Humidity, Humidity, Humidity.

It's sad that one of the things I'll remember best about Grand Rapids after I leave is the crazy humidity.  I took a couple of photos on photo booth to share with you, but decided to spare you the horror for the sake of trying to keep readers on this blog. For some reason, we waited to turn the AC on until just now, and I can already feel it's cool waves of relief which is very refreshing....ahhhhh.

In all seriousness, things are actually going well for my training.  The past two days, I've learned a lot about CRWRC, including two programs I had never heard of before that I would encourage all of you to check out when you have a free moment.  The first is called Partners Worldwide, which matches up businesses in North America with businesses in developing countries to partner together to help each other out/learn from each other (my housemate Melissa told me that the plural of 'business' includes an 'es' not an apostrophe 's' which I'm taking her word for it.  Who knew that word was so tricky???)  Check it out at www.partnersworldwide.org.  The second program is called the Micah Challenge which is an inter-denominational social justice movement to help hold global leaders accountable to meeting millennium development goals.  Here are a few I especially liked: #1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, #3 Promote gender equality and empower women, #6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, #7 Ensure environment sustainability. ( All 8 goals are great, those are just a couple) Want to know more?  Check out www.micahchallenge.org.  I don't know much about these two programs, but was intrigued, will definitely learn more and thought they might be interesting to some of you.  

I haven't learned a ton more about my trip, except that I have a ticket into Uganda and one out in November.  So who knows what happens in between, but at least I know I can get there and get home.  My supervisor, Ruth, is in Africa now and is working on an itinerary for me which is good so maybe I'll know more in the next couple of days.  I'll keep you posted if you keep reading:)

Kristen