Climate Change JAE

Me and Ousmane completed our JAE (EAD, for 'Educational Activity Day' in English) on Climate Change. Ours was the longest of any JAE thus far, and since there's only one more group left to present, unless they really feel like showing us up, we'll probably have had the largest one in this rotation. We were planting trees, and it took a full day. The idea was to delete our ecological footprint by planting enough trees to collectively absorb the carbon emissions, over the course of 20 years, that the group will create on our trip to Mali. To do this, we needed to plant 324 trees. Originally, our plan was to plant 300 trees, which is a touch below expectation, and because the Amqui group (the other group, that we did our first rotation camp with) planted 400 trees, we were looking kind of sad (although, since the calculation includes a 30% mortality rate for the trees, we could have still lucked out and deleted our ecological footprint, anyway). But, somewhere along the line, the goal became to plant 350 trees, and then, on the day of the presentation, we somehow wound up planting 429. I don't know where all those trees came from. So, we beat Amqui, and since they were apparently planting small trees, while we were planting ones taller than ourselves, we defeated them pretty soundly. I wish I knew which pair was in charge of Climate Change for their group.

All week, we worked to prepare for the JAE. That doesn't just mean we were researching for it. We had to dig holes for each tree, and supply a tree for each hole. I guess we taught the group that, if you want to stop climate change, you just have to walk outside and find a bunch of holes with trees next to them, and then put the tree in the hole. Although, there were no holes for the extra 75 trees that showed up, so the group did do a little digging. And that thing with the stick that you attach to the tree so it grows straight. I've been doing it a lot, but I don't know the word for it in English.

I didn't tell anyone that, if we include the trip the Malians took to get here, and the trip we're going to have to take to get back to Canada, that triples the exchange's emissions, and to delete them in 20 years would require 970 trees. Actually, I told quite a few people, but not in the official presentation. Well, we'll be planting trees in Karadjé, and me and Ousmane have been planting trees all season, so maybe we will wind up deleting our ecological footprint.

Our activity actually made quite the impression on Head Office, and they put themselves out to make sure what we did was publicized and used as an example for Canada World Youth. When someone told me that, at first I thought they were joking, but it turns out they weren't.

So the activity was pretty successful. The oral segment was... Well, my Project Leader told me not to prepare a speach for it, because, when I read something, people can't understand me, but when I speak naturally, everyone can understand me. I'm 'good at improv' as she put it. So I just made a point-form list on what I wanted to talk about, and I used my own vocabulary to do the presentation. Naturally, when I'm baby-talking my way through it, the whole thing seems less official even than if I incomprehensibly read a more eloquent speach. I didn't really want to do that, since you only do this once or twice in the program, but since the whole group already knows me, it's not exactly like I'm hiding anything. So, I don't know. I got through it.

The new host family is really nice. They were hosts for the Malian Project Leader last year. They were also a billet family for Katimavik for 9 years. Their daughter has done Canada World Youth. She went to Senegal, which is a neighbour of Mali, and also a part of French Africa. I tried to friend my billet dad on FB, and I found... an information page on him. Apparently he was the Bloc Quebecois representative for Rivier de Loup. Here's his`Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cr%C3%AAte

There's a new participant in the group. I don't know if you remember me saying that an anglophone girl dropped out of the program inside two weeks. They had a lot of trouble finding a replacement for her. Seems like the 21-25 age demographic is the hardest to fill. Someone in Amqui dropped out (17-20 demographic) and she was replaced almost immediately. If I was offered a position as replacement participant almost halfway through the program, I don't know if I would have accepted. On one hand, it means you probably get a certificate giving you credit for doing six months when you only did three, which kind of feels like a bargain, but on the other, you only get half the experience.

I went to Quebec City today. Turns out, everyone who had not been to Quebec City was offered the opportunity to go. The whole thing with the Olympics, and it being a prize, and then the winners having the opportunity to give it away, but there was only four slots... Yeah, it didn't work out that way. Maybe it was a psychological test or something. Still was nice to hear my name called on the original 'to go' list, I guess.