k3wl

neat-o!

so the journal is now on it's first leg, on to Montreal and Kim. Where it will go from there I don't know.

Got my tickets today: September 12th, Nanaimo->Vancouver->London(overnight stay)->Bahrain->Kathmandu. Good thing I actually enjoy flying. I love movement, really. The trains in India, busses, taxis, etc, anything where the immediate world is suspended and your mind is free to just wander. I've come up with more than one story idea on a plane.

When I went to the Maldives I went over the Pacific, but I guess there's more flights going into Kathmandu from the east. Who knows really. At this point, I think my time aloft has circumnavigated the globe at least once.

montreal

I love montreal.

unfortunately, training was actually held at the old military college, st-jean sur richelieu, 45 minutes outside of montreal. same place it was last year, same type of training. i was expecting to be bored.

(in truth i wasn't expecting anything at all. i wasn't there- "my soul was already across the seas" as Randy would say, since i was supposed to be leaving this wednesday. i came back. VSO contacted me while i was there and now i'm leaving mid-september.)

Canada Corps training wasn't boring, though. Everyone there had incredible backgrounds and experience, it was something (and a times intimidating). Stavos'd been an observer in the Ukraine elections. Bruno was just back from the Congo. People there were trained in epidemiology, law, film, radio, IT.

Randy Weekes, our instructor, was the dude. He's spent 30 years in development and has seen enough to be cynical, and doubtful of development work. Perfect for this class. He was incredibly honest, intelligent and very funny. His tangents were the best and most of the time he even managed to tie them into what we were supposed to be learning.

I found him inspiring. There's not many people you run into in this world who have that affect.

I wish every week could be as packed with ideas, notions and stories as this last week. We found different places to drink every night. I learned that I can keep going on five hours sleep for a whole week. I sang sweet strains of karaoke (kereoke?) for the first time in my life.

And again, just like all the other sessions, you get a week to meet really amazing, like-minded deviants and then afterwards you're all off to the corners of the globe, never to see each other again. then again, maybe we'll keep in touch. because of this:

this is a journal left over from the training sessions, most likely Lee's or Bruno's. what we (I) decided to do with it is this: i'll write in it, send it to Kim in montreal, then she'll write in it, send it on, etc.

if it works (if it works), that means that this book will travel from Brussels to Sri Lanka, Senegal to Kazakhstan. it's a noble idea at least. it may end up lost in Togo, or it may be too expensive to post it out of Geneva. but hey, drop in the ocean and all that.

diploma down

fifty bucks to replace a diploma!
they need a reason for the replacement as well:

To UVic Records Services,

Please accept this request for a duplicate diploma. Unfortunately it seems that my original was burned a few years ago during one of my father’s post-Christmas burnings.

This traditional cleansing ritual is intended to deal with wrapping paper and boxes, although more than one child’s toy has been found horribly disfigured in the aftermath. I am fairly certain that a few years ago, while my diploma was still in its manila envelope, it fell into this man’s hands.

Cheers,
David Mitenko

making a break for it

strange, the whole summer i've been in a holding pattern, unable to look for any long-term, career-type jobs because i was waiting to hear back from VSO. instead i've been hanging out, doing odd jobs, chilling.

then i go off to ottawa and find out i'm leaving at the end of august, not late september like last time. so pretty much as soon as i stepped off the flight back i'd broken into a mad sprint. i've been racing for the finish line since, and i'm not even sure when/where that is because i'm not exactly sure when i'm leaving.

so what do i do for my one-day dash over to vancouver yesterday?
take on two new projects. because i'm not busy enough.

facial hair

been getting a lot of comments from people about the facial hair. sure it's patchy, but it's so sweet.

after this last year- el camino de santiago, everything down in the maldives, travelling through india- it felt like i'd turned a corner. that kind of maturity is tough to communicate though. the beard was, basically, and attempt to convey that. it was something i felt like i'd earned.

of couse there's still people out there who treat me like i'm the same guy they graduated from high school with -or from university for that matter.
dammit- can't you see the beard? don't you understand?

judge for yourself. how mature does the beard make me look?:
without beard (happy)
without beard (serious)

with beard (happy)
with beard (serious)

frisbees

tonight was the first time in almost two years that i've been able to play ultimate -and play hard- without my hamstring blowing out. just in time for me to take off to kathmandu.

i'm taking discs.

some friends of mine just came back from the Canadian Ultimate Championships. congrats to Scotty Northrup for winning Masters division with Grind! And to Headey for making it to the semis in women's (finishing third -although she definitely wanted more). Also kudos to Tabata, Bug and the Spynergists who took Joyride all the way to the finals in mixed. Jay, I hear there's a pretty sweet pic of you at the party floating around.

I think all of the teams qualified for Worlds, which is in Perth sometime next year. That's a long way to go. Perth is remote even if you're in Australia.

goes with the territory...

being a volunteer means you don't necessarily have cash.

feeling pretty rotten right now. a friend of mine is getting married and i'm not sure i can make it to his wedding or his stag (over in Vancouver). Dugie's an old friend of mine, and it sucks that i'm not going to be able to make it. but it's a matter of time and money, neither of which i have.

so what do i do after my latest deflating visit to the bank? i go out and buy a victorinox utility knife for $$$. how ironic.

am i for real? how do i justify my purchase considering what i just wrote?

because VSO is going to reimburse me for anything i buy that would be considered vital overseas(within limits).

