The first two weeks of Katimavik...

I am far too unmotivated to keep an updated blog, but I'm going to try. It's been just over two weeks since I left Calgary, although it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. I wouldn't say thats a bad thing; we've been so busy and our schedule has been so full that it seems as though we've done two months worth of things in the seventeen days since we all left home.

Upon arriving in Charlottetown on Wednesday the 17th, the eleven participants (myself included) of my group along with two other Katimavik groups took a bus to Camp Kildare, a Scout camp just outside of Alberton. We were there until Sunday, doing Mass-O (don't worry, it's just short for Mass Orientation, it wasn't some crazy religious thing). We had all kinds of workshops, all three groups together, about things like group living, the Katimavik learning programs, rules and expectations and budgets. After cleaning the camp up a bit Sunday morning, the three groups parted ways. My group is living in Alberton, so we didn't have far to go from the camp, and the other two groups are in Wellington (population 400-ish) and Summerside (17,000).

Sunday afternoon, we moved into our first Katima-house. It's a cute little four bedroom house on Church Street, with a huge backyard. Upstairs, there are all the bedrooms and a bathroom. Melina, our Project Leader has one of the rooms, the four guys in my group have another one, five of the seven girls have the largest one and myself and the seventh girl are sharing the last one. It's definitely small, but we've got bunk-beds so the rooms don't feel too squished.

Downstairs, there's a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom/laundry room. Amazingly enough, it doesn't feel like there are twelve of us living in the house. There's only one shower that works, but even working out schedules for that hasn't created any conflict within the group, which is nice.

Speaking of the group...I should maybe elaborate on them. Katimavik groups are made based on where the applicants are from: over half of each group is from Ontario and Québec, and the rest is composed of one or two people from the other parts of Canada. So, going from west to east...

There's Lisa from Langley, BC. She's 20 and has done two years of university already. Then there's me, from Calgary (duhhr), and then Kyla, from Winnipeg. She's 17, close to 18, and my roommate this rotation. From Ontario, there's Tyler (17, from Parry Sound), Amy (17, from Kempville) and Krista (also 20, from near Toronto). Tyler and Amy also graduate from high school in the spring, and Krista has done two years of university at Wilfred Laurier. Then there's four from Québec; Cynthia from St-Jérome, Fréderique from Drummondville, Pier-Marc from a town five or six hours north of Montréal and then Eric, from Montreal. They're all 17, with the exception of Cynthia who just turned 19. The last member of my group is Mat, who is 18 and from Halifax. We all get along really, really well.

From the Sunday we moved in until just this past Monday, we were doing House Orientation. So we were getting to know the town and each other for a week, working on schedules and getting tours of all the work sites that we'd be volunteering at. Some of the more exciting things that we've done so far are wander to the Alberton Harbor in Northport, go bowling and label everything in the house with bilingual labels. The labelling of the house turned into labelling ourselves though. It was quite a good time.

Monday morning, we all started at our volunteer placements. I'm working at a french school near Alberton. It's only been open for two years, and it goes all the way from a preschool/nursery to grade 12. There are three other people from my group also working there: Cynthia at the community center that runs out of the school, Fredérique at the nursery, and Pier-Marc at the high school. I'm also working at the high school, and we're both helping get their library set up. I'm really enjoying it so far. In the mornings, I help out with a grade 11 math class, of 5 students and in the afternoon I'm with the grade 11 chem class, of 3.  The principal of the school is teaching math, because the original teacher was fired after the first week. The problem is that the principal is a Phys Ed and English teacher and doesn't know a whole lot about math. As for chem, the three students have their class via teleconference. A teacher at a different francophone school teaches and they watch on a TV. They can ask questions and everything, but for the most part - they don't. So having me there has helped out a fair bit, since they can ask me and I can explain things more easily than the teacher on the TV can. 

I think that will have to be all for tonight; I'm exhausted and I've been sitting for far too long doing this tonight. Fingers crossed that I'll keep it updated faaaaairly often. 

Erica.