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.