It is currently 9:42 am on Sunday September 30 and yesterday marked exactly 10 weeks here in Limbe. I still remember a time when August 1 seemed like a lifetime away and now here I am on the cusp of October and it's weird.
These past 10 weeks have provided me with an unbelievable adventure, memorable moments, valuable life lessons as well as frustrating interactions, cultural misunderstandings and missed opportunities. Here in Africa, apparently things are done differently; lesson 1.
I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to come and volunteer my time here in Cameroon and am so proud of how far I have come. The 10 months that I spent in Canada planning and applying pressure to this trip alotted me sufficient time to prepare myself mentally for what lay ahead, which I apparently did not do correctly. I was so intent on learning about using Sport for Development and assumed that everything else would fall into place that I overlooked so many possible complications that I could have never anticipated until I got here.
Learning to work with people from around the world and how to adapt to not-so-ideal situations are just 2 parts of this experience that became apparent very early on. The unfortunate reality of life is that we learn more from our mistakes and the difficult or annoying situations than from the easy ones where everything goes perfectly and no adaptation is required.
Three months in Africa's 2nd most corrupt country and one of its poorest too, seems like a long time. Ten weeks ago when I de-planed at Douala International Airport, clean shaven and naively excited, I looked ahead at the 12 weeks I had to go as an almost insurmountable amount of time. i suspected at some point it would end with me lying to my insurance company so that they would send me home. That day never came and now on the last day of Spetmeber I do not see myself backing out now. In the past couple of weeks I have met many awesome volunteers including Tjeerd and Johan from Amsterdam, Julia and Franzika from Germany, Laura from England and many others. I have loved hearing about their volunteer work and how working for different organizations provides a plethora of different experiences. Most of the volunteers I have met from Germany are here for a full year with a government-run organization and they all told me that it usually takes at least 3 months before you really start to get the hang of everything. It's so true. While I am very excited to fly from Douala to Paris and then spend 3 weeks travelling around Europe visiting friends and family and then go home to Toronto to see my Bubbie, I am also extremely angry that just now as I start to find my groove and hit my stride, I'm prepping to go home.
All I can do now is make the absolute best of my final 1 week and 6 days here in Limbe and come back to Toronto and actually APPLY what I have learned here to my life and my career. It would be such a shame to see all of the lessons learned here go to waste because I decided to forget them once I am reminded of what a hot shower is and enjoy a cheeseburger again ... but that is not going to happen. I have spent 10 weeks coaching, learning, teaching, reading, meeting people, climbing mountains, trekking through rainforests, playing the harmonica, and embracing the adventure for all that it is, both good and bad, and done all of it thousands of miles from my home, my family, my friends, and my entire support system. Sometimes you need to shock the system to really get it moving.
Two weeks from right now I will be in Paris, France wanting to write a summation blog but probably sleeping instead.
Love to all.
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