Training in Toronto

Hey everyone. Life in Toronto has been anything but laid back. It is very seldom that we are fortunate enough to be completely surrounded by wonderful people, and that is the situation that I have found myself in for the past 3 weeks. Here in Toronto we have been working feverishly on cramming as much information into our brains as possible. From gender equity workshops (more will be posted later) to analyzing rural livelihoods, pre-departure training has taught me tons. (I will post many more interesting debates had in a different section of my blog)

EWB rents a house in Toronto to house its volunteers throughout the year. Right now we are lucky enough to only have 16 of us living here. Typically, every morning we wake up around 8 and head to the office for 9. Training runs until 6 usually, and then we get home to work on homework, read a development book, or engage in development discussions long into the night.


On our first day off, we cleaned the entire house mopping the floors, wiping the walls, moving furniture, and cleaning everything in the kitchen including behind the fridge. I set up my tripod and camera in the top corner of the room (thanks dad), and video taped the entire thing.



Enjoying our new, clean pad didn't last long however, because just one week later we had to move everything out for the exterminator to fumigate the house. I never realized how much of a nuissance bed bugs could be.

This environment is one that just compels you to work. All of us come from quite an eclectic background, and this lays the stage for some fruitful discussions. Our facilitator Levi faces a problem most facilitators dream of. Like dealing with a bunch of 10 year olds who think they know everything, none of us are capable of asking or answering a question in less than 5 minutes. Some of the simplest statements will bear a controversial and exciting discussion questioning our conditioned value set derived from societal norms.

Just wanted to lay the context for my living situation. From here on out, the posts will have more substance.

cheers