So today I....

...walked the AIDS Walk route two more times.
...was on local TV promoting the AIDS Walk.
...went out for amazing (& cheap) Vietnamese food.
...met with the physician at HIFY.
...got permission from the Executive Director and the President of the Board at HIFY to practice as an RN at HIFY.
...got the physician to change the wording on the medical directives to include me in being able to prescribe and renew prescriptions for birth control (OCP/patch/nuva ring/depo) at HIFY.
...met Silken Laumann (and got her autograph and a picture with her).

And tomorrow... Tiger Cats game!!

Working, Finally!!!

The last week has been a slow one. Each day I've been anxiously waiting to get involved and actually start getting some work done, which finally came today! I've been placed at HIFY (Health Initiatives For Youth, Hamilton) for Tuesday - Thursday of each week. It was the most relevant to nursing, and seems like it will be a good fit. Each day Tuesday to Friday HIFY runs a clinic for three hours, primarily for young girls under 20, but has services for everyone. There are two nurses - an RN and an RPN - who work during the clinic hours and they both seem great. I'll also be helping with two weekly programs, a Rainbow Drop-In each Tuesday for two hours for LGBTQ youth, and a Risk Reduction program for youth who have, for the most part been court-ordered to attend. In the rest of the time I'm at HIFY, I'll be working with two other CWY participants (Jenny & Vahid) to revamp their pamphlets on STIs and birth control, create a presentation on HIFY's services, and research & develop an HIV/AIDS session for the Risk Reduction program. Tomorrow we're working on promo stuff for the Hamilton AIDS Walk that's coming up on Sunday, and tomorrow night I'm going with my host mom to see Silken Laumann speak. I've also been getting more and more into my Hindi learning, and think it's really interesting.
Below are some long overdue pictures, so enjoy!

First Few Days in Hamilton

After about a week of non-stop team exercises about sharing expectations and observations, everyone is pretty anxious to get on with the volunteer work. This morning we saw the launch of a program called 'the couch project' which is aimed at preventing youth from ending up on the street. It was interesting and involved a lot of the same people we'll be working with in the communities. Then we had to turn a tourist map of Hamilton into a more realistic map of Hamilton by asking random people about areas they liked/disliked or saw as positive things or issues. It turns out there are a few parks, two bath houses and porno theatres where men have casual sex with men and sex trades often occur - these were not marked on the tourist map. A few people had some really positive things to say, like about areas that used to be more industrialized and were 'taken back' and utilized by the community for events, etc, and some places where 'socially conscious' people like to go and share good food and art. Overall the exercise was really eye-opening, but as I said, most of us are pretty anxious to begin our volunteer placements!!
The program is begining to seem less and less organized as we go - the Indian participants all seem to think that the counterpart pairs will live at home with their families when we go to India in December, but we still haven't been told if we're allowed to have family/friends visit us in Hamilton. Apparantly one participant knows someone who was kicked out of a CWY program because her boyfriend visited after the project supervisors (/team?) decided that visitors should not be allowed since not everyone can have visitors. I think that's absolutely insane.
Tomorrow we have the morning off, and it's my last night having to share a bed, so I'm looking forward to that! I think Friday we find out where our volunteer placements will be, and I suspect I'll be working at Health Initiatives for Youth Hamilton (http://www.hifyhamilton.com/) , HOPEFULLY with some RN skills thrown in.

Orientation Camp & First Night in Hamilton

Sorry to everyone who's been waiting for a blog entry - if that is anyone. I didn't have computer access for the first four days, and things have just been sooo busy I've hardly had time to write.

The orientation camp for the program included all of the Canadian participants in my group as well as the Canadian participants doing an Orangeville/rural India exchange in social services. The people in my group are Amrit, Barbara, Jared, Jenny, Katrina, Stephanie, Stephen, and Wafaa, and we all get along incredibly well. During the few days living in cabins, we did some teambuilding stuff, reading and discussing an article and poem, sharing our limited and humourous knowledge of Hindi, and sharing our desires and expectations for the next six months. We were responsible for planning welcoming activities for the participants arriving from India, so we spend the good part of Thursday making posters and cleaning up. I had no idea what to expect - if they'd step off the bus in saris or the same clothes we were wearing, how much English they would know, etc.
They arrived around 4:00pm on Thursday wearing very similar clothes as us, some even with English writing on it, and everyone was basically fluent in English. In fact, they mostly spoke 'Hinglish' with each other (mostly Hindi with a few English words thrown in). That night we made a nice bonfire and introduced them to S'mores which were a big hit never heard of by them.
On Friday we got to find out who our counterparts were, and I was paired with the sweetest girl ever, named Annu. She is only 17 - the youngest in the group by far, but is very easy going and mature. We had a nice conversation once we were told we were together, and she told me that when they were driving in on the bus and saw all of our houses with pointed roofs they thought they all looked like 'dream homes' since houses don't have roofs like that in India. When they saw our toilets they were sure to remind us that they would NOT be like that in India - just holes in the ground.
Friday afternoon we got to find out who our host families would be, and where in the Hamilton area we would be staying. Annu and I are staying with a very sweet woman in her fifties who is an RPN at a chronic care hospital. Sharon's husband passed away in April of this year, and thought it would be nice to have our company around.
The three of us went out to breakfast on Saturday morning to 'Egg and I' and talked about many things, including relationships and teen pregnancies. It turns out Annu's parents are from an arranged marriage, and she expects to have one as well, and has no problems with this since she assumes her parents will choose very well for her, and 'love marriages' often don't work out anyway - EEK! Sharon said that she did not allow her daughers, even in their late twenties, to sleep in the same bed with their partners under her roof. However, no one seemed surprised or concerned that I live with Brendan, so that's good.
Last night (Saturday night) there was a celebration of the 60th year of India's independance, which all 18 CWY/SPYM participants and the two project supervisors went to. Eleven of us wanted to go to a bar together after, as we had not been able to hang out since the orientation camp.
There were seven Canadian participants and four Indian participants who made the trek downtown, but it turns out all the Indian particpants have for ID is a photocopy of their passports. We managed to sneak into a bar and have a couple pints before they checked the ID, and kindly told us to leave after our next beer was done, which was cool.
Today Annu and I are going to do a bit of laundry (finally!) and take a bus downtown for an adventure.