Such Sweet Sorrow

Till we meet again, my beloved Africa

I love my family. I miss my family. I miss my kitties and rubbing their ears. It is time for this trip to come to it’s end, I thought that I could only take so much ‘roughing it’; but I truly hate to be leaving here. This has been the ultimate eye opening experience for me and I believe for most of the volunteers, that have become such close friends. I think we all arrived with different expectations and I think we are all leaving with different ideas of how to carry on promoting the work of World Vision. The ADP staff has been so wonderful and accommodating, always cheerful, helpful and ready to answer, what to them must be the most mundane and self explanatory questions. Whether we have been rude in our questions (being unsure and from a different culture) in asking any of these questions, they have never let on. I have seen Utant come home to Zu’s, where he has been staying, looking absolutely bushed and yet every morning our jeep is cleaned, there are smiles on the faces and warm greetings. Godwin and his staff have gone out of their way, in what I’m sure have been busy schedules where they should have been doing other things, to make sure we have been well looked after and cared for, giving up much needed office space for us to get in and use computers and links. There has always been a minimum of 3 staff traveling with us at all times, for which I am most grateful. I can not give high enough praise for Godwin and the staff. I will miss the warmth of the general population and the daily greeting I have received. My fellow travelers have become fast friends and I suppose, how can you not when you share such amazing experiences together. Even higher praise to Maria for keeping things running, with the least bit of stress to us that can humanly be possible. She is an amazing young woman, always with a smile and a joke. Thank you Maria for helping to make the trip so very special. There have been some frustrating glitches along the way, to be expected on a ‘pilot trip’ and every accommodation has been made to keep as much as possible, to a minimum. My most heartfelt thanks to all, you’ve all made it a most extraordinary trip.

I would like to end this with an excerpt I read in ‘Creating a World Without Poverty’ just before I left, written by Muhammed Yunus, This passage particularly stuck in my head, as it so closely resembles World Visions motto: ‘a hand up, not a hand out’.
“In general I am opposed to giveaways and handouts. They take away initiative and responsibility from people. If people know that things can be received “free” they tend to spend their energy and skills chasing the “free” things rather than using the same energy and skill to accomplish things on their own. Handouts encourage dependence rather than self help and self confidence.

Personally, I think that those of power in the Canadian political system, need to take these words of wisdom and apply them more freely to our own problems at home in dealing with poverty and homelessness - one persons opinion.