What your efforts accomplished!

Dear Friends,

I recently received the following from Toufic. My most heartfelt thanks to all of you. You can read the original post here.

Dear  Greg,
           

Glad to tell you that the money has been successfully received.I have been busy the whole day trying to go through registration process. I have gone through a half way,hopefully i will finish tomorrow .

 Greg, I could not believe it till it all happened(paid).  Honestly am short of words to thank you! All I have for you is THANK YOU  SO MUCH. Am really glad that you have  kept me in this shoes,i appreciate your efforts.

I must admit that you are more than just a friend to me.You are like a parent to me.

I would not say much,you can understand my emotions and appreciations.

With regards and respect,

Toufic

 

Thank you.

I don't know what touches me more , Toufics need, or your generosity. Thanks to all who gave or reposted or both.

Look at what we just did together?  I know its a big job, but  WE CAN  change the world.

Together.

My deepest gratitude to everyone.

http://goyestoeverything.com

22 Hours On A Plane

Image by rosefirerising via Flickr

Are you kidding me? I have committed myself to sitting on a plane for 22 hours. While this is not airtime, it is likely that my actual sitting time will be closer to one full day. Let me say that another way, I will be sitting on the same plane, without interruption for twenty four hours.

Chicago/Tokyo/Bangkok

One plane, one people one planet, but one entire freaking day?

The worst part will be coming back. During my trip to Ghana I realized that it is worth suffering the awfulness of overseas air travel when there is a prize at the end. Prior to coming home, for a fleeting second I considered trying to make a go of it in Ghana, just so I could avoid the flight home.

And those flights were two nine hour segments. Seems like chicken feed compared to the daunting journey ahead.

On the upside, the travel time is about as quick as you can get on commercial, and I know that there will be an amazing pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Doesn't really matter, cos I'm locked in now, and my heart is starting to pound with fear and anticipation. That feels about right.

http://goyestoeverything.com

Ethical Dilemmi

Image by alex.ch via Flickr

When I search for prospective recipients for the next microproject, I like to see a positive aspect of building something.When people are brought together for a common positive purpose they are generally willing to throw aside differences for the greater good. However, it is impossible to consider building anything in a place where there is no recognition of the rule of law in a given country.

I know we are all busy in our lives, but if you have seven minutes please take that time to watch the first part of this video.

If you don't have time to watch the video, here is the synopsis. After the Khmer Rouge fell there was nothing but chaos in terms of land ownership on the capital, Phnom Penh. This was due to the fact that most of the residents had been forced out of the city and murdered by the Khmer Rouge.

To help alleviate the ownership chaos a law was established that entrenched squatters rights. If you lived on land for five years, it was yours.

Now the land has become valuable and people who have clawed out a tiny dream in the echo of the most unspeakable aspect of the human experience are having the rug pulled out from under them by their own government once again. They may not have much, but they have made homes that have electricity and running water and they are being evicted into what are essentially refugee camps outside the city.

No power, no schools, no running water.

So here are my dilemmi.

• Am I supporting this obscene corruption and defilement of human dignity by visiting Cambodia or does my presence and bearing witness to this situation help, (even if it is in the tiniest way).
• Should I contribute to a microproject in a place where the government could simply steal it for its own greedy needs?
• Should I support the people who are fighting this fight?
• Should I find one small group of people who are being evicted and give them enough to bribe a judge?
• Should I try and build something in these refugee camps that these people are being banished to?
• Should I even go to Cambodia at all?

Eyes On The Prize

Image by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

I love getting mail, and I mean real mail, not bills or the endless junkmail that usually pollutes my inbox and our environment, but real honest to God mail.

Recently, I have been very busy busy, working two jobs, slowly building content for my website and adding other platforms to present that content on social networking sites.

As a result, you can now view my content on my website Facebook,and MySpace. In addition I am also Tweeting and I have a YouTube channel.

Integrating all of these platforms is still a work in progress and all of this infrastructure building has strayed me from my main purpose. Near as I can recall that purpose was to plan a trip to The Mekong Delta and to create a small microproject in the region, like The Omenako School Project

Oh yeah; that

Anyway, as did my weekly mailbox check, among the twenty flyers and one bill was an unexpected envelope from my brother and sister in-law. The envelope contained a cover article from the July 2009 issue of National Geographic

The article is a fascinating account of trying to understand why Angkor Wat was abandoned and forgotten.

In its heyday, Angkor Wat and the surrounding area was home to hundreds of thousands of people. In 1860 it was "rediscovered" by Alexandre Henri Mahout who was tipped off by a French missionary. Publication of his journals and drawings reintroduced this marvel to the modern world.

Make no mistake, this lost city rivals anything that human beings have accomplished anywhere ever.

http://goyestoeverything.com

An Open Letter To The Mekong Delta

Hi, would you mind being a little less fascinating? I am trying to plan a trip and the abundance of the region is not helping. The sheer depth of natural, historical, cultural and spiritual gems is astonishing. Reading through my Lonely Planet guide book, it is becoming increasingly clear that I will only be able to scratch the surface of this vast and diverse region.

My wish list of must see places has already grown well beyond my time constraints. To fully experience the region and the five countries that it encompasses would take at least a year of almost constant movement to take it all in.

I will be using regional airlines, but this is more a function of avoiding border hassles. Entering Cambodia and Vietnam through land crossings has far more potential to be troublesome than entering the country by air. Right now the flight plan looks like this:

• Toronto to Bangkok
• Bangkok to Siem Reap
• Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City
• Hanoi to Bangkok
• Bangkok to Toronto

However, within Cambodia I hope to travel by boat as much as possible, and within Vietnam the railway will be my main source of transportation.

