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Hello, I thought it would be good to update you with a blog post and summarise the two overseas trips I’ve been on recently. The trips were part of my work with the World Federation of the Deaf and partly a personal holiday. So the first part was last year in October – I was excited to meet together physically with everyone in Uruguay finally, and that was for the World Federation of the Deaf Youth Section (WFDYS) Children Camp. In the past two years, because of Covid, we haven’t seen each other in person; all of our work has been through Zoom, so finally, meeting in person was exciting. Before the trip, we had to plan how to fly to Uruguay – in the past, generally speaking, I could fly from Sydney to New Zealand and then straight over to South America and change flights to Uruguay, but the cost really blew out, it was double the price to take that flight path. So I had to do more investigations and decided to fly to Los Angeles (LA) in America, change flights to Panama, and finally to Uruguay. I stayed there for the camp, and then when I went back to LA, I decided to stay almost three weeks for a whole switched-off personal holiday which was such a great break. I’ll tell you a little bit about that shortly.
So all the planning happened, and arriving in Uruguay, it was terrific to finally connect with the WFDYS board and catch up in person. We also had board meetings and made sure we ticked many boxes in preparation for the upcoming big event in South Korea. We prepared everything for a youth camp and a Youth General Assembly (YGA). The Uruguay Children camp itself was great. A lot of people flew in from all over the world. Altogether there were eleven countries, one of the countries pulled out at the last minute unfortunately so there were ten countries with 20 children there, and it was really great, such good fun. You know, we expected post-Covid to have smaller numbers. Hopefully, it will return to normal with bigger numbers at the camps now that the first camp is done. It was amazing that post-Covid, it was finally terrific to have a week meeting people from overseas. It was so different to the days of isolation and separation. The week was so busy and very exhausting, but it was so worth it, really worthwhile. It was beautiful to see the Uruguayan camp organising committee working alongside them to ensure the camp was a great success.
So once the camp was over, a good friend of mine, Alejandra and I stayed for two extra days in the town called Colonia, where the camp was to do a bit of sightseeing. We then went to Montevideo and stayed there for 3 or 4 nights. It was nice to relax, do a bit of sightseeing, catch up with friends and chat.
Then I flew back to LA, the next part where I had a good, proper holiday, which was great fun. The plan was to stay in LA for one or two nights and then fly to Seattle, which was great. I think it’s actually one of my favourite cities, one of the reasons being that Grey’s Anatomy, the TV show, is based and filmed in Seattle. Sightseeing around the beautiful city, it’s just a great mixture of urban and natural landscapes. I did a lot of walking, took many photos, and met many people; it was incredible.
The Deaf community was just brilliant, and it’s such a small world! I only knew of one friend who knew someone, and I stayed with them that it’s just such a privilege or benefit of the networking and relationships that we have as deaf people around the world.
I then flew off to San Francisco. I had always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and finally, experience it was amazing. The colour was fantastic to see in real life – is it red or orange? I’m unsure! I went for a bike ride, and it’s quite hilly there too. I also went to this famous house; you know where Mrs Doubtfire the movie filmed, which was cool, and it’s something I’ve watched many times, so it’s cool to see it in real life. I did a lot of sightseeing and visited many famous landmarks, including the Zig Zag Road and Alcatraz Island. That was just spine-tingling. It was just incredible – I spent three or four hours there with an online ASL tour guide that I could watch along. To imagine that place in years gone by is incredible.
I thought I’d try a new sport, and it’s called pickleball, it’s a bit like half tennis, half ping-pong, but it’s played outside. It was so enjoyable, and I loved it. I met up with many different people, which was wonderful to socialise, so I spent five days there and then flew off to Texas to the city of Austin.
In Texas, I stayed there for three or four days and finally caught up with two people I hadn’t seen for such a long time. It was quite a small town there, but it was great by chance when I was visiting; it was actually Halloween. Wow, it was amazing to be there and see what America is like during Halloween parties. I had such a great time, and then on my last day, before I flew back again to LA, I visited the school, TSD – Texas School of the Deaf. That day, I met Year 3/4 group, and then they asked me to present to them. Meeting all of the students was just an incredible experience. If you ever visit Austin, Texas, make sure you go and see that school.
So then I flew back to LA for two or three days and then back home, and I really enjoyed completely switching off from work whilst I was on holiday. I had been so busy in the lead-up to the trip with work, so to properly recharge my battery and rejuvenate myself was so great.
So I was back home in November, and time has flown, and actually, I mentioned the two trips, but there have been three! I will do a separate blog about the second overseas trip to Geneva, Switzerland, in January and that WFDYS visited the WHO – World Health Organisation, which was incredible. I’ll do an in-depth blog post on that later.
So fast forward to February, I went overseas- off to South America again, but this time went to Colombia, and I decided to stay an extra 3-4 days on either side. For a few days, two of the board members, but we are close friends, caught up. Something that impacted me was altitude sickness. We were in Bogota, it’s about 2300m higher than the sea level, affecting your breathing. I felt that I couldn’t sleep at night; I was pretty restless; finally, my body got used to that altitude, and it was fine. Then we had five days of meetings, working hard, filming, and getting reports and plans organised to get ready for South Korea. We also finally met the World Federation of the Deaf Board because I hadn’t seen them for four years; the last time we were all together was in Georgia. So finally meeting them after so long In Columbia is just amazing. I can see they’re busy at the same time as the WFDYS board was busy as well. It’s just really great to have that partnership.
On the last day, there was a brilliant presentation to the deaf community; it was so lovely, the networking, meeting people etc. At night, I met with many youth members, which was a delightful experience.
The Columbian culture is incredibly diverse and unique; the food and drink are delicious. My favourite thing was the fruit juices. Oh wow, I gulped them down! It was just amazing – the fresh fruit. If I go back there, I will be straight back enjoying those juices! They have fresh strawberries, mango, passionfruit, orange juice, all these fantastic fruits – everything you could ever imagine.
So I stayed there for two or three days, visited the museums, and went to an escape room. You know, that’s my favourite thing, we did it twice with a group as well. Then I flew back to LA again and spent two or three days there just readjusting and doing some shopping. Then we flew to Norway for work for some WFD for four days, then it was back to LA and then back home.
Goodness me, it’s been an exhausting trip in three different countries with different time zones and different things – a lot was going on. I was exhausted getting home, but it was a worthwhile and memorable experience. I’ve enjoyed it; looking back, I feel like time has flown! It’s already almost May, so I thought I would summarise the trips and compile this blog post.
I also wanted to let you know that I will be finished on the WFDYS in July because of my age, and my time is up in June, so now is the time to give others the opportunity to join the WFDYS Board. I plan and organise a presentation to summarise the eight years of my experience on the Board and present to the community. I’d like for you to come along and join. I’ll post some information on that soon. I think it will be late May or early June. Hopefully, you enjoyed the blog and seeing some photos as well. Bye!