( my last knife was stolen out of my backpack at Trivandrum airport. someone had rifled through my pack right off the baggage carousel.
because you're not allowed to carry a knife onboard, it was the sole article of value in there. The rest of Trivandrum is great, actually, just bring suitcase lock.)

other invaluables include:
- duct tape
- an E string from a guitar (i've always used just needle & thread, but this is good for patching things up, according to drew)
- padlock
- clothes pins
- toothbrush & towel
- tp in a ziploc bag (my brother hugh pointed this one out)
- mesh bags

of course, this is more of a packbackers list. but the similarities are there.

if you're going to an ultimate tournament, all you need are cleats.

one of the things i always end up bringing, but rarely use, is a nalgene bottle. where you can't drink the local water, a nalgene doesn't really make sense: you always end up buying bottled water. i'm going to bring one to Nepal as well.

so yeah, i can be broke and spend money at the same time.

the pitch

Welcome!

As you may or may not know, I'm off to Nepal in a few weeks with VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas). I'm going to be working in Kathmandu with some NGOs that are working to promote/avocate participation and governance for women, Dalits (the lower caste in Nepal) and people with disabilities. In response to all those who've already seen this and asked, I am supposed to be in Kathmandu September 1st. Three weeks.

Now, although I did have a fundraiser earlier this summer (a casino night, which was a blast. I'll post some pics as soon as Jo gives them up), I am still a little short.

So, here's what I'm thinking: I'm going to put up each month that I'm abroad for you to purchase for the amount of $100 CDN (this idea came originally from a
VSO Construction Trainer who worked at a technical school in Rwanda and taught carpentry a few years ago. He was gone for two years and managed to raise $2400 with this scheme). By purchase, I mean donate $100 to VSO.

If you buy a month, I will put your picture up on my desk in Kathmandu, and I will also post your picture up here on my blog. As you can see over on the right, I already have the panel in place for the folks that make any donations. Instead of the slackers from butternutsquash.com, that could be you!

Please think about it! If you're a member of a team (say, just for example, the Nanaimo Ultimate Squad), it'd be only $10 a head. The same for any organization or business you're a part of.

this one goes out to...

I just emailed some friends down in the Maldives, so I figured I'd post some photos of them so they'd have something to look at:



This is the IT/Medical Records crew from Indira Ghandi Memorial Hospital in Male', where I was a VSO/Netcorps volunteer earlier this year. Can you pick which one is me?



This is Aongus O'Keefe, Owen Edwards and me. Aongus and Owen were fellow volunteers and they were doing english and teacher training out in Ari atoll. This picture was taken in a high school-turned-supply depot after the Tsunami. We're all wearing our Task Force Go! shirts. We earned those. See how we're all wet? That's sweat. I wish I was making that up.

on to Ottawa

(Drew, Jill, Me, Ashley & Cathy)

Ottawa. Volunteer Boot Camp.

I remember almost the same feelings from last year: less anxiety this time about the whole flying to the other side of the world, though. No, the similarity had more to do with the fact that I just didn't want to go to Ottawa. It was human inertia, that integral part of the human psyche that traps us all in the end: when you're enjoying yourself somewhere you just don't want to leave: you have friends, a good life.

When I left for the Maldives there was a part of me that wanted to stay. Once I had settled in there, there was a part of me that didn't want to leave. Adventures only seem to happen when you break that, however.

My impression of the first few days in Ottawa: meh. Same shit, vaguely similar pile. The training videos were the same ones I had seen last year. And the people... meh. They're faces I'm most likely never going to see again, so who cares?

Then the SKWID training started and it was new stuff, actually interesting stuff and the group dynamics... ahh VSO & their bloody personality filtering. It goes with the territory but it's also who VSO selects: the people are bound to be friendly, open-minded, interesting, enlightening... how can a fellow volunteer help but like them?

So in the end I'm going to miss them, even though I've only known them for a week. Like Kim and Barb, off to teach english in Africa for two years. They're bringing their kids. Can you imagine being 14 yrs old, the only white face in some rural school in Eretria?
Or Roneen, off to Cambodia and -of all things- is the mother of a friend of mine, Toby Marcoux, a world champion ultimate player.

There's the instructors too. Al had this habit where, even though he never broke into a full smile, he'd get this crinkle around his eyes and you knew he was about to say something Quite Funny.

Jillian had a friend, Sarah, who works for an MP so she got us (Me, Ashley, Cathy, Jill, Drew) into the Parliament buildings for an informal tour. Stood on the floor of the House of Commons. Strongly, very strongly, resisted the urge to strip and run down the Tunnel that connects Parliament to some of the MPs' offices (that whole thing about being an ambassador for VSO...)

I could go on, but suffice to say it was great, the people were great. Perhaps I'll see some of them again...

mitenko out

back to the quill

I guess it's time to get back into journalling/blogging.

I've fallen out of the habit, in part because nothing too exciting has happened: Nanaimo is lovely, there's the river, the wee ones (Ben, Max, Abigail, Arthur & Maddy), but there's also a routine. The fact that what happened yesterday is a variation on a theme of what's going to happen next week means that writing it down for posterity's sake doesn't accomplish much.

Nepal may change that.

check!

All right.

this should do for now.

I can see myself possibly setting up my own website in order to handle the backend work for pictures and links, but that will have to wait until i actually have resources and time.