(MY) Life - Sunday, November 18, 2007 15:44 - 7 Comments

YIKES

YIKES!

In 9 days we will be on our way down to Cuba! Reading this past sentence seems slightly surreal to me. I have been working so hard to enjoy the present moment that an uprooting of this sort seems remote. The psychology of this situation is perplexing.

This past Thursday was one of those days where you go to sleep and think "damn, I was productive today!" This is why; I woke up and ate my four waffles (with peanut butter) and two eggs as usual, went to the group Volunteer Activity Day and spawned into a human ladder (Christmas lights)… After the human ladder stint is where I became really productive. I am one of 4 members in our groups social committee. As such we are in charge of the farewell party. So, one Canadian and myself set off with our project supervisor in search of items that can be obtained without currency. We hit up close to 20 establishments searching for items to be donated. Let me tell you, asking for goods without the exchange of currency is surprisingly enjoyable. Although I wouldn't want to make it a life style… Communicating with so many people and visiting so many establishments definitely gave me a sense of prowess… We then proceeded back to the edifice from that morning where we enjoyed pizza, the shooter (a mediocre movie), and hot Cuban dancing.

This past week all the participants finished their work placements. My Wednesday at the library consisted of affixing Christmas decorations to long tubes on the ceiling in the department for children, cleaning old Celine Dion C.D.'s, and pursuing (detective work!) missing books in the daunting rows upon rows of paper, binding and colorful covers. This involved demanding to see the spines (enscribed with the book persons name) of thousands of book people. This is the type of job that requires extreme concentration as the eyes of the investigator will easily glaze over if they are not kept sharp. That is why I was appointed this task, because of my acute talent, skill and genius. Furthermore, one of the librarians had recognized my percipience on a previous occasion and decided that it would be a good idea to bring me scrumptious banana muffins. This was for the obvious reason of feeding my neurons. To boot, she peeled the paper off the the muffins before she gingerly placed them in the plastic zip-lock. To put this into perspective I would say that peeling paper off muffins for your recipient is almost as good as peeling the skin off grapes for a loved one… On Friday I did almost nothing at the library (my last day of work). Instead I drove around with my project supervisor collecting donations and giving documentation of our groups existence to the local businesses we visited the previous day. It is looking like this will be a common occurrence this coming week.

Last night we brought Jorge to an Ontario Hockey League game. His expressions ranged from horror when the players hit each other, and glee when our team (Owen Sound) won. I wouldn't be surprised if he lobbies Raul to build a hockey rink…

Our last week should go something like this: The rest of the week will consist of group sessions and getting prepared for Cuba. The social committee and I will be very busy getting ready for this farewell party of 100+ people on Saturday. Tomorrow night we are having two participants over for a movie and dinner. Our time in Canada is rapidly decreasing. It is incredible to think that the present moment will soon consist of me swimming through schools of tropical fish!

Love to all,
Zachary