going to Sri Lanka), me and Amy.

So, more about the course. In all the sessions the staff tried to apply different teaching styles, so we could get inspiration from it. I enjoyed the sessions we had with our Desk Officer the most. We would sit together with all 4 Sri Lankan volunteers and an Indian volunteer, Jess. It was important that we get to know our Desk Officer, Jonny, well, because if we're in trouble or need any kind of help, he will be the first one we should contact. We talked about our expectations and fears about the country, we learned more about the culture and religion. Jonny warned us that we would get many marriage proposals if we went to the city, and that pointing your feet to someone (when you're sitting down in a relaxed way you might not notice that your feet are pointing to someone) is highly offensive! We did a lot of sessions on teaching, and we ourselves had to prepare 2 lessons (that's why the days were usually packed until 10 o'clock). The first lesson I did had to be 10 minutes and I taught the other volunteers how to introduce themselves in Dutch. It went alright, but I did feel a bit nervous. I also should have timed it more, because I finished two minutes earlier. I didn't expect them to learn so quickly! But while observing the other volunteers and receiving tips from the staff I made a lot of notes and did much better the next day. This time the lesson was about describing people and it had to be 20 minutes. It went really well and now I feel a lot more confident about teaching in Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka we will have to eat with our hands. Food with te right hand, drink with the left! One evening we ate our supper with our hands. Having rice and falafels was fine and actually a lot of fun, but it got a lot more unpleasant when we had our ice cream for dessert!
All in all the sessions were long and hard, but a lot of fun as well.

Before training I didn't know too much about my project, because my Desk Officer was in Sri Lanka and China to arrange them. But he has been able to tell us quite a lot during training.
I will be working and living in a big village called Mirigama, in the Western Province of Sri Lanka (I told everyone that I would be going to Galle, but I was wrong, the other volunteers will be going there). I will be teaching  English in two schools, when we're there we'll have to talk about which age we would like to teach. And in the afternoons I will probably get involved in social and charitable ventures. Again this will have to be talked about on arrival. Throughout the week my partner and I will have to cook for ourselves, but in the weekends we were welcomed by our hosts. We have seen pictures of our accomodation and it looks very nice. Quite spacious, but apparantly the people in the neighbourhood will just come in and settle down with you for an evening. It's rather small, but very cosy. Jonny showed us a picture of the garden which was absolutely amazing, it's full of pineapple bushes. And when we thought it couldn't get any better he pointed out an elephant!!! (it was a really big backyard). He said that he thinks one of the people who lives on the same estate might own it, so that means we sort of have a pet elephant! I haven't been able to get hold of these pictures, but next month you will all be able to see mine!

To close off the training we had a formal reception. The boys and girls all got dressed up, Gemma was very happy to do my hair and we all had time to get group photos of all of us together.

When the reception was over we had a lovely dinner. The only bad thing was that the acoustics in the dining room were so bad we all had to shout to the people sitting next to us. We all gave a short speech to thank the staff and they did so in return as well.

After having filled our stomachs and had a couple of glasses of wine, it was time for the ceilidh! This is a traditional Scottish dance which we also did at the selection course. This was definitely the moment I was looking forward to most! It all went much easier than last time. Last year we even had a session at the beginning of the week to teach us some of the dances, and even then everyone was stumbling over eachothers feet on ceilidh night. This time everything went perfect!

So after two hours of ceilidh dancing we danced to other music and had a really good time together. 

This week was definitely one of the best weeks of my life, and has prepared me and made me really excited for probably some of the best months of my life. All thanks to the staff not treating us like the nth group of volunteers who come in for their training, but just as individuals wanting to get to know us, and thanks to all of the other wonderful volunteers, having been able to bond with them much more since selection.

Yesterday I also heard I will be leaving on the 18th of January! Time to start counting down!

Hope you all have a very very happy Christmas and wonderful new year!

