"Sixteen friends, two countries, four languages,
many ups and downs later and the world just
doesn't seem as big as it used to."
-Lori Thorne
In August 1995 I packed my bags and set out on a journey which would last eight months, involve living, working and travelling with completely new people from across Canada and across Indonesia. The experience was the most challenging and the most rewarding I have ever had.
This was my exchange year with Canada World Youth. During this exchange I spent time in both rural B.C., Canada and also rural Kalimantan, Indonesia. Although both experiences taught me a lot, my fondest memories are of the time I spent in my village "Mungguk" in Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia.
Imagine fourteen youth, from two different countries, speaking three or four different languages sitting in a circle trying to decide the best way to design and implement a project in a rural village, where there are customs and taboos that none of us are very familiar with - I think this is a very typical scene from my Canada World Youth experience. It certainly wasn't always easy but in the end we all survived the emotional rollercoaster and were the closest of friends and cared very much about each other.
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Here we are at the Indonesian consulate in Vancouver. We were invited for Supper the night before leaving for Jakarta. We had about a week in Vancouver before leaving to Jakarta, this was our "break". These were great times, just walking around and enjoying Vancouver, after a rather demanding project in William's Lake, the small town we spent over three months in in Northern B.C. I remember how excited we all were, the Canadians to see Indonesia, and the Indonesians to show us their country. Of course we had been warned about hot humid temperatures and spicy food, but most of us really didn't know what to expect of our time in Indonesia. |
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I love this photo . . . it really says a lot about our experience in Indonesia . No other project caused more problems (and tears) than the "Garbage Disposal Site" which we wanted to build. We spent hours discussing, sometimes arguing, how this project should be done. We simply couldn’t come to an agreement, and the level of frustration was unbelievably high . . . Finally after deciding where to build our garbage burning site, someone bought the materials, and we built it. In all of the frustration and excitement it didn't occur to us that having the thing submersed in the ground would be a bad idea, given that it rains a lot here. The next day we discovered it was completely filled with water, the tension of the whole project dissolved at this moment, we jumped in and had a mud fight. |
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