Happy Spring!!!

I cannot believe that another week has flown by!

Last Friday I helped plant trees at a tree planting event. The first part was boring-a lot of watching and not much doing as important people, like the Mayor, took pictures while “planting” the first few trees with the various groups that attended to help out. I say “planting” because the holes were already dug and the tree was put in the hole for them…all that was left to do was to throw some dirt on it and smile. I went with a group called SCAN (through Newcastle University -the group I went with to Rupert’s Wood) and by the end of the day we were basically the only people left planting trees. Once all the promotion type stuff got out of the way and we could actually dig holes and do some work it was a nice day! I think 31 trees were planted in total and more were going to be planted on Saturday.

On Saturday Melissa, Abby and I went up to Holy Island (where we went in September for a retreat) to help do a big spring cleaning on the camp that is used over some of the school holidays and during the summer for Catholic summer camps. Sr. Josepha, who is the head teacher at one of the local primary schools (the one Abby works at), was in charge and she is amazing! Always full of energy and so caring! Luckily she is so nice and never seems to be in a bad mood because she had to rescue the mini bus we were riding in twice because we ran out of petrol! Since there were a bunch of people coming to help out they rented a 15 person mini bus and one of the guys drove it. He has driven before for Sr. Josepha so it wasn’t just a random person. Anyway, we were probably 20-30 minutes away from Holy Island when we ran out the first time and Sr. Josepha, who was already on Holy Island, came to the rescue! We had a lovely day for being there and in typical English fashion we had many tea/coffee breaks throughout the day so even though we were there working/cleaning for about 7 hours it didn’t seem like that much at all! Also, one of the girls who also goes to mass each week at the chaplaincy, where we go, came along to help out and it was really nice getting to know her better. It was a lovely day out of Walker and more than one person asked the driver when we were getting in the mini bus to go back if he was sure we had enough petrol…he responded confidently “yes”. However, just past Morpeth (about 14 miles away) we ran out of petrol again! I didn’t have anywhere to go and found it pretty funny but at the same time completely ridiculous! The driver just really wasn’t using common sense at all! If £15 of petrol didn’t get us to Holy Island, why would you think £15 of petrol would get us back to Newcastle?

The weather this week has been fabulous! In the 50s with sun most day :) I could get used to this type of weather! Luckily it doesn’t look like we will be having any more random snowstorms/snow days like in MN (although I was a bit sad that it really only snow for one week here)! The weather was great again for rowing yesterday. I went out in a single and although I didn’t think I was doing that great the coach said I was doing well so I guess that is good. I was happy that I got the jacket I ordered :)

The kids at Kids Kabin all seemed pretty chill and happier than normal this week and I’m thinking the weather had something to do with it! I can only hope that the weather stays nice! There are lots of flowers sprouting all over the place which I find nice! We got a new logo for Kids Kabin this year and today we got some signs to attach to all the trailers we will take with us for the street sessions starting next week. We are also getting hoodies so there are going to be Kids Kabin logos galore!

In other interesting news we are getting our shower redone next week and it is currently out of commission. After spending the day at Holy Island and cleaning for several hours, we all took showers on Saturday evening only for our downstairs neighbors to tell us that they had water coming into their bathroom from our bathroom and that it had actually been happening all week but it was really bad tonight! Uh oh! The plumber came and looked at it and found some problems with the way the shower was installed-he thinks it must have been a do it yourself installation that wasn't done correctly. Luckily we have a bathtub to use otherwise it would have been a long week and a half without a shower!

That is about all I have for this week! Sorry I didn't have many pictures for this post. Have a great weekend!
Laura

Thursday March 17th, 2011

So 2 months later I have definitely dropped the ball on blogging! Sorry everyone! I guess I was just caught up in life here and honestly the time has been flying by so I didn’t realize it had been soooooo long since I had written. With only 4 months until I am done, I just don’t know where the time as gone!

Today is St. Patrick’s day and it does not appear to be a big deal at all here in England. Hardly anyone was wearing green today (besides Melissa, Abby and I that is)! None of the kids mentioned it during sessions either which is a big clue to me that is really isn’t celebrated here. I did see one guy where a big green St. Patrick’s Day hat but that was it. I made green cupcakes to celebrate and Abby ate two already so I take that as a good sign!

