13th day : First Bus Experience, bus number 52.

October 23^rd 2012

One of the things that I missed from Halifax is the public transportation. Haifax Metro Transit. Those bus that I took to get to Adsum House, to Spring Garden, to Dartmouth, to Mic Mac Mall, and so on.

Last year, the day when I had my first bus experience, I was accompanied by my host dad, Rob. There are three busses that passes North Street via Chebucto Street, they are bus number 2, 4 and 52. My volunteering hours starts at 9, 9.30 and sometimes at 10. I never took any bus in Halifax, so that morning, I was a little bit worry about how to get to my work placement by bus. The way to use the bus is completely different from the way that we use them in Indonesia.

To take the bus, I have to use a buss pass or bus ticket, or certain amount of money (coins). The bus will stop in every bus stop if there’s people in it, or everytime the person in the bus pulled the wire and wish to stop in the next bus stop that they wish. I was given couple of bus ticket, I did not have bus pass, because my host family’s house and our EAD space is reachable by walking. So, my supervisor only gave me bus tickets to go to work or another far places that we wish to visit.

This was not the exact bus that Rob and I took tho, I found this picture on google :)

Not only the bus, but also the traffic light, it’s so different from Indonesian system. It was a little bit overwhelming.

Let’s get back to the story, I arrived earlier at Adsum House, and Ariane has not arrived yet. I helped Dolly (my work supervisor that day) to sort the donations in the clothing room. After we sorted the donations, we helped Anne Louise (another volunteer that work in the kitchen every Tuesday) to assist her cooking. We cooked sweet potato soup for the resident’s lunch.

We worked pretty hard that day in clothing room, there were eighteen woman visiting the clothing room that day. So far, it’s the biggest amount of visitor. After work, the team had a Saman Dance practice that will be held somewhere near the Historical Site of Citadel, Halifax. As usual, Ariane and I stopped by at Tim Hortons to have some coffee, doughnut, and everything bagels with cream cheese and garlic (my favorite menu). Ariane did not practicing Saman Dance that time, so I have to walk alone to get to the place that I am not sure where it is. Thank God I saw Brad, Wilma, Tangkas and Ichal entered a building. That’s how I did not got lost. Perfect time, perfect moment!

After practicing Saman Dance in Citadel Community building, Yen, Dhila and I walked back home. That evening I got a foot bath, because my feet got muscle inflammation and guess what, big toes, because of incorrect nail treatment. Well, well, well. Yeniffer practiced Saman Dance movement again that night. She has a big determination. I like her determination, even tough some of her movement is still wrong, she still working on it, and she did it well at last.