This will quite probably amuse people
in England who know me and Sarah. For those of you that don't, we've
known each other only for about a year and a half, since we went on
the same training together and we're very close friends. Tonight, I'm
working my last set of night-shifts for this holiday, and guess who
I'm working them with: Sarah! Yay. It's me Sarah and two Germans. One
boy and one girl. Because there are 4 of us, we already worked out
that one girl would get sent to the boys house and two girls would be
working together upstairs in the girls house. Me and Sarah were under
the assumption we would be in the girls house together and the two
Germans would go to the boys house. This was assumed to the point
that I'm not sure if Sarah took any entertainment with her tonight
cause we were planning to watch some films on my laptop. (Dad, I
still haven't watched Angels Share-hopefully if me and Sarah get to
work in the same house, but could you maybe send out moonrise kingdom
if you already bought it and watched it?). The geniuses amongst us
will have maybe gathered that as it turns out, we are not together
tonight. I got put in the boys house, she's in with the girls. And
I'm so bored. Hopefully we can work together tomorrow.
It's midnight and I'm being eaten alive
by mosquitoes. The boy I'm doing my shift with has already been
sleeping and the weirdest thing possibly ever just happened. I was
watching 'How I Met Your Mother' (As much as I tease my little
brother, it's actually quite good), trying to avoid the mind boggling
amount of mosquitoes buzzing around me when something catches my eye.
There's a black cat slinking down the hallway. I take this for
granted. It's not something one expects to see on a night-shift in a
children's home. When it occurs to me that a cat probably shouldn't
be in the boys house, I look back. It's creeping into one of the
rooms near my mattress. Now two of the boys in particular we (the
volunteers) think may have some form of autism, now I am not and will
never claim to be an expert on autism, in fact I know very little,
but these two boys fit the perfect stereotype of how a child with
autism behaves (the stereotype in my head at least). And of course,
they are sharing a room. The room the cat just went into. If either
one of these boys wakes up with a cat on his face, he is going to
freak out like nothing else seen on this earth. And I should point
out that although I call them boys, I think they're about 15/16.
Anyway, long story short, I wake up the other volunteer and together
we herd the cat through the corridor, out of the other rooms it tries
to slip into, down the stairs and out the kitchen door. I don't even
like cats. Cats scare me a little bit. Cats creep me out. And if this
one gave me fleas I'm going to cry.
It's 6.20am and I'm basically
cross-eyed with tiredness. Something just occurred to me: Project
Trust specifically told us not to surprise parents and friends with
when we were coming back because sometimes folk in England wanted to
organise a party and get a little annoyed when the child returns
without warning. Knowing my family however, I've told them I'm going
to surprise them. As much as a surprise party when I arrived would be
awesome, I don't have nearly enough friends my own age to make it
worthwhile and as much as I love the kids I used to look after (and
the child inside me screams lets get a clown and a bouncy castle), it
would be fantastically depressing to have a party where the only
attendees were kids under 10 and their parents or friends of my
parents. Awkward! Plus, my family would never throw that sort of
shindig (for which I am overwhelmingly grateful) especially after +3
days of travelling-it pays to have musicians for parents, they
totally get the whole
“in-a-metal-box-on-wheels-with-50-other-people-for-5-days-travelling-through-the-middle-of-nowhere-stopping-only-to-pee”
thing! Bare (/bear I have no idea which bear/bare it is and the more
I think about it, the more stupid the combination of letters look)
with me, it's 6.30am and I haven't slept for roughly 18 hours. It
occurred to me that I'm almost certainly going to want to blog about
my last days, last shifts etc. and I hope my family read this blog
(if they don't I might not return. Ever.) Hrmph. What a conundrum. I
suppose I could type the posts up then post them all at once, but I
really like the almost live time blogging thing. Maybe I'll have to
convince one of my technologically adept brothers to block my blog on
all their gadgets!
...Actually...........
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