Hi everyone,

I found a way to send every update to everyone automatically without having to type every email address. The annoying thing was that it sent back loads of emails, so I couldn't keep track of who received it and who didn't, so I really hope this works out now and everyone can finally view my blog.  I've already made a couple of blog entries, so you can just scroll down to read the other stories.  I have very good news: all the money is in! I sent it in on Monday and it's such an enormous relief. I said it in my last blog entry as well, but I would like to thank everyone again for all their support. It means a lot to me and I wish I could give you all something back. 
I started my first aid lessons last week. It's twice a week for two and a half hours and it's quite intense, but enjoyable. So far I've learned how to deal with insect bites, head injuries, electricity accidents and hyperventilation. There are only 7 others who are following the course, which is a lot nicer than being in a big group.  Now I turn to my own first aid problems. I need to have the injections for typhoid and rabies, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding the latter injection in the chemists! They don't know when the enterprise is going to deliver the injections and they can't reach them either. There might be another injection which will arrive one of the following days, so I hope I will hear from the chemist soon.
Another problem with the injections is that I always faint whenever I get them. I'm not scared of the needle, but every time after I had an injection I have fainted. My doctor and I have not found a way yet of preventing this. For this reason one of my parents have to come along as well, but they are both also very sensitive to injections. A couple of years ago they went with my brother to get his teeth pulled and before the dentist arrived both parents were lying flat-out on stretchers. The nurses were talking about it for weeks afterwards. 
My training is from the fourth until the eighth of December, but I have to allow a couple of days to get there. I'm going up on Friday the 30th to stay with my family in London for the weekend. On Monday I will take the train up to Glasgow and then I quickly have to catch the coach to Oban. I will stay over in a youth hostel near the ferry together with other Project Trust volunteers and we'll all have to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch the first ferry to Coll. I am really looking forward to this and I hope I will definitely have a lot more to tell you about my project in my next blog!
 

Almost there!

First of all, I would like to thank everybody who has given me a donation. Every euro has been helpful and I'm just so incredibly grateful. I'm really close to my target now, only a couple of hundred euros (and I've been promised some already by a service club) and it's in! And to think that a couple of months ago I was sitting with my head in my hands every evening thinking about the daunting amount of money. My mum has helped me out incredibly much. Most donations came from her connections. She also had an inauguration last Thursday and she asked all the invitees that if they'd want to give a present to her, they should give a donation to my project. This helped me collect about a 1000 euros!

Now, there has been a major change. Two weeks ago (when I was still in London and working) Project Trust telephoned me. They told me that they had problems with organising the placement in Malawi and wouldn't be able to send out volunteers to this country this year. So they asked me if I would be ok with going to Sri Lanka. I was very surprised, but of course I said yes. At the selection course, when I had to think of my favourite 3 countries to go to, India was my second choice. Sri Lanka is an island at the south of India. The culture is probably quite similar and to hear it is also called 'The Pearl of the Ocean' makes it sound even more wonderful. I was getting very used to the fact that I would be going to Malawi and I do find it a bit of a shame that I won't get to see Africa, but I am just as pleased. My volunteering job has changed as well now that I've been moved to a different country. I will be working in a school and I will teach English, drama and music. I'm fearing the drama teaching a bit, because I have never had this at school and I am a terrible actor.
The money everyone has donated will still go via me to Project Trust. It might seem very confusing, but the money will still go to the same things (my flight to Sri Lanka and back, health insurance, accomodation, the project there and for my coordinators).

In September I went to London to stay there for a whole month. I stayed with my aunt and uncle, Clea and Matt, who live in Tooting, South London. They have 3 children, Morgan, Tatum and Oscar, ranging from 8 to 12, so there is constant action in the house. My aunt works in a drop-in in the nursery near her house (where the parents/carers come together with their children to make sure they get used to the new environment). She arranged for me to work in the nursery for a month. I worked full days for 3 days in the week, and I had the loveliest collegues. The mornings were usually quite manic with an average amount of 20 children, but the afternoons were quite calm because there were half the number of kids. The children were incredibly sweet though and it did make me a little sad to have to say goodbye to them after my month in London was over. During my free days I explored the city. I went to markets in Brixton and Brick Lane, went to some museums (which are free in London) or just walked around. I spent one long weekend in Dorchester to meet my grandparents. We went out for lunch three times and my grandmother even took me out shopping. I stayed with my aunt Sarah-Jane and her daughter Bee, who live in the same village. Our evenings were nice and quiet. It was nice to be away from London for a bit.
The following weekend I went to see friends of my parents in Ramsbury, who invited me. Another nice way of being away from the city for a bit and I had a really good time with them. We saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which is located in India and really made me long to go there.
At the beginning of September I went to a Paralympic game! My uncle Matt had spare tickets and offered them to me. I went together with the daughter of an old friend of my mothers. Throughout the month I went out with her, Thames, and her sister, Isis, several times. It was nice being able to talk to someone my own age.

