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