Mid-Winnipeg Phase

Today is Monday November 12.

this past weekend was wonderful, i had a bunch of friends over friday night for boardgames and music, and we also ended up spending about 20 minutes mastering the technique of throwing playing cards far distances. Out of the three decks that we (including Steve and Matt my host parents) used during that period of time, only one card was lost, though we found the cards in some really obscure places when we were done. Saturday i went out for lunch with some of the Canadians, while the Kenyans went to a shelter to stock up on winter clothing. That night we met at a local park and had a snowball fight, that for the true troopers lasted 3 hours, starting at 9 and going till midnight. yes, i was a trooper.

some basic updates:
i've gained 7 pounds, which for some may not be that amazing but i tried all summer to gain weight with no luck, so i don't know what the deal is. i haven't been eating a lot more, but i think due to all the physical work i've been doing at the warehouse i've basically just become ripped.

i've been studying swahili, or rather, nimesoma kiswahili. eh eh? iknowright.

among some of the challenges i've been facing during this program, one has been the constant gap in conversation between myself and Joseph, mostly due to the fact that we spend most waking moments together. I much less now feel the need to fill the space with meaningless blab, but it definitely wasn't the case the first few weeks. I've also just looked into communication more as a whole; why we do it, how we do it, challenges, odd tidbits. there's really interesting ted talks on how to listen and i'm reading a book called "on dialogue" right now, which looks at how people in a multicultural group interact - much like my own.

which brings me to our own interactions. unfortunately, i've found that there's been a lot of unaddressed tension in the group. i don't know why people seem to feel the need to suppress anger, sadness or frustration, possibly because we're all relatively new and don't wanna offend one another. but it's not good, it's going to burst, or worse, never come out or be addressed, in which case we'll just never come together as a team and get past cultural and societal differences.

however, the program continues and things are well. Joseph's bday is this friday, so i think we'll have some sort of get together this weekend, and another guy Chirspus (or Chirs) is having a bday next week, so lots of celebration to be had. I'm still trying to get to know everyone in the group, but i'm already making some and very glad that i can be a part of this.

Encounters with the 'Peggers:

last week a woman at our work who joseph and i help once or twice a week had a bit of a meltdown. she'd written a book of soup recipes, and dedicated it to her best friend who will soon die of melanoma. her book launch was this past tuesday, and she had some work to do at the Winnipeg Harvest first. We were with her, and she told us how she was very upset about the whole situation, and that just that morning her friend had a seizure and sadly would not be able to come to the book launch. the proceeds of the book were to go to a soup program feeding cancer patients of a hospital here in winnipeg, and if the projeted sales were met she would be able to fund the program for over a year! the book was really well done, with little pieces of advice on how to lend a hand to someone in the hospital, and there was a girl who played some really beautiful music at the launch too. I had suggested that she skype in her friend, and she was so overwhelmed she hadn't even thought of that, so she really appreciated the suggestion, and even let us manage the computer while she gave her speech. It was a really cool expereince, and i bought the book and a cd too. felt good to help out :)

Sometimes i go out on trucks with truck drivers to do deliveries. a man from work who drives trucks for the Winnipeg Harvest and i were talking, and i'd said it was unfortunate that we couldn't take the Kenyans out for a sledding day (though i didn't mention, it was an amazing experience seeing them experience snow for the first time on saturday night - there mustve been 30 - 40cm of snow, they had a blast). we get on pretty well on the road, chat about engineering and stuff, he was a mechanical engineer, now retired. so today he came up to me and offered to have the whole group - or whoever was interested, up to his place about an hour from the city for some taboganning, snowshoeing and fire! I accept the offer! now we just need to figure out transportation.

Typical week:

doesn't exist, though i do go to church most sundays, mondays community volleyball night 3$, free rec soccer at the YMCA on thursday nights (we got Y passes!), Wednesday EADS, weekends fun.

at the beginning of the program i tried really hard not to think about the Kenyan phase, i wanted to enjoy this part. but i'm finding it more and more difficult not to think about how amazing it's going to be. only four more weeks!

and tonight is monday so i'm off to volleyball!