Welcome to my blog, in the next 10
months I will be writing from the sunshine coast in Australia. For
all those that know what I am doing there, you can skip to the next
paragraph, for all those that don't and want to know, keep on
reading: I will spend the next 10 months volunteering in the
organization called Metamorphic International. This is a christian
organization that does community development and church planting
mostly in south-east Asia and Africa (even though they did start
their first church planting project in Poland this past summer). They
have their main office at the sunshine coast and that is where I will
be working. Next to normal office work I will have the opportunity to
look into the different areas of the organization and help where I am
needed the most. The cool thing is that the German government
supports it and I will get a nice certificate at the end saying that
I didn't just spend 10 months at the beach, but actually did
something useful, which always looks good in your resume. :)
The Preparation
Since it is all official I was at 2
preparation seminars, each 10 days long, in August. So in some ways
my volunteer year already began in August. In short the seminars were
totally awesooooome, even though that word is far from enough to
fully describe how great the time was :) Anyways, I've basically been
preparing for 1 and half months and now I'm finally on my way (or
actually I'm almost there, since I am currently 40 minutes away from
Brisbane).
The Travel
Saying goodbye to my parents was
really, really hard. Not that the other goodbyes weren't hard, but
this was the final one and it was starting to sink in that I really
was going to be gone for 10 months. The first leg of the trip
(Frankfurt to Singapore) went well and I actually got a lot of sleep,
or at least I had my sleeping mask on for a long time, altogether I
probably was asleep for only half of that time. I had a nice person
sitting next to me, enough food, a good pillow and my own TV screen.
In Singapore, which we reached 30-40
minutes late, I first tried to find out from which gate my next
flight would be leaving from in 4 hours. That alone was a bit of a
challenge, but mostly, because I thought I could figure it out by
myself and wouldn't have to ask anybody (I did though in the end).
After that I started the hunt for the swimming pool, which took
around 30 minutes or more. There again I should have asked somebody
earlier, but I'm usually quite good with maps and finding my way
around, so I thought I would manage finding the swimming pool.
However the Singapore Airport is horridly confusing. The swimming
pool is on Level 3, I arrived on Level 2. So normally one would think
that one could just take some escalator up to the third Level and
then walk to the place where the swimming pool is, right? WRONG,
because there are 10000 Level 3 that are kind of like little islands
floating over Level 2, so you can't walk from one island to the
other, but have to take the correct escalator. Added to that the maps
are really confusing and there are not enough signs. But in the end I
did get there and it was totally worth it, since I was also able to
take a shower and relax for a bit (it's amazing how good a shower
feels after a long trip). After that I decided to get the national
dish which is chicken rice. However in the process of it my tray
almost hit the deck, since I was only holding it with one hand and
there was a rolling bottle on it. A very nice worker came to my
rescue and took it from me and put it on a table for me. After I had
payed another one showed me where the table was and kindly reminded
me that I still needed my silver ware. I must say, I'm usually a
quite together person, but on this trip I've felt more spaced out
than I have felt for quite a while, thank God for the nice and
understanding people out there :)
On another note: I've been looking out
of my window and I'm getting first glimpse of Australia. Below me is
a really hilly region, who knows, maybe it will be a little bit like
the hilly region where I live (but I kind of doubt it). But it sure
looks cool.
Arrival:
So I arrived well. I got through border
and customs control quickly and they didn't arrest me or question me
or any thing like that which was very nice :) I also got my bag
really quickly and Dan was waiting in front of the gate with Jed when
I came out. I have a small, but nice room with enough drawer space
for my clothes, which is great. I'm a little bit overwhelmed with the
thought that I'll be staying here for 10 months, but I think I'll get
used to it.
Well that's about it for now, I
apologize for all the wrong spelling and grammar mistakes (if there
are any), but I wrote all of this after sleeping waaaaay too little.
Greetings from the other end of the
world,
Susan
P.S.(pictures will follow sometime
soon, I'm just too lazy to get up from the couch to get my camera and
cable, plus I promised Jed (Dan and Ines 4 year old son) that I would
play with him in 10-15 minutes, so I have to hurry up and finish :) )
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