Project Overseas Ottawa

Wednesday July 2, 2014

The Eagle has landed! Danny dropped me off at the airport at 10 and I met a few other Project Overseas participants in the lounge. Flight was uneventful, just like you want it to be. Got to the U of O residences and our rooms weren't ready yet. So a group of us went for a walk to Parliament Hill. It was warm and sunny. The Hill was covered with leftovers from yesterday's Canada Day party. We walked along Spark's Street to a Tim's and had a cold drink and a snack. Then walked back and checked in. Lyle (my Ghana team leader and roommate) was not in my room as the team leaders are having a pre-meeting at CTF (Canadian Teachers Federation offices). So I relaxed, unpacked a bit and did a couple of e-mails.

The bus picked us up at 5:15 and drove us to CTF offices. We met up with our whole team including the leaders, there are eight of us, two teams of four. Lyle, Cindy, Barb and I are the Nkambo Group and Cameron, Angela, Owen and Leah are the Youth Group team. We had a chance to talk and go over a few details before a short wine and cheese party and then a catered dinner (why back to back?). The two leaders, Lyle and Cameron, gave each of us $2500 US to carry for safety sake, so they don’t have to carry it all. Then Alex Davidson, the main man for Project Overseas, introduced the CTF team and they presented a PowerPoint slide show informing us about what Project Overseas is all about. At 9:15 we were driven back to the residences for the night.

Interesting news: A teacher from Nunavut was rear ended five minutes from CTF and the other guy got out of the car to look at the damage and then got back in and took off. The teacher took off after him and chased him through town and down a dead end street where the driver got out and hopped a fence, but a female passenger got out and stayed. The teacher called for police help. Now the teacher is known as superhero (or maybe stupidhero) Tom Cruise.