new address
Hi all,
First things first. If you do not want to receive periodic "Rob life updates", please let me know and I will remove you from this list. However, some of you have no choice in the matter.
FYI, here is my address in Costa Rica, as of July 27th:
Rob Bell / Reto Juvenil Internacional
Apdo: 2035-2050 San pedro de Montes de Oca
Costa Rica, America Central
Email remains the same, when I get an account in Costa Rica, I will be forwarding this one to there...
There, that takes care of the business kind of things. Now, I'll try to fill you in on things that are/have been happening. (Warning, this is a bit long)
Well, I have finished school (Latin American Management Program (LAMP) @ Capilano College in North Vancouver), or at least the academic portion of the program. Now, I am off to Costa Rica (Toronto first though) to work for one year for Youth Challenge International (YCI), an organisation that I have volunteered with off and on for seven years.
I'll be doing a four month stint as a group leader for the youths in Costa Rica. The youths (18-25 years) come from Guyana, Canada, Costa Rica and Australia. We'll do projects like building schools, trails or community centres or health projects.
After the four months are up, I'll be working in the Costa Rican office of YCI (called Reto Juvenil in Spanish). My contract is to help Reto implement Results Based Management (the CIDA project evaluation framework) and to assist in a feasability study for the addition of projects in Nicaragua, to be run in parallel with the Costa Rican projects.
So, that's where I'm going now, but you might ask, what have I been doing for the last two months since school ended? I am hard pressed to answer that succinctly, but I will try...
Well, immediately after school, I think all twelve of us were burnt out, so a lot of partying took place. In spite of imagining that I wouldn't want to see any of those jerks ever again, I found myself still seeing a LAMP person pretty much every day in May. :) Many people left town and we celebrated/mourned each passing accordingly.
I was evicted from my apartment, which is a long story in and of itself, but the short story is that the landlord didn't like to do repairs, and so I developed a dislike for paying rent. In any case, I gave notice for the 15th of May but was evicted on the 14th. That was the day I was moving out anyway, so it made no difference in the end. That's what I get for living in the red light district. :)
After leaving my apartment, I househopped along (and will continue to do so, I suppose). Jill went to Kingston around the 15th, so I moved in to her place in North Van. while she was gone. There are many stories of good times had with Jamie, Rachel and Steve, but one story that Jamie will not soon live down came as we left the place at the end of May. I was away for two days (Sunshine Coast, doing a couple of talks at a high school), so I left all my stuff packed up and in a pile in a corner. However, I forgot to put my nice shoes and hiking boots in the pile. They were by the door. I thought they were safe, but I was wrong. Jamie, the last survivor (Rachel and Steve had left already), was left with the big cleanup job (although I claim I would have helped when I returned). In a zealous fervor, he threw out all the shoes by the door that were unclaimed, included the aforementioned two pairs... I think I can blackmail him for favours next time I'm in Japan...
Also, I went to Smithers during this period for more talks at schools up there - it was very beautiful - great people too. Speaking of beautiful, stayed 5 days at Jonathon's place - great view from the 10th floor.
Next, my brother, Jeff, left town to visit home, so I moved in there and buttered up his roommate by making breakfast for him one day (although really I made it for Sarah and her friend who came to visit) - he was just about ready to throw Jeff out when he came back... :) Around mid-July, Tyrion left, so I moved in there with Winnie for the rest of the month. I also had her buttered up in short order, cooking breakfast and dinner for her.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and I was unexpected forced to visit Victoria for 10 days. When taking the Reto job, I was told I needed Wilderness First Aid, but I foolishly assumed that there was only one such course in the world. I took the first one I found and on June 19th I got my staff manual and read it. That's when I found out that there are various flavours of Wilderness First Aid and not only that, but that I had taken the wrong flavour. Oops! So, I found another course and rushed off to Victoria for 10 days of exhaustion. The course was quite good and thorough, but I still think it is too ambitious to do a course for 10 days straight, 10+ hours a day without a break. I think there should be a weekend off in the middle... (just have to whine a little bit there)
In any case, it was fun, and I met some cool people, including two other YCI-types, one of whom will be in Costa Rica, and just happens to know James, a student in my class, really well. It's all just a bit too weird. We also managed to get to a couple of Jazzfest shows and I visited Al, so my 10 days in Victoria wasn't a total loss.
Then, I rushed back to Vancouver to finish packing, pickup my new laptop, which finally arrived (more than 10 days late), do all those last minute things which I had sort of planned to do in my last two weeks, which I now had six days to do. It was good though, because it sure got me moving.
Still, last night, I was still at my brother's until nearly 2am packing the stuff that was staying, etc. Then I went back to Winnie's to pack the
stuff I was taking. I got about 1.5 hours of sleep - slept right thru my alarm, good thing Roshy called this morning to wake me up... I was late for the plane, but we were ok in the end, had 5 or 10 minutes to spare. Maybe I shouldn't have gone hiking and to a movie yesterday. Oh well, it was worth it in the end...
Now, I am here in Toronto for the next phase - what does that mean? I don't know, I'm too tired to contemplate it... Good night....
Rob