The Honeymoon's Over!

The group has reached the point where the honeymoon is over and conflict has begun. This week has been a little emotional for all of us, as we realize how much effort we need to make in order to stay on track as we continue to learn to live and work together despite our differences in language and culture. Its a tough road but its essentially what I believe the whole program and experience is all about, learnign how to put aside our difference, celebrate diversity and learn froom one another as we work towards CWY's mission and mandate in the creation of a more just and equitable world through the creation of engaged, global citizens who share responsibility for the well-being of the people and the planet.

That said the group has been WAY less stressful than last year! It has really only been recenly where things have begun to get a little hectic, whereas last year it seemed the minute we arrived in the community things started to get busy! Me and my counterpart- Marciana are getting along very well, we both have a stressfree philosophy since we both had difficult programs last year, we are really hoping to have fun this year and to make it as stress-free as possible.

For the most part the group has been really great, we have to date only given out 2 warnings to a counterpart pair who neglected to meet with us regarding their EAD when we had scheduled a meeting! Apart from that everything is more or less under control.

Besides everyone realizing the honeymoon phase is over and that we are really going to have to work to make this happen, the only really big thing thus far has been that today we lost one of our very best participants. A Canadian woman from BC. She has been immensely homesick from day one at the orientation camp, and now after one month into the program she has decided that the program isnt for her and its best for her to go home. She was by far one of our best participants- so its not going to be easy and she will be impossible to replace!