Now I've been back from London for 2 weeks and I miss everything quite a lot. I'm planning on going back in December just before I go up to Scotland for my training and see my family again for a bit.
Now I'm just spending a lot of time with my administration of all the donations and looking for a job. I'm also starting a First Aid course in November. Can't sit still for the coming 2 months!

Busy end of summer week!

This week has been quite eventful!
Friday, 24th September, my mother and I went to Amsterdam. I wasn't used to waking up so early anymore,but we had some time to rest in a two hour train ride. In October my mother is organising a party to celebrate her promotion. The goal of this trip was to put all the invitations and present tips (this would be a donation to my project) in an envelope and stick it. She brought me to one of the offices of the university , where students aren't allowed to come, to do the job. There were 500 invitations so this was quite a dull thing to do! And after we were told that the glue on envelopes is made of horse bones we decided to stick to sellotape. After two hours of this mindless work we were finished and we celebrated this by making a little trip to Albert Kuijp, a big street market in Amsterdam. I bought an exclusive poncho and two wonderful dresses. It was a great day!

The following day the journalist I had contacted a couple of weeks ago (thanks to our mayor Marino Keulen) came and asked me a couple of questions and made some pictures. This will be published on September the 1st in our local newspaper. He was a lovely, funny old man who was very impressed with my project and loves to interview young people, because according to him, that keeps him young too.

In the evening there was a barbecue in our village. We thought we could take this opportunity to do something for my project and my mother and I decided it would be a good idea to sing.
Because it is quite hard to drag my piano with me to the other side of the village, I decided to teach myself guitar in one week. This ended up to be a very hard thing to do. My fingers are so tiny I really need a lot more practice than one week to learn how to play so I ended up playing one of the simplest songs on guitar ever

It's simple, but it is rather nice.

We arrived at around 6.30 a.m. at the barbecue, but there was hardly anyone there yet.
I was already getting a bit nervous, because the tent didn't look very suitable to sing in and reach all the people around me (there were about 70 guests). Around 8 o'clock the people started streaming in and at 10 most people were already a bit tipsy. I was afraid I would interrupt the atmosphere with my playing so I asked Jos, a local who plays folky music with his accordeon, to do a song first. He got a lot of people to sing along and when he finished he introduced me. Inside I was dying of nerves, but I did a small briefing about my project and sang the song. When I finished jos ostentatiously took off his hat and put 20 euros in it and then went round with it. I sold some of my home-made broches and did some more explaining about my project. In the end I collected about 200 euros in 10 minutes.

For the rest of the week I have been contacted by some service clubs. I have to prepare a talk to explain my project thuroughly, but they all promised me there would definitely be a donation.

In my free time I have been to my aunt in Dordrecht (she gave me a big donation) and yesterday I went to the zoo in Planckendael! A great way to round off the last week of summer.

Busy busy busy

The last two weeks of July I worked at a play scheme for children in Lanaken. This is for children who need supervision throughout the day while their parents are out at work. I was responsible for the creative activities and supervised children between the age of 7 and 12. We do several kind of activities, but what I enjoyed the most was making the 'hippie' T-shirts with the children. We dyed white T-shirts into textile paint after making patterns with elastic bands on it.

This is sort of the idea, but it looked far less professional when we made it (though much nicer if I can be honest). The children loved doing this and that made it all the more enjoyable for me.
I loved doing the play scheme, but it's very time- consuming.

So at the beginning of August I really had to start putting all my energy into the fundraising. It's hard, I still have trouble with asking people money and I really have to get over my shyness.
I have received a lot of generous donations from friends, family and companies in the village. My grandfather did a proof reading job, and donated the money which he earned with that to my project. All my donors get a broche of a sunflower made out of felt which me and my mum made.

This is picture of me making them.

Last week Sunday, the 12th, we organised a baking sale. On the Saturday we went to the farmers' market in Eisden bought all the ingredients and the same day we made home-made lemonade and I started baking chocolate and blueberry muffins.
On Sunday I put everything ready at 10 o'clock in the morning. We hung up two banners saying BAKE 4 MALAWI, put a nice vase of sunflowers on the table and displayed the biscuits and muffins etc.
It was a very sunny and busy in the village so we were very very lucky! We soundtracked the whole event with Paul Simon's Graceland, Miriam Makeba and Vampire Weekend to get people in an African mood.
I had a couple of friends who helped me out, and when Sarah got out the waffle iron and started baking fresh   waffels and once one of our clients tasted the gingerbreadmen my mother made and called out OH MY GOD THIS IS DELICIOUS the customers came in loads.

