1st day of the program, citadel!

October 11^th 2012.

First day I woke up in my host family’s house. First day of the program. First day in Halifax. The first time I woke up in the room that I will stayed for the next three months. The first thing that I saw is the butterfly kite attached to the wall above the bed.

This morning, the project supervisor for Halifax-Depok team this year contacted me. He stayed with my host family, and he also have the same room as I had before. I asked him about the butterfly kite and he sent me the picture. How lovely, and it makes me having program sick this morning, for sure. 

The flag of Ghana also still attached to the wall. James, my host brother was also in the youth exchange program before. He had Canada-Ghana youth exchange program, still under Canada World Youth. 

I wondering, maybe last year I never thought that somebody will also wake up and see this butterfly kite above the bed, but in fact, somebody will. How I miss the room. 

Now the room seems a little bit blurry to me. It's funny because when I was in the middle of the program, I missed my own room in Indonesia, I missed the tree that I painted on my wall, but now, I miss the butterfly kite in James's room.

Actually, I miss everything about the Canadian Phase. 

All right, let's go back to the same day a year ago.

I went down to the kitchen with Yen, we found a note that told us our host parent had gone to work, and they said help yourself to prepare your own lunch. I had maple cereal for breakfast, and Yen gave me her firt food invention (well, according to me, it's her invention), banana with peanut butter. So good. Then we're getting ready to go to the EAD space, the place where we will gather as a group to have Education Activity Day every monday, and Group Activity Day (GAD) every Friday.

Yes, our EAD space is a church. Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Resurrection. In the corner of Windsor and Allan street. 2096 Windsor St, Halifax NS, B3K 5B1 Canada. Well, it does not mean that we are also practicing the religion, or this program is the missionary action or something else. We use the space whenever there is no service in the church, because the church is voluntarily gave us the space to be used, since if we use another space, we have to book and pay for the space. 

Church used to be the only place that I did not want to enter when i was a little girl, because I was  just so afraid of what i would find inside the church.  I feared it would will change me religiously. Even seeing the church from the outside, it is seemed to be such a taboo place to enter. In my country, which is majority Muslim, and even if we do not fight and live with full tolerance between religions, it is still really taboo to enter religious place that is different from our own, such as Christian churches, Hindu’s Temple, and so forth. 

However, my point of view changed so quickly when I joined the program. It has been a life changing experience. I was right. Entering the church did  change me, but in a good way, because we’re using the church for  group activity in a certain program that gives us so much to learn from the other participants. 

Before Yen and I went to the church, there was a funny accident, Yen's boot's zipper was broken, so we have to fix it first. That time, Yen also showed me tampoon for the first time. In Indonesia, tampoon is unusual. People uses pads, not tampoon. So because of these things, we were rushin' to go to the EAD space. We walked, actually, Yen walked, and I ran. Yen walked so fast, I don't know whether it's because Yen's taller so her steps longer than mine, or I am the one who walked too slow. I tried my best to keep my pace with Yen. When we arrived, about forty minutes later, I was breathless. We were late, couple of minutes. Sorry guys. hehe.

We had our first session, we were divided into three sub groups, we discussed about the best method to make decision.

After that, we had a tour in Citadel Historical Site, Halifax. We walked to get to the fort. 

look! I found it on the way to Citadel, I wish Indonesia could Implement this method to process the waste.

We climbed to get to the fort. It was challenging, because that day was windy. Haiiiyaaak! Then here we are, Citadel fort, Cinta deh!

Soldier! Defend the line!

We have to stand still in the middle of the windy field.

and also wearing the uniform.

Yes, I am in UK. lol. Citadel Fort was owned by UK

 We had a tour, to the barracks, the jail, and other places inside the fort.

That afternoon, Yen and I walked back home, on the way home, we visited the Taishan Asian grocery store and boot repair store in Quinpool road.

In the evening, we had spaghettie for dinner and Yen told the stories of what we’ve been doing that day to our host family, I was so quiet in the beginning of the program, because I was still too afraid to say something wrong, and sometimes I still cannot catch what did they said, because I am not used to hear native speakers talking. Day by day, I started to understand more, and even more, and I am confident enough to talk.

That’s it. Happy Saturday everybody!