The Wonders of Schiphol Airport

If you ever have an obscenely long layover, I highly suggest arranging to spend it at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. I only had 3 hours there, during which I noted many of the following opportunities:

1) Aqua Massage- Submerge your body in a plastic bag and get pummeled by water jets, 1 euro per minute for a max of 5 minutes (wonder if that maximum is there for safety reasons....)

2) Curl up in a huge leather chair by an electronic fireplace and read a book

3) Take a nap in the reclining chair section

4) Learn about Dutch culture in the museum or borrow a book from the library

5) Relive your childhood by running around in the children's forest

6) Shop! Anything and everything from Victoria's Secret and MAC to electronic stores and tulip centres. The huge duty-frees are a given.

7) Eat and Drink! Cheese shops, bakeries, chocolate boutiques, a sushi bar, juice bar, espresso bar, house of bols speciality bar...let's just say I arrived at 7 am and many people were enjoying a lovely glass of wine

8) Tours- So many tours that you could arrange to take into Amsterdam while you waited for your next flight, cruises/buses/trains

Unforturnately on my way back I only have about a 1 hour stay so I will try to pack in as much as possible!

The Woes of Packing

Soooo initially I figured that packing for this trip would be easy. Even though I’m going for 6 weeks, all I needed were clothes for very hot weather. 6 months on exchange also honed my packing skills and perfected techniques such as the ‘layer three outfits on your body and wear them on the plane’. PLUS KLM (airline of choice) has not switched their regulations to the stupid one bag rule yet. So TWO BAGS! 50 pounds each! I figured that I would bring one medium sized rolley bag for my stuff and one duffel bag full of donations.

Two days to go and my zen, ‘I can survive with one skirt and one pair of shorts etc etc’ mindset has slowly but surely completely disintegrated. (Let’s be honest, it was more like 4 or 5 skirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 pair of jeans…you get the picture). That medium sized rolley bag is looking mighty small…

BUT to my credit some difficulties have arisen that have further complicated the process

1)      Recognizing that my shoulders and knees need to be covered at most times- yes this does make packing easier in some sense but what if I feel the need to rebel at some point and run around in my room wearing short shorts? How many scandalous options does one bring for these such instances?

2)      Checking the weather about a week ago I realized that the assumption that it would be hot was not necessarily correct. Since their winter had just drawn to a close, yes it will reach around 25 degrees during the day but can also drop as low as 12 during the night. Everyone knows that I am freezing cold until it is 25 degrees outside. Yes, it was me that had a heater going full blast in my room until mid-June. Therefore it seems that I now must pack both hot and cold options. I have come up with two ways to deal with this new info:

Check the weather every day and hope that it changes to WARM all the time

Note: This tactic has failed. Days are still hot and nights are still cold.

So now I am resorting to waiting for some sort of packing inspiration to appear. Tomorrow is Tuesday. I leave Wednesday. I’ll pack tomorrow. Let you know how it goes!

Africa

As long as I can remember I have always had the dream to go and volunteer in Africa. I’m not sure when it started, but I remember countless nights during high school spent googling and researching various organizations and opportunities. The expensive plane ticket and hefty organization fees coupled with the longer period of stay needed to make the investment more worthwhile amounted to a dream that I was unable to commit to.

But over the years there were more convenient opportunities that presented themselves, and I quickly jumped at all of them. I got my first taste of the international volunteer experience in grade 11, when I travelled to Jamaica with a group of classmates and teachers on the annual BSS volunteer trip. We helped out at elementary schools, an orphanage, and a home for HIV positive orphans. It was an overwhelmingly emotional experience that filled me with gratitude for the life that I had been born into. It was that first trip that got me hooked. It was the beauty of the landscape and the simplicity of life without materialism. The humble act of people trying their best to help each other. The uninhibited love and joy that overflowed from everyone I met, no matter how little they had. I knew I had to do it again.

The summer after first year I travelled to Cambodia and Thailand with a group of Commerce students. Even though we spent more of the time touring than building houses, learning about the trials and horrors of Cambodian history while getting to visit the monuments was an absolutely unforgettable experience.  Cut to second year when I joined Queen’s Commerce Initiative Abroad and went to Ecuador to help out at a community centre and re-do their playground. Yet another amazing experience in an exotic location that I still think about today.

Throughout all of these experiences, the thought was still there: I want to go to Africa. At a younger, more naïve stage, the thought was more along the lines of: I want to go to Africa and help people. It has now evolved into:  What can I do in Africa that will have the greatest impact? Given that I am not a med student, and do not do very well with blood or illness, this rules out healthcare. After many years of learning about sustainable community initiatives, I have learned that education is an absolute necessity to combat poverty. Given that I have a business degree, perhaps I have gained some sort of knowledge that is worth sharing?

International volunteer work is often criticized, and sometimes rightly so. There is the question of whether the money spent on airfare is better used as a direct donation, or why huge organizations charge exorbitant fees for people to go and work for free. Luckily I was able to find a small organization in Tanzania with low administration costs that teaches disadvantaged women English, business, and computer skills. They then support a number of their students who go on to start their own businesses after graduation. This sounded perfect. I signed up without a moment’s hesitation.

So now I’m headed to Africa. Finally. For 6 weeks. By myself. Mother is thrilled (not). Regardless, it will be the adventure of a lifetime. In 3 weeks exactly I will be touching down at Mount Kilimanjaro airport. Soooo much to do before then!