Christmas is right around the corner. To be exact Christmas Eve is tomorrow, and right after Christmas is the New Year. Now I am probably not going to be running to get a gym membership, or go soul searching, although there is nothing wrong with that. Instead this year I am planning more trips, more soap, and a lot more blogging. My ultimate dream is to set up an organisation, along with my mother, that follows in the direction that our last trip started. They say to not count your chickens before they hatch, but it is good to have dreams, and it is superb to have goals, and even better to have a plan.
Although I am getting way too far ahead of myself. So far we have had an outstanding response to the trip, and this blog. A Church has reached out to us, and offered to donate for our next trip, this is absolutely amazing. I am so grateful for the support we are receiving. Also a lady and customer of ours has spoke up that she would be interested in traveling with us. I have no idea where this is going but perhaps one day we will have group trips, if it works out that is. Soap is dangerous, and the places we plan on going to are VERY dangerous. So the security of our safety is never fully insured.
My mother and I will be doing presentations all over the Island. I don't know where exactly yet, but there will be a lot, and I will defiantly be mentioning the whereabouts of the presentations if any of you would like to come watch a live display of stage fright. The presentation is neat to see (if I do say so myself) because it has quite a few pictures and even stories that didn't get mentioned on the blog for the lengthiness of them. I will be terrified most likely, as public speaking is not something I do in large groups all that often, but it is a skill I would love to learn.
Now, the biggest hit, that I did not think would gain such attention, is in fact this blog. Yes The Green Backpack has been viewed more times than I wish to mention. It is an odd feeling when you know that a LOT of people have read about you crying in the Heathrow airport and having milkshakes for supper. Although I like it, I like knowing that I experienced the trip with so many people.
I have been asked a couple times if I am going to write a book. About this trip, or my previous trips, that trust me have some great stories like walking the Great Wall of China in severe heat and getting stranded on a mountain in Alberta, but honestly I am not ready to write a book. And I also have some other trips that I would like to embark on before I write a book, so that I could include them. You might be curious about the next trip, but some things are better kept a secret. But soon, I hope I will be packing my backpack again.
-Z
Monday 23 December 2013
Monday 25 November 2013
Goodbye Wonderland
The flights home all went well. I might have hit someone in the eye with catapulted coffee-stir-stick....sorry random Cyclops stranger. I have been home for a few days. The snow is blanketing the world outside. I don't normally mind the cold, but I have to adjust fast now for my own survival in this Canadian wasteland. I will greatly miss the African sun.
I have jet lag. My bedtime is 3 pm and I wake up around 1 am, by 5 am I am fully awake and go have brunch. Yesterday I went to bed at 7 and woke up at 5 AGAIN. I am so tired and my body is confused. This results in migraines that are so strong they make me nauseous. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip. My life has been so touched.
I have to go back to reality now, face the world at home. When I got back familiarity was in everything though something glossed the world that I call home. Everything looks so small now. What was once my everything is now only a fraction.
It was magical being reunited with my family and friends. I have missed those hugs and smiles dearly.
My Green Backpack is in the closet once again, waiting for another adventure. As I settle into the routine of home I always hold a spot in myself for travel, for the unknown, for adventure. Who knows where the Green Backpack will go next, time will tell. So to that moment where I opened the window of the plane only to set my eyes on Africa, on wonderland, I hold this promise. I will return, one day, somehow. Have it be in another life or another time. I. Will. Return.
To Wonderland.
To Travel.
And
To the next Adventure
For my Green Backpack
Goodbye...For Now.
-Z
I have jet lag. My bedtime is 3 pm and I wake up around 1 am, by 5 am I am fully awake and go have brunch. Yesterday I went to bed at 7 and woke up at 5 AGAIN. I am so tired and my body is confused. This results in migraines that are so strong they make me nauseous. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip. My life has been so touched.
I have to go back to reality now, face the world at home. When I got back familiarity was in everything though something glossed the world that I call home. Everything looks so small now. What was once my everything is now only a fraction.
It was magical being reunited with my family and friends. I have missed those hugs and smiles dearly.
