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I was partway through writing this entry but I closed the wrong window instead. Argh.
We are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's way too hot here and I'm feeling a bit sick. I'm starting to wish I did advance work in San Diego instead. How the heck our Swedish Peder survived Phoenix for an extra week I don't know.
We don't really have much time spent in the facilities this time round since we're doing so many projects. Our main facility is a house next to a church - empty and unused. Nina kept cracking jokes about renting the place. We had a cool welcoming package - frisbees, pencils, maps, and a fortune-teller-style schedule (which confused some people at first).
I got paired up with Joyce and we're staying with a family of radical-ish Christian Democrats - well, that's the best way to describe them. Those of you reading this who are Democrats (or at least not Republican) would find them interesting (we certainly have quite intriguing conversations on politics). We're staying in a retirement community ages away from anywhere - a contrast to the past two cities where everything was close by.
We've done a few community service projects already - and all on the same day. First we were at the Thomas J Pappas school for homeless children, and some of us were assigned to classes. Oh my god CHAOS. They were fun, but sometimes it's hard to even get their attention. It was funny when they were guessing stuff about me and they all thought I had a car and was married...har...
That afternoon we set up our mini World Expo at the same school. Our booth was the "Rest Of Asia" booth - Nanu was there writing names in Nepali while I started writing names in Jawi and letting people try on the baju kurung. That dress needs a dryclean one of these days.
There are quite a few "incriminating" photos - Reuben in my baju kurung; us doing the Chicken Dance multiple times; me, Tom, Peder, and Gaby doing a "group hug" while squeezing a giant blowup globe between ourselves to let the air out; Tom and Celle doing the same...if any of those show up at the Whisks people are going to die...
We then went to the UMOM centre for homeless families and were split into groups. My group did cooking (yay!) - we prepared dinner for the residents (macaroni that ran away from us many times, meat sauce, fruit salad, pudding) and for ourselves (cornbread, barbequed & friend chicken, potato scallops - the only thing we didn't cook, salad). It came out quite well actually! We also did quite a lot of envelope suffing and it was amazing how fast they all went once we had more people working together.
Internet acces is kinda sparse here, and this week is really tiring, so I may not update as much. I'm partly looking forward to moving on, if only because the weather and I don't get along. But I know I got to give this place a chance.
We are in Phoenix, Arizona. It's way too hot here and I'm feeling a bit sick. I'm starting to wish I did advance work in San Diego instead. How the heck our Swedish Peder survived Phoenix for an extra week I don't know.
We don't really have much time spent in the facilities this time round since we're doing so many projects. Our main facility is a house next to a church - empty and unused. Nina kept cracking jokes about renting the place. We had a cool welcoming package - frisbees, pencils, maps, and a fortune-teller-style schedule (which confused some people at first).
I got paired up with Joyce and we're staying with a family of radical-ish Christian Democrats - well, that's the best way to describe them. Those of you reading this who are Democrats (or at least not Republican) would find them interesting (we certainly have quite intriguing conversations on politics). We're staying in a retirement community ages away from anywhere - a contrast to the past two cities where everything was close by.
We've done a few community service projects already - and all on the same day. First we were at the Thomas J Pappas school for homeless children, and some of us were assigned to classes. Oh my god CHAOS. They were fun, but sometimes it's hard to even get their attention. It was funny when they were guessing stuff about me and they all thought I had a car and was married...har...
That afternoon we set up our mini World Expo at the same school. Our booth was the "Rest Of Asia" booth - Nanu was there writing names in Nepali while I started writing names in Jawi and letting people try on the baju kurung. That dress needs a dryclean one of these days.
There are quite a few "incriminating" photos - Reuben in my baju kurung; us doing the Chicken Dance multiple times; me, Tom, Peder, and Gaby doing a "group hug" while squeezing a giant blowup globe between ourselves to let the air out; Tom and Celle doing the same...if any of those show up at the Whisks people are going to die...
We then went to the UMOM centre for homeless families and were split into groups. My group did cooking (yay!) - we prepared dinner for the residents (macaroni that ran away from us many times, meat sauce, fruit salad, pudding) and for ourselves (cornbread, barbequed & friend chicken, potato scallops - the only thing we didn't cook, salad). It came out quite well actually! We also did quite a lot of envelope suffing and it was amazing how fast they all went once we had more people working together.
Internet acces is kinda sparse here, and this week is really tiring, so I may not update as much. I'm partly looking forward to moving on, if only because the weather and I don't get along. But I know I got to give this place a chance.
