So there's this song. I don't know what it's called or who it's by, but it's one of Cece's 12-year-old-girl songs that she plays all the time when we’re in her room chatting. The only bit I know goes 'it comes and goes in waves, it always does' and the more I think about it the truer it is. So there's this song. I don't know what it's called or who it's by, but it's one of Cece's 12-year-old-girl songs that she plays all the time when we’re in her room chatting. The only bit I know goes 'it comes and goes in waves, it always does' and the more I think about it the truer it is.
At the moment I'm on Salt Spring Island with a host family, about to spend the week volunteering in an elderly care home, and chilling on Heather and Romas's couch. Eylul (Turkey) and I are going to stay here until Saturday, volunteering about 4 hours a day at Greenwoods Eldercare and spending the rest of the time catching up on homework and sleep, as well as exploring Salt Spring. I haven't been writing down what's been going on as I intended to, but I can look through my phone to see where I've taken photos since last time I posted. Okay, so I'm going to start with the regional days. The first one for the year was European regional day (29th September). I wasn't really sure of what to expect since we hadn't had one before, but it was so much fun. The regional group (everyone from the region) gets to have the caf budget for the day and they supply the food. The day started with a big European brunch which was amazing! Then there were workshops in the Maxbell to teach us a bit about European history, Europeans abroad and European identity. For dinner the theme was "meeting the queen" so everyone got dressed up and we had a lovely dinner that was made by professional students who'd grown up with these amazing meals. We also had had the opportunity to learn a couple of ballroom dances during the week and so there were a bunch of us who danced in front of the rest of the school which was so messy, but so much fun. When I showed up to the caf in a dress, I was immediately fired at with comments, mostly "you own a dress???" but I did get one "that is the most Australian-farm-girl dress I've ever seen!" (I DON'T EVEN LIVE ON A FARM, NOAH!) The second regional day was Latin America (13th October). It was 2 weeks after the European one, and similar in structure but all the components were very different. Again, it began with brunch but where the European one was made up of a lot of pastries and sweet things, the Latin American one was hot and spicy straight from the get-go. Then there were workshops about women in Latin America, the drug trafficking situation in Latin America, living under a dictatorship (which was absolutely mind blowing!!) and Latinos living abroad. Dinner was delicious, and then there was some Latino dancing (which was also taught during the week before and was great fun as well). Since then there's been a few adventures to various beaches, each ending in a different intensity of wet-and-cold. A few of us starred on Romanian television, telling people about Pearson, and we went to Race Rocks in our marine science class. We got up early to leave school at 7:50 to head out to Race Rocks and look at the seasonal wildlife that's out there at the moment. There was another adventure to Matheson Lake which is a little walk away from school. When we got there, the sun had just dipped below the trees and the water was absolutely FREEZING, but not nearly as cold as the bay. Since we'd made the effort to get there, we all went in anyway, but we were out again pretty quickly. I spent a lovely afternoon in the art room with Molly (USA, my roommate) pretending I had some form of artistic ability, and then we went to watch a presentation by two women (one of whom is a biology teacher at Pearson) who set up a girls school in Malawi. AND huge shoutout to Cece for posting me Tim tams, next time I’ll make sure my roomies aren’t around when I open them! And that pretty much gets us back to this week, CAS week. It's been a few days since I started this post, we've now been on Salt Spring for 3 nights and our host family is great. Carrsyn (Canada) has come for dinner tonight (Tuesday) and is currently lying in my bed while I sit here and write this. THE BED IS SO COMFORTABLE!! Also there's a bath here - I never want to go back to Pearson! We've done 2 days volunteering now. We're in with the dementia patients at Greenwoods and its pretty full on. It's so sad to hear people's stories told clearly, but then in the middle they pause, and can't remember their sister's name. Or they can't remember whether their Dad died in the war of afterwards from disease. It's a really valuable experience, but it is so sad to see. I think that's about it for now, I'm sure I'm missing lots of details but I can tell you those in person over (Canadian) summer break, June, July, August. I hope everyone's well, love to you all. Bella
1 Comment
Paula
21/11/2018 20:15:01
Smiley face. Love heart. Mx
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Hey!I'm Bella. I love writing about all sorts of things, and here are a few of them for you to read. I hope you enjoy :) Archives
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