My Green Backpack is in the closet once again, waiting for another adventure. As I settle into the routine of home I always hold a spot in myself for travel, for the unknown, for adventure. Who knows where the Green Backpack will go next, time will tell. So to that moment where I opened the window of the plane only to set my eyes on Africa, on wonderland, I hold this promise. I will return, one day, somehow. Have it be in another life or another time. I. Will. Return.
To Wonderland.
To Travel.
And
To the next Adventure
For my Green Backpack
Goodbye...For Now.
-Z
Tuesday 19 November 2013
Day 21
It is the 12th hour, the last day. It is morning here, and my day has yet to unfold. I have had my sweet, black, iced coffee (it is too hot to have hot coffee) and I have uploaded yesterday. Funny how blogging has become a part of my every day. Even if I don't write that day, I take the pictures and think about my blog.
Now this might be a little self centered but I am terrible at consistency. I do things in spurts of crazy excitement and then chill out until I decide to go nuts about something else again. What I am trying to say is I am the inventor of the every-two-month-diary-entree, I am the queen of the inconsistent. So I am giving myself this paragraph for achieving to document this entire trip, and not have this blog become another victim of my inconsistent pulses. Basically Good Job Katie.
Today we are going to a herbal farm, were they grow plants to make essential oils. Then we are heading to the airport, And I plane to Heathrow leaves at 8:50 PM. I might be able to upload the pictures or even write about it in the airport, but if not, this is the one time you are getting to know what the next post's subject is before I write it. Well for the most part anyways. I don't like saying what I am doing before I do it. I feel like suspense is the whole point of this blog. But who knows maybe today will hold something I didn't mention...like grand-theft-auto or maybe I will run away with the circus. Never mind...too late, been there done that.
So my Green Backpack is packed and this is when I get sentimental and mushy. I will miss the African air, and the people that I have learned have no limit of care, I have learned to love, and learned to say things through a hug, I have seen things I didn't want to see, and felt things I didn't know I could, I have thanked the skies above, luck, stars, fate, and serendipity for this trip. For that call a year ago. For my mother, for that book that I read when I was 5 that started it all. That started the love of adventure, and the feeling, that feeling that makes me get on a plane and put myself out of my comfort zone, that feeling I like to call, Travel.
Oh the places you'll go:
You're off to great places
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting
So...Get on your way!
-Z
Now this might be a little self centered but I am terrible at consistency. I do things in spurts of crazy excitement and then chill out until I decide to go nuts about something else again. What I am trying to say is I am the inventor of the every-two-month-diary-entree, I am the queen of the inconsistent. So I am giving myself this paragraph for achieving to document this entire trip, and not have this blog become another victim of my inconsistent pulses. Basically Good Job Katie.
Today we are going to a herbal farm, were they grow plants to make essential oils. Then we are heading to the airport, And I plane to Heathrow leaves at 8:50 PM. I might be able to upload the pictures or even write about it in the airport, but if not, this is the one time you are getting to know what the next post's subject is before I write it. Well for the most part anyways. I don't like saying what I am doing before I do it. I feel like suspense is the whole point of this blog. But who knows maybe today will hold something I didn't mention...like grand-theft-auto or maybe I will run away with the circus. Never mind...too late, been there done that.
So my Green Backpack is packed and this is when I get sentimental and mushy. I will miss the African air, and the people that I have learned have no limit of care, I have learned to love, and learned to say things through a hug, I have seen things I didn't want to see, and felt things I didn't know I could, I have thanked the skies above, luck, stars, fate, and serendipity for this trip. For that call a year ago. For my mother, for that book that I read when I was 5 that started it all. That started the love of adventure, and the feeling, that feeling that makes me get on a plane and put myself out of my comfort zone, that feeling I like to call, Travel.
Oh the places you'll go:
You're off to great places
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting
So...Get on your way!
-Z
Day 20
We went to the bank at around 10 to exchange money. At 11:00 Paul drove me and Josh to a "place". I can't say what it was, because Josh is planning on surprising his parents with this "thing". Paul drops my mom off around 12 and at about 2 PM the thing is over. We have lunch at a cafe. Around 3 PM Paul picks us up.