From left to right: Sarah, Judith and me

After a long and hot day I treated my friends to a drink and we counted the money. We collected 280,93 euros, which was far more than I expected and that means that we made a profit of more than 200 euros.
We will probably do this again this weekend, but we have learnt to not start at 10, but preferably at 12, and to get a large parasol to avoid sunstrokes in case of warm weather.

Starting the fundraising

Now my finals for secundary school are over and having had a week's holiday in Spain, I am starting fundraising in earnest. In fact, while I was away in Spain, already a couple of important things happened. The folder about my project, which I've been working on for some time, was printed. The printer gave me a donation by cutting the price by 20%.

This is the front picture of my brochure.

My first donation already came several months ago from my aunt Clea. She paid my registration costs, which I had to pay to Project Trust to register myself as a volunteer. Because we don't have cheques in Belgium, my mother had to ask Clea whether she would write the cheque to Project Trust for us. Clea wrote the cheque and my mother paid a 100 pounds into my fund. She would after all have paid for the registration.
Then there was the carwash. It was an exercise for economics which we had planned to do with our class.

We already had the idea of the carwash back in September 2011, but then the idea was that we, the school carwashers, would share the profits between us. When I found out I was going to Malawi I asked my friends if they would agree to give all the proceeds to my project. They did. Sorry no photo's of that event, it was freezing cold that day and it rained most of the time. We arranged for the carwash to be after the Easter holiday, because we thought it would be warmer then, but it was actually much colder in April than in March.

With the pupils' council it has been agreed that I will give a presentation of my project in October or November 2012 to all classes in the school. I'm going to give a different presentation to each grade. The sixth years might be more interested in my role as a volunteer, whereas the first years will probably identify quite strongly with the children in the orphanage. After my presentation in each grade I'm going to ask everybody to give a donation of 1 euro. That could come up to 500 euros.

Today I biked through the pouring rain and back to the library in Maastricht (that's 10 km each way) and spent a couple of hours peering in a book with names and addresses of grant-giving bodies. It's a long list, but many are not suitable for my project, many don't give funds to individuals, or they're related to very specific locations. Anyway, I did find a couple and I've written my first fundraising letter.

Selection course on the Island of Coll

In February I heard I was going to Malawi. I applied to Project Trust and followed their selection course on the island of Coll, Inner Hebridees, Scotland.

It took me 2 days to get there. My father and I went to Amsterdam by train and stayed the night. The following day we took an early flight to Glasgow. We had the whole day to ourselves, but the weather made our choices easy. We looked for cover and went to the cinema and saw A Dangerous Method. I can't remember a thing about it, probably because I was too excited about the day ahead of me. In the evening we took the coach to Oban and stayed at an hotel near the pier. By the time we arrived it was so late, so we didn't have any time to explore Oban.
The following day I had to get up very early to catch the first ferry boat to the Isle of Coll. It was a 3 hour trip through choppy seas (and I forgot my sea sick tablets). I left my father behind and he went to another island, the Island of Mull. When we arrived in port I was a sleep so unfortunately I can't tell you my first impression of Coll from the boat. I wanted to text my father to tell him I arrived but I soon noticed I had no service and did not have any for the rest of the week.
The whole group gathered together and the group leaders drove us to the Project Trust centre. 

The weather on the picture is quite representative. 

We had to get started straight away. Project number 1 was building an oil rig with straws. It had to be constructed in such way that it would be able to support a dictionary (middling size). None of our attempts worked.
We were all placed with host families. I was put together with another volunteer in a vegetarian host family. They had 4 very energetic children, ranging from 2,5 to 9. I remember that we arrived there really late (it was a 3 quarter of an hour drive from the centre and we were last to get out of the bus) and we heard the children shouting 'They're here, they're here' and as soon as we put our luggage in the rooms they presented us with a drawing which they had made.

It was an unforgettable week. I've got memories of feeding sheep and cattle, ploughing, dancing at a ceilidh and meeting some lovely people. When it was finally time to go home I had a sort of sinking feeling that I might not have been selected and I had nail-biting week at home, watching the letter box at the front door. Everyone got their news before I did, because the post takes longer to get to Belgium. But the following Monday I was expecting it. Because I was at school I asked my mother to open the letter and then I heart that I would be sent to Malawi. Since then I've found out as much as possible about Malawi. So I knew that I would have to start finding sponsors to support my trip.

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Posts and information coming soon!