Hola Amigos!!!

Beinvenidos (Welcome) to my next adventure! I have decided that this summer I will be found in the beautiful, vibrant city of Guadalajara, Mexico. It's a rather long story to answer why exactly I have decided to go there, but I will tell you anyway.

So the whole thing began when I was attempting to register for classes this year and discovered that all of my classes were offered at only one time and a lot of them were offered at the same time as other classes I needed to take. So, since next year is supposed to be my last year of uni, it would be quite disastrous if I wasn't able to take some of the classes I needed. If this happened I would be forced to take a whole extra year of uni! This would not be cool. So I immediately began thinking of taking two of my Spanish classes over the summer (the U of S has an agreement with CEPE in Guadalajara so my credits would transfer). If I were able to do this I would have only six classes to take next year instead of eight, which would greatly diminish the possibility of encountering conflicts in my timetable. However, I soon realized that my Spanish is atrocious and at CEPE they interview you and decide what level you are at. I need them to place me in their advanced classes to get any credits. There is no way they would do this with my current capabilities in the language. So thus began a the long process of figuring out how I could get better at Spanish before I took the courses. First I thought I could stay with friends in Mexico City for a few weeks to immerse myself before I went to school, but the Mexican school year goes from Mid August to the end of November and mid-January to mid-June or something like that. In any case, all my friends would still be in classes when I wanted to go visit. So then as the first semester of the U of S progressed, i found myself hating it more and more and thought of taking a whole year off and getting a job in resort or something somewhere near Cancun and just living in Mexico for a year and then take the classes. But this would mean I wouldn't finish my degree until 2010 and that was a very daunting thought for me.

Then just the other day I had the brilliant idea of volunteering in Mexico for the summer. I immediately began researching and came upon a company called Projects Abroad (based out of England) and they have projects in Guadalajara. One of the projects in particular grabbed my attention and I haven't been able to stop thinking of it since. They have volunteer placements in a care home for HIV/AIDS patients. A lot of the patients in the home are children who were born with it and whose parents have died. Most of the patients are terminally ill. Volunteers in the home are vital for its survival as they can barely afford to pay their permanent staff. These patients have nowhere else to go if the home had to close. I am so excited to go there and do whatever I can to improve the lives of these people.

Projects Abroad is not a government funded organization and therefore the cost to volunteers is about $3000 for about two months which covers food, accommodation, health and travel insurance, airport transfer and 24/7 support from their local staff. I intend to apply for the placement within the next couple weeks and start fundraising right away. Not only do I hope to raise enough money to get myself there to offer my services, but I also want to go there with a donation to the care home. I am confidant that this is a totally attainable goal. I should have about $3000 in personal savings by the time I go in May which will cover my airfare, expenses for my courses at CEPE which I will take after my time at the care home, and a chunk of program fee. So I would like to raise $2-3000 to cover the rest of my expenses and allow me to give a decent sized donation to the care home.

I hope all of you are as excited about this project as I am and will consider sponsoring me. Once I have applied and have more details I will start fundraising.

So after volunteering for close to two and a half months, I will head off to CEPE with much stronger language skills and will hopefully be placed in the advanced classes. Then on Aug. 18th I will head back to Canada to finish up my degree. It will probably be one of the most enriching, life-changing summers I will ever have.