We drive 30 minutes out of town to visit a couple, Audrey and Ron, who has adopted 7 kids. Their farm is beautiful they have puppies, goats, chickens, geese, and gorgeous gardens. We stay for about 2 hours. Josh plays soccer with the boys, and I paint all the girls toenails. After we give out toys and scribblers for the kids. Lots of laughs and hugs were had.
We drive home just as it is getting dark. We shower and me and Josh watch Friends. Around 10 I crash.
-Z
We drive 30 minutes out of town to visit a couple, Audrey and Ron, who has adopted 7 kids. Their farm is beautiful they have puppies, goats, chickens, geese, and gorgeous gardens. We stay for about 2 hours. Josh plays soccer with the boys, and I paint all the girls toenails. After we give out toys and scribblers for the kids. Lots of laughs and hugs were had.
We drive home just as it is getting dark. We shower and me and Josh watch Friends. Around 10 I crash.
-Z
Monday 18 November 2013
Day 18
We went to a homeless park in the morning. Paul and another pastor gave a sermon and we all sang songs. After we handed out bread and juice. The service lasted about 40 minutes.
After we started out on THE DRIVE, with Tinta and Paul. We were going to a game park, basically what a game park is is a huge (like enormous) area of free land that has a fence around it so that the animals inside don't go into the city and get hurt, or killed. There is no hunting allowed in the game park, and destruction or harming the land is illegal. Although you are allowed to drive through on dirt roads and observe the animals, but getting out of your vehicle is not allowed. Also a huge part of the park has no roads on it so that the animals do have a place to get away from the vehicles that are passing through.
The car ride was 2 hours. Me, Tinta, and Josh were all squished in the back seat of the van for the WHOLE ride there...it was 35 degrees ( 95 fahrenheit). On the drive there we pass little homes made out of steal that stretch on for miles.
We finally get to the game park around 11:30 AM. The first thing we see are two beautiful elephants. We drive on for about 5 hours. The roads are very very very (and if you didn't get the point) VERY bumpy. I honestly think I damaged my spinal chord and my neck during the ride. We saw many amazing animals in a state of blissful freedom which is something that is rare to find. For most of the day I was in a state were I just could not believe what was before me eyes.
Around 6 me, my mom, and I think Josh had eat stroke. So we started heading back. I felt dizzy, my mom was nauseas, and Josh explained it as "being slapped by a full grown man and the vibrating sensation afterwards". Even when we pulled up to the house he noted that he was still being slapped. Josh had a shower first (his face is still sunburnt), then my mom showered (her legs are burnt), then I had a long luke warm bath and a cold shower (Face and Shoulders are...**sigh** burnt). I crashed instantly after, and slept for 11 hours.
-Z
After we started out on THE DRIVE, with Tinta and Paul. We were going to a game park, basically what a game park is is a huge (like enormous) area of free land that has a fence around it so that the animals inside don't go into the city and get hurt, or killed. There is no hunting allowed in the game park, and destruction or harming the land is illegal. Although you are allowed to drive through on dirt roads and observe the animals, but getting out of your vehicle is not allowed. Also a huge part of the park has no roads on it so that the animals do have a place to get away from the vehicles that are passing through.
The car ride was 2 hours. Me, Tinta, and Josh were all squished in the back seat of the van for the WHOLE ride there...it was 35 degrees ( 95 fahrenheit). On the drive there we pass little homes made out of steal that stretch on for miles.
We finally get to the game park around 11:30 AM. The first thing we see are two beautiful elephants. We drive on for about 5 hours. The roads are very very very (and if you didn't get the point) VERY bumpy. I honestly think I damaged my spinal chord and my neck during the ride. We saw many amazing animals in a state of blissful freedom which is something that is rare to find. For most of the day I was in a state were I just could not believe what was before me eyes.
Around 6 me, my mom, and I think Josh had eat stroke. So we started heading back. I felt dizzy, my mom was nauseas, and Josh explained it as "being slapped by a full grown man and the vibrating sensation afterwards". Even when we pulled up to the house he noted that he was still being slapped. Josh had a shower first (his face is still sunburnt), then my mom showered (her legs are burnt), then I had a long luke warm bath and a cold shower (Face and Shoulders are...**sigh** burnt). I crashed instantly after, and slept for 11 hours.
-Z
Saturday 16 November 2013
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