Worth Less Than a Cow?

"Every cow in the European Union is subsidized to the tune of two dollars a day, while four hundred to five hundred million Africans live on less than a dollar a day." -Stephen Lewis "Race Against Time"

Wow, I've actually posted something!

So, here I am, sitting in Breslau (not an easy place to find). Im exhausted in every sense of the word.
We as One Worlders, started out the month at Eramosa Eden, getting to know each other and learning about all sorts of wicked things like Simple Living, group dynamics, conflict resolution and that you can put corn in just about anything. Thank you to our corn queens Pamela and Colleen... I can never look at a cob again... although the cake was awesome. I truly enjoyed the first leg of this journey because I feel that expierential learning is the greatest way to learn. Whether it be from presentations on Tomato farmers in Ghana or trying to drop an egg into a bucket of water (and missing due to over zealousness) or even just from Tips of the Day, I feel I learned more in my first nine days of One World than I did in four years of High School.

We then moved to Kitchener and stayed at the AWESOME Sullivan household. We started work at St John's Kitchen and met some incredible people. The other volunteers were amazing and incredible and I had pretty solid time. Unfortunately, due to stupid sucky moronic illness I was stuck at home until our last day. I was not impressed. We left Kitchener the next day and hit up Guelph to prepare for our hiking trip to Algonquin. We also went to Toronto to Mama Pee's for Ghanaian food and man is it ever hot! This will be interesting....

So, after being locked out of the house and sleeping like a rock, we woke up bright and early to head out for Algonquin to hike 35km in five days....hahaha...
After a long drive and an exhausting first four kilometers and a rainy night, we headed out to do our next nine kilometers... We arrived at Maggie Lake wet, cold and miserable at 1pm and there was no way on Earth we were going to stay there. So we headed out to do the next 6km to Oak Lake and we camped out there. Man, were we glad to have arrived. My shoulder was killing me, I had fallen and cut my hand, attempting to flee from a (pretty non-threatening) moose and my boots were covered in mud after sinking knee deep into some stinky mud. We had set up camp, Caitlin was cleaning my cut (soon after she was bit by a chipmunk that we had named Hermione) and we started making Lentil stew (AWESOME).
We woke up the next morning, the sky was blue, the birds were chirping, the chipmunks were lurking and all I wanted to do was to get the hell out of the forest. We decided as a group to hold off on any discussion of cutting the trip short until we arrived at Guskewa(sp?) Lake. But we managed to all agree to stay at least one more night in Algonquin. The sun was shining, our packs were lighter and we made it to the next Lake in good time.... but due to a pen dot on our map, we missed our campsite and managed to hike the whole way out of the park... way to go team! We came out of the park with huge grins on our faces and a sense of accomplishment swelling inside. We had decided to head to Amanda's house.
We arrived in Parry Sound and the sense of relief washed over me. We were done. I could take care of my shoulder and sleep in a warm bed. I then checked my email to see if I had gotten an email from Anfaani Children's Home in Ghana. I had. The forms for me to apply as a volunteer had been sent but as I read through them, I realized that they only wanted volunteers who were 21 years of age... which I am not. I phoned Pamela.
I was given the advice to just explain about my age and hope for the best but now we had to deal with the fact that we were not technically done our challenge and we had to continue on. We were told to go back to Algonquin... that was not an option. The idea of going back to Algonquin after finishing the challenge we had been given filled me with a sense of dread. No way Jose was I going back. Fortunatly for us, the option of heading to Killbear Provincial Park was brought up. It didnt matter to me that it could possibly be harder for us- I did not want to go back to Algonquin... We went to bed after intense decision making and discussions and woke in the morning to head out to Killbear.
At Killbear we knew we needed to challenge ourselves or else it wasnt worth even being there. So we randomly headed down a path and we got a little lost and then found our way to the beach. Which we followed to our campsite. We ate a late lunch and then decided to head to the Lighthouse (longest walk ever!). We were hurt and tired but we kept going and finally made it to the lighthouse to take a picture and then head back. We made a nice dinner of Chicken Noodle soup and Instant mashed potatoes (which I managed to spill all over the picnic table) and we ended the night with speaking kind words to each other.
We woke to another beautiful day and packed up camp, had a group check in at the beach and then headed home. Getting to Parry Sound and Toronto was pretty good (minus the INSANE traffic in Toronto, which I am continuously told, was not as bad as it normally is) but we got so incredibly frustratingly lost trying to find Breslau, that I thought I was going to be kicked out of the van and left to fend for myself. Thankfully, Currie decided we should turn down some random street which happened to have the street that we needed at the end of it!
Now im sitting here, showered, full and ready to sleep. I've talked to home and Im feeling relieved to get to rest. But the truth is, I am still incredibly excited to start learning more on Monday....
I will write more when I have a chance
Peace and lots of love
Aryn

The Miniature Earth