South Africa, 2010
This section of the site contains the original website and blog created for my month long volunteer trip to South Africa. While this section of the site is no longer active, and I am off on new adventures, I hope you enjoy it.
Join me in being part of something bigger!
July 19th - August 17, 2010
Welcome to my website! Thank you for taking the time to visit and to learn more about this amazing opportunity life has provided for me to chase a dream of helping others and to get involved with education on a global level. Feel free to look around and be sure to check out my blog which I will keep up to date throughout my travels. Also, be sure to come back. The website will change as I go, with pages being added, such a photo gallery!
The one question people have asked when I've told them of this opportunity is, "why?" Admittedly, there is some stunned silence first followed by an exclamation of disbelief, but to be fair I did just announce I was going half way around the world with no hint that I had even been considering such a thing, so their incredulity is to be expected. But, nonetheless, it usually comes around to the same thing, why?
There is and isn't a simple answer to this question. On a very basic level, it's because this is something I have always wanted to do. My two goals for my time on this Earth include traveling and leaving the world a better place for my having been a part of it. Volunteering in new places combines both these goals quite neatly.
On a more complex level, this is the right action at the right time. As the doctors induced a coma in my mother to ease her pain and anxiety before her death, I held her and talked to her as she went to sleep. I told her how grateful I was to have had her be my mum and that she had done an amazing job, but that it was okay to rest now. I talked and talked, and I promised that I would be okay and go on to lead a wonderful life. This is the first step I'm taking in fulfilling that promise.
I don't know if this will be the moment that changes my life, but I think it could be. I have talked at length about the dream of getting involved with global education and I have a particular interest in the education of girls and women. I may get to South Africa and find out that this sort of thing isn't as great as I thought it would be. I may find not a passion but an enduring interest that leads me to continue to volunteer my energies in short bursts while pursuing a more or less normal life. Or I may find my calling and who knows where that road will lead. All there is now is open possibility, glimmering and tantalizing.
The one question people have asked when I've told them of this opportunity is, "why?" Admittedly, there is some stunned silence first followed by an exclamation of disbelief, but to be fair I did just announce I was going half way around the world with no hint that I had even been considering such a thing, so their incredulity is to be expected. But, nonetheless, it usually comes around to the same thing, why?
There is and isn't a simple answer to this question. On a very basic level, it's because this is something I have always wanted to do. My two goals for my time on this Earth include traveling and leaving the world a better place for my having been a part of it. Volunteering in new places combines both these goals quite neatly.
On a more complex level, this is the right action at the right time. As the doctors induced a coma in my mother to ease her pain and anxiety before her death, I held her and talked to her as she went to sleep. I told her how grateful I was to have had her be my mum and that she had done an amazing job, but that it was okay to rest now. I talked and talked, and I promised that I would be okay and go on to lead a wonderful life. This is the first step I'm taking in fulfilling that promise.
I don't know if this will be the moment that changes my life, but I think it could be. I have talked at length about the dream of getting involved with global education and I have a particular interest in the education of girls and women. I may get to South Africa and find out that this sort of thing isn't as great as I thought it would be. I may find not a passion but an enduring interest that leads me to continue to volunteer my energies in short bursts while pursuing a more or less normal life. Or I may find my calling and who knows where that road will lead. All there is now is open possibility, glimmering and tantalizing.
Photo Credits: Header image, 1/Jan/1985. UN Photo/P. by United Nations Photo.
Body paragraph image, 10/Apr/2007. Photo by Randy OHC.
All photos taken from Flickr and are licensed for use under Creative Commons.