Sunday, March 11, 2012

swaziland and since i've been home

Lately I've really been reminiscing about my entire trip to Swaziland and meeting all the incredible students from around the world who came to Waterford with bright ideas and open minds. Obviously when I got home I missed everyone a bunch and I had EXTREME reverse culture shock but with a bunch of tests and an exam a few days after I arrived I couldn't even look back. Amongst all the craziness of school and work and life I honestly didn't have much personal reflection time or even a moment to take it all in. Everyone was asking me all the classic questions: "Can you tell me everything?!," "What was the best part?" "Did it change your life?" etc. The list goes on. I always laugh at those - you really want me to some up the last month of my life for you and start weighing each experience on a value scale? Needless to say, I still haven't told my friends or family all that much about my trip, which is really weird. It's not even that I don't want to or that there's anything particularly painful to talk about - I just don't know where to start! I randomly share experiences when I feel comfortable doing so but for now it's all still internalizing. It was a truly incredible time and I am grateful to have met everyone and learned everything that we did.

With regards to my community project, it was sort of funny: I came home, and there was already a peer mentoring program being put in place by a few teachers in the school who didn't know about our potential project. I was sort of relieved to find that out because I have several other projects on the go right now that are related to the same issues. As a background story, my small town has suffered from huge losses in the past few years due to teen suicides. We have lost 5 students in the past 3 years and it has been extremely difficult on our entire town for people of all ages. My graduating class alone has lost 2 of our friends which has been devastating. As a grad class we want to ensure that suicide does not affect the other students in our school and community as it has us and many others. We want to remember the students respectfully, raising awareness about clinical depression/depression in a way that honours their lives and also is in a positive way that uplifts our youth and makes us all feel more united and positive about life. We've decided to make a short video about how beautiful life is and how special our town and its youth are. I'll let you guys know when the video is completed and post a link for you to see.

Sending so much love and positive energy to all of you scattered around the world.

Charlotte (British Columbia, Canada)

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