Getting off the train-ing...

I have been trying many times to write about my week of training in Toronto that just ended yesterday. Many times the words intensity and challenging came up but I always have a hard time summarizing what I have learned and giving you an insight of what life is like when you live with 17 other passionate and energetic volunteers for one week.

Schedule of the Pre-departure training

Many of the training sessions were meant to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and to make us think outside of the box.

What are all the different approaches that we can take to learn about our host community? about our NGO? about ourselves?
What is the big picture?
What is the impact that we are trying to achieve?
What major assumptions are we making about our host community?
How are they affecting our work and our goals?
...

I came here with lots of questions and I am leaving with tons. I did not expect to find all the answers in this one week and I don't know if I will ever find them during the summer. I realized that finding an answer to everything is not that important. It might be frustrating at times, but questioning nurtures my mind and pushes me to try out new things.

Intro to Rural Livelihoods session: Mark, Helen and Brett at Jerry Springer
for some household drama

Besides this intense learning, I had a great time getting to know better the other volunteers heading to Burkina Faso and Zambia. Put a mix of French and English speaking people in a house and believe it or not, instead of tension, we had fun! Fun laughing at the anglophones trying to pronounce our French names, fun making music with pots and pans, fun playing "shta" (I almost won the "shta" award!), fun discussing about everything and nothing, fun eating Ghanian food in the "Ghanian way"...

Music Jam, just before the pots and pans came in

It still feels unreal that I am leaving for Zambia today. I can't believe I will be in the airplane in a few hours!!! Aaaaaaahhh!