There's a lot going on!

Wow. What a long way I have already come in 2010. I have a couple of pieces of news to report.
First, as most of you know I started to look for a job when I came back to Canada to at least hold me over until I finished my thesis. I am happy to say that I have been taken on as an intern at the Halifax Refugee Clinic for 10 hours a week and I am also up for a 5 hour a week job on campus. This should work out nicely with the continuation of my thesis as I will continue to have time to transcribe and read and since the position is in Halifax I will have access to the University library. Also I am taking some steps to make my stay in Halifax a bit nicer than the last time. I have found a beautiful apartment with three room mates who seem eager to make friends with me, I am developing some old connections and I will be taking both a theatre and swing dancing course (fun fact, I have always wanted to learn how to swing dance).

On the darker side of things I found out last week that my credit card was compromised while I was in Durban with the person who copied it trying to make over $7000.00 worth of transactions on it in a one month period. Fortunately my credit card company was quick to react after the first transaction was $3000.00 which is three times my credit limit. Ha. So I have to say that I am a little bit disappointed about this, feeling quite smug having escaped any crime in SA after being mugged at gun point in the Netherlands. Oh well, the fact of the matter is, they didn't succeed and really much worse things could have hapened. However, I would be curious to know which of the vendors I used my card at copied it as there weren't that many.

A Comment On Hati
With my life business out of the way I thought I would make a comment on the earthquake in Hati. Two weeks ago disaster struck Hati when a 7.0 earthquake flattened the city of Port au Prince, killing and injuring many more than most of us would care to think about. In the days following the earthquake we saw non-stop media coverage of the disaster which prompted many Canadians, including myself, to donate money to various agencies (I donated to Humanitarian Action which is an NGO comprised of Oxfam, Care and Save the Children, given my history with Care and knowing that one of their project managers is Hatian). Our donations have sent millions of dollars in relief to the country.

When we look at these donations at face value it seems to exhibit a high degree of compassion and generocity. Of course the media has played a major part in provoking this response by continually broadcasting images of the destruction (The CBC has been mainly focussing on how the earthquake has effected Canada which somehow seems to miss the point but never mind). However, I can't help but think that since 1998 Congo has experienced many of the same problems Haiti is experiencing now; a lack of access to food, water, shelter and security and while the Hatian death toll continues to climb into the hundred of thousands, in 2009 the death toll in the DRC surpassed 5 million. Yet there have been no benefit concerts or telethons to help the victims of the conflict in the Congo, there is very little media coverage and the Canadian government along with many others continues to support business and continue other practices which continue to feed the conflict (resource exploitation being the main problem). As a result there is a significant lack of awareness about the disaster in Congo and so very little is being done about it. To be honest if we had been meeting our milennium development goals and providing assistance to Haiti all along I can't help but think that the earthquake would not have had such disasterous consequences.

I strongly feel that more awareness does need to be created about the situation in Congo and other war and natural disaster affected countries. It shouldn't take a media storm for us to take action to end global sufferring.

Trip Home

Howdy,

Its been a while. You may be wondering where I have been. I guess the truth is trying to reaquaint myself with Canada and spending some time with Friends and Family in Mississauga and Ottawa. However, if this blog is to keep going I must at least occassionally write so I thought I might pick up where I left off which was the trip home.

My trip home was approximately 30 hours from Jo'burg to Toronto with a stop over in Zurich and Montreal. The first leg of my flight was over night. I was a bit concerned that I might not sleep as this tends to be a problem for me on most aircraft. Lucky for me (yeah right) my entertainment system did not work for the entirety of my 12 hour flight with Swiss International Airways and so it was quite easy to sleep (especially after a glas of wine) My favorite part of this flight was when we flew over the Mediterranean sea and reached the French alps where you could see the outline of the European continent lit up by city lights. It was stunning.

After landing in Zurich, with a 6.5 hour stopover ahead of me I had to make a decision. To stay in the airport or to spend some of my time exploring Zurich. Because I slept on the plane I chose the latter and headed through customs, which I am fortunate enough to be able to do with my Canadian Passport. I then took the train to Zurich Central and proceeded in a direction which looked like it might have a cafe which was open at 7 in the morning. At this point it was still quite dark out which was a bit unusual as I had become acustomed to the sun rising at 5 a.m. in South Africa and boy was I feeling the cold (this only got worse when I arrived in Canada). So I found a cafe/bar which was open and enjoyed a cappucino. I then informed my server of what I was doing in Zurich and asked whether she could recomend anything to do at such an early hour in Zurich with such a constrained time frame and she suggested that I head for "The Lake" and gave me directions. So I made my way to the lake, once again amazed by the beauty of Switzerland and found myself at a lake very similar to lake Geneva, with hills and mountains on both sides. I later learned from my Aunt that it was Germany which I saw on the other side of that lake. Wow! what a beautiful sight! At this point I decided to make my adventure a photographic one and then proceeded to walk around just looking at and photographing things until my camera battery died.

After my battery had enough I was feeling very cold so I decided to stop for a tea. I chose a store attached to a chocolate shop that was quite busy and I was quite delighted to be served organic earl grey tea and I bought a croissant filled with chocolate. While I have discovered that for some reason I only like swiss croissants anyway, this was the best croissant I had ever has as it was also filled with swiss chocolate (which as I am sure you remember if you have been reading from the beginning that I ranted and raved about and truly feel that its better than Belgian chocolate) (my mouth is waterring just thinking about it). After my tea I walked around Zurich some more, taking in more sights and buying some last minute Christmas gifts. Before I stop blathering about Switzerland I do have to say that the people of Zurich were incredibly nice and friendly. While I found that the people in Geneva could be a bit aloof at times the people in Zurich seemed eager to talk with me, very polite and in some cases wanting to help if they could. When it was time for me to get on the train back to the airport I was wandering around a bit dazed trying to find my platform which had some absurd number like 254 (I was seeing numbers like 18 and thinking back to the Bassel incident I was getting a bit nervous) so a nice (and cute) young man approached me and asked if I needed help. Not only did he give me directions but he also walked with me to a point where he was sure I was headed in the right direction. Very nice indeed!

So then I headed for my next flight, to Montreal, desparately hoping that my entertainment system would work and it did. So for the first half of my flight I read the magazine called Intelligent Life (Whose content overrides the pretentiousness of its name) and watched "The Ugly Truth" for the second half. That flight arrived early and finished with a container of Movenpick ice cream (which was as delectable as when I purchased it from that street vendor in Geneva) so I was much more satisfied than with my first flight.

In Montreal I had to retrieve my bag from customs before I could connect to my domestic flight. I thought I might be in trouble when the Canadian Border Services official gave me a hard time about making a mistake on my form, knowing I lied about not having any wood products in my luggage (they were carvings given to me as gifts), but when I responded that I was sorry and that I was just tired and had been travelling for nearly 30 hours, this was sufficient and he le me through.

The plane ride from Montreal to Toronto was interesting. It was with Air Canada on some kind of new airplane where the over head luggage compartments folded into the ceiling and lights which faded into different colours and went bright pink when we started to land (this really happened I wasn't delusional from lack of sleep). I enjoyed an episode of big bang theory and was greeted at the gate by my mom Adam and Kristen. I really appreciated that they took the time to come and meet me at the airport. (Adam came all the way from Ottawa and Kristen's presence was a surprise). We then continued with my tradition of after arriving back on Canadian soil heading to Swiss Chalet for a festive special. Then exhausted I went home and went to bed.

I plan to fill in some more blanks in later posts but for now please enjoy a selection of pictures from my photographic adventure in Zurich!

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