Let’s see, what has happened in the last 2 months? Probably a lot but most of it just seems like day to day stuff. Here are some things I have done/thoughts on the last few months:

-We went on a trip to Paris and Athens. This requires another post so look for that in a few days.

-I have been continuing to row once a week and the weather has cooperated so we have been able to go on the water the last few weeks which has been great! I have been in a single (it was a training single so it had extra stabilizers and would have been hard to tip), a quad and next week if the weather is nice I will be going out in a double. I still feel like I am all over the place but slowly improving.

-Common Ground continues to be interesting and a constant reminder of how incredibly lucky I am!! Today a lady got a message from her son via facebook for the first time since leaving her country I believe and was in tears because she was so happy to finally get news that he was ok. The donations have definitely slowed down and the food donations are few and far between. The asylum seekers who are destitute- meaning they get no housing and no money from the government -are given £10 a week and a bag of food depending on what we have. When I got here in September all the food drawers were commonly about half full and at times overflowing (the food is kept in 4 big filing cabinets). Now most of them are empty…last week all there was to give out was a bag of rice and a tin of tomatoes….normally there is tea bags, oil, sugar, pasta, rice, vegetables, soup, tomatoes, bean, fruit, tinned meat and toiletries. It is really hard to tell them there really isn’t much we can give them. Most say “it is ok” and are appreciative for what they do get. To me it doesn’t really seem ok because I know they don’t have much money to buy other food! I have noticed that the prices have gone up since we have gotten here. Some things have really gone up in price while other things have gone up by only a few cents. I’m not sure what has caused the prices to increase but they have!

-At Kids Kabin we are gearing up to start street sessions in a week and a half. I think it will still be a little chilly out but we will see! Yesterday Abby and I learned all about using the portable kitchen/stove by wheeling it around the Kids Kabin courtyard, unloading and reloading it onto the trailer, and making some bacon! Next week involves prepping for other activities and getting supplies and checklists together so we can easily get out for street sessions soon after the junior sessions end. Should be fun! There have been quite a few new kids coming to Kids Kabin over the past few weeks and it has been fun having new kids around who are super excited about everything. We continue to do sessions with local primary schools and they are generally really good! In comparison to the after school junior sessions, the school sessions have about twice as many kids in each activity and they go better. This is probably because they kids think of it as “school” and there is a teacher there as well. I run the cooking sessions when they come in and it never ceases to surprise me when they are all more than willing to do the dishes and clean up! That is something that rarely happens during the normal junior sessions.

-One thing that I think is really good about the schools here is that there are a lot more primary (elementary) schools and most of the kids walk to school either with parents, friends or siblings. Most of the schools have only one or two classes of each grade but I like that they are more local and the kids are able to walk or bike to school daily….no need for school buses and long bus rides! The kids who come to Kids Kabin go to mainly 5 primary schools that are all easily accessible by foot or bike from Kids Kabin. There are fewer high schools than primary schools so I have seen a fair amount of high school students taking the bus or metro to school but since there are already good public transport systems it works out well.

-Ash Wednesday was last week and I think it was the first time I have had people ask me what the “dirt” or “black spot” on my forehead was for. Two of the other staff/volunteers at Kids Kabin asked why Melissa, Abby and I all had “black spots” on our foreheads and Melissa got asked a lot when working at Common Ground and one person actually asked her if she could wipe it off (she didn’t of course!). It was interesting feeling like a bit of a “minority” for the day as I didn’t see many other people with crosses on their foreheads. Many of the kids at Kids Kabin knew about it because some of the go to two of the local Catholic primary schools but some of them had questions as well.

-Tomorrow, March 18, is red nose day. Basically it is a day of fundraisers for various charities in the UK and Africa. The fundraisers are supposed to be fun/funny and there are special TV programs the BBC as well. (www.rednoseday.com/about)

That's about it for now. I will do my best to get a post about my trip up soon and post on a more regular basis as well!

Laura