I have always loved using surface transportation, and living in Canada has blessed me with many opportunities to take some extensive and fantastic road trips within this country. I relish the feeling of being propelled forward into a kaleidoscope of the unknown.

Surface transportation also allows for the opportunity to witness the real experience of day to day life of the people who live in any given country.

Alas, there is simply too much to see here, and I will have to choose wisely from this cavalcade of riches.

http://www.goyestoeverything.com

Travel 2.0

Image by permanently scatterbrained via Flickr

Ok, so this neophyte traveller is publicly comitted to going to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I am not a serious or professional world seeker. It may sound really cool that I went to Africa, but the fact is that Ghana is a really loving, welcoming and cool place. Plus they speak English there. Ghana is known as Africa for Beginners on the net.

The next step will present new challenges. Language barriers, border crossings, rampant scams and corruption are all anticipated.

None of these things were an issue in Ghana, but they will have to be considered as I move forward.

Anger what? No, Angkor Wat.

Image via Wikipedia

I think I made a desicion, but is it really a decision if you're not sure you made it?

In my experience, when one buys a travel guidebook, one always ends up in that place. Mind you, I have only bought three guidebooks, but I have ended up in every place that I bought a guidebook for. This weekend, I bought my fourth guidebook.

For reasons that elude me, South and Central America did not strike me with the same lightning bolt that Ghana did. At least not yet. Perhaps I am not ready to go to these places yet, but I will get there one day.

Every Wednesday and Saturday The Toronto Star has a Travel Section. On Saturday there was an article that featured the phrase "swirl of humanity", and I knew I had found my next destination(s). I like the swirl of humanity and it is exactly what I am looking for.

I want to bear witness to the experience of all humanity while I am here, so this trip seems to fit the bill.

So consider the following to be the digital equal of an itinerary printed in crayon on a cocktail napkin in an opium den. Nonetheless, the direction is set.

• Toronto to Bangkok - spend a little time in Thailand, but the real destination is further afoot.
• Go to Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is the gateway to Angkor Wat From there a short busride , then an awesome boatride to Phnom Penh , the capital of Cambodia.
  
• Next move is Phnom Penh into Ho Chi Min city (it'll always be Saigon to me)
• Rail journey up the coast of Vietnam with several undetermined stops on the way
• Arrive in Hanoi, check it out.
• Fly Hanoi to Bangkok,
• Fly Bangkok to Toronto
• Sigh
• Start planning next trip. I'm already thinking Central or South America.............

There is no way that my end experience will look like this, but it is a start.

As for the next charity project, this will be like Ghana. The project will be the child produced by the massive amount of research in figuring out the details of this journey. The true purpose will present itself when it is ready.

Mekong Delta, here I come!

http://goyestoeverything.com

Promises, Promises

So I've made myself a promise and it is time to start figuring out how to keep it.

One project on each continent, yikes!

I am a little sad that I have already ticked Africa off the list, because for me it was very easy in Ghana. Lets face it, I had a great dose of beginners luck in Ghana, most of which is attributable to the beautiful spirit of the people of Ghana who helped create the Omenako School Project .

And make no mistake, just because I am ticking Africa off my list should by no means indicate that my commitment to Ghana is finished. It may never be and I realise that going forward some of these undertakings may never be fully finished and I will support each of them in any way I can until the day I die.

But getting backing to the core question; where and how next?

I am beginning by breaking down possible locations on each continent where I can identify the most need combined with my ability to get there (logistics) and the ability to engage online (language) and the ability to undertake projects without fear (security). Obviously, The Sudan needs a lot of help, but I won't be going there anytime soon.

Through a combination of persperation (research) and inspiration (people responding) Ghana showed me the way. But where is the next Ghana and how can I connect online without a common language?

I am also beginning to try and learn from the past. A number of factors intersected to make Ghana work. Those factors need to be identified and considered as prerquisites for the next project.

Obviously, common language is one of those factors, but it is probably one that I will have to let go of. It is unrealistic to think that I will be able to do this again in my native tongue. Maybe its time to learn a little Spanish. Hasta la vista!

Embracing The Obvious

"Most people spend their lives standing on a whale fishing for minnows" - Filipino axiom

In the contest to see how asleep at the wheel I could possibly be, I have spent the last few weeks despairing over how difficult it was going to be to connect with people on the ground in the same way that I was able to do in Ghana.

Recently a lot of my internet time has been devoted to learning about the intricacies of blogging, each time I looked at this blog, I winced a little bit.

Yes, Central and South America are appealing destinations, but how could I possibly connect with people there? I don't speak Spanish or Portuguese, so I am limited in my ability to communicate online to people from those regions who speak English. Very Limiting.

I began to think that my success in Ghana was a wonderful fluke. A nice little victory, mostly propelled by the people at http://www.ghanacommunity.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9796

Then it occurred to me that the path that worked last time might not work this time.

Have you ever laughed at yourself when you discovered the absurdity of agonizing over something, then discovering that the answer is so blatantly obvious that you are ashamed to admit that you struggled to find an answer in the first place?

The fact is that I live in the most multicultural city in the world. I don't need no stinking internet to show me the way. The answer lays with my fellow denizens and my privileged access to their various enclaves.

My goal in the next few weeks is to infiltrate the South and Central American hubs here in Toronto and start talking to people. If I expose myself to enough opportunities, the way forward will reveal itself.

Central America?

I'm starting to think that Central America might be a good option. Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua all present potential options.

A clean slate

So how the heck am I going to do something like Omenako again? This blog will be dedicated to the next journey.