Project Trust (PT) has it's base on the Isle of Coll off the coast of Scotland, so getting to the selection course was a mini adventure in itself. When the time came, I packed my rucksack, flew from Cardiff to Glasgow airport, got the bus into Glasgow, hung out for a bit and then got a coach to Oban.
The ferry to Coll left quite early the next morning, so all the potential PT volunteers were staying in Oban that night. I checked into the youth hostel and it wasn't long before another girl turned up who was also destined for Coll. She had caught a train up earlier in the day and had met a bunch of PT recruits on the way. So I was introduced to the rest of the group and we set off in search of fish and chips. Later in the evening, another train arrived from Glasgow with another load of potential volunteers. So we all congregated in one of the hostels and chatted away all evening until some of us decided that it would be a good idea to hit the hay.
One sleep and ferry trip later and we'd landed on Coll. The selection course lasted 4 days. It consisted mainly of workshops, talks, eating and sleeping. And of course digging lazy beds (which most of us enjoyed, despite the horror stories)! During the day we were based at PT headquarters, but in the evenings we returned to our host families.
This was all part of the selection process, of course. I stayed in the village (Arinagour) with Kathy, who fed us extremely well! She doesn't like food to go to waste! I was one of 4 potential volunteers staying there and I think it's safe to say that we all enjoyed our stay. Who wouldn't enjoy staying in a house with a lovely host, a geriatric dog and 2 birds?
The selection course drew to a close with the traditional ceilidh, which was hilarious, seeing as most people had never tried ceilidh dancing before. No major injuries though. I left Coll having decided that I wanted to go to a teaching project in Latin America, assuming of course that I was offered a project. Which was not a certainty, by any means.
Happily, it wasn't long before I recieved a letter offering me a placement in a rural primary school in Honduras (if this fell through, Chile and Peru were the back-ups). It was perfect, and I suspected that I'd been partnered with Cat, who had stayed at Kathy's too. Yay!
Time went on and I decided to take the risk of leaving fundraising until after my exams were over. It might not have been the most sensible idea, but one stress factor was enough at the time. The summer passed ridiculously quickly and before long I was getting ready to return to Coll for training in October.
In September I got a phone call asking if I was willing to move to a project in Santiago, Chile, as there was no longer enough places in Honduras. I wasn't sure at first, I'd been researching Honduras and was really looking forward to going there. But when they described the proposed project in Chile, I changed my mind. I would be working in a care home for children with learning difficulties, mainly providing the kids with activities, and possibly working in special schools as a teaching assistant. Although it wasn't English teaching, this project seemed to suit my interests even more perfectly and I probably would have asked to go there earlier if it had been an option.
So I set off to Coll once more, excited to learn more about how I'd be spending my 8 months in Chile. Again, all the volunteers met in Oban the night before and we had a great night. The group of us who arrived earlier found a nice, but affordable restaurant and a free salsa class to while away the time.
Again, we all hauled ourselves out of bed in the morning and got onto the ferry.
This time, rather than staying with host families, we all stayed in rooms on-site PT's headquarters. We were split into rooms depending on which country we were going to. I was with another 3 girls and we were all going to Chile. Luckily we all got on!
Training was much more intense than selection. There wasn't the pressure of trying to secure a place, but the early starts and late nights combined with hours upon hours of presentations and workshops made for a tiring few days! It was great fun though, seeing people we'd met on selection and getting all excited (and nervous!) about our projects.
Again, our stay on Coll was concluded with a ceilidh, although I have to say that this time it was more freestyle...at one point we were dancing around like idiots to Senegalese and Malawian music...good times! Other highlights of training were walks down to the beach, learning dance routines and the Huh! game. Only on Coll!
I should mention that on training I also found out who I'd been partnered with! Miss Katie Cameron and I shall be living and working together for 8 months...let's hope we can still stand each other afterwards! I'm sure we'll end up being really close, it's kind of inevitable and we do get on pretty darn well at the moment.
Since training, I have finished fundraising (with lots of help from my lovely family and friends), had all the necessary vaccinations and officially started to freak out about the whole thing! In a good way :)
Just in case you're curious, out of the 4 of us that stayed at Kathy's on selection, 1 is in China, 1 will shortly be heading to Namibia and Cat is going to Peru. Out of my group on selection (the A team), 1 is in China, 1 is in Namibia, 1 is in Sri Lanka and I'll be joining 1 in Chile!
Going to London tomorrow to sort out my visa, will be back on Wednesday, so will probably write a post about it later on this week.
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