I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my biiike (or Signal before you pass the Dutchie on the left hand side)

Groningen, NL (courtesy of Commons Wikimedia)

Ohhh the Netherlands, how I love this place.

I’m definitely starting to settle into living here with each day that goes by.

Groningen is a smaller, perhaps lesser known Dutch city (within the international circles) – so chill and textbook of how I imagine Europe in my head.

Cobblestone streets, café’s, open markets (the best, I love ittt, we found all sorts of interesting non-Dutch food varieties - like Plantain - nom!).

But it rains, it rains a lot, it rains like winter never ends in Canada – in an unpredictable and generally constant manner.

Oh and

BIKES, bikes EVERYWHERE.

"The Dutch love to bike," will probably be the understatement of my time here.

One cab driver even told me that the ratio of bike to people in Groningen is about 2:1!

Not just one or two - MANY bikes
(Courtesy of departmentfortransport.wordpress.com)

It’s almost like watching a school of fish all follow each other in perfect rhythm and time.

On the street,
On the side walk,
In opposite directions while a car (with the right of way) is trying to sneak past.

(Four-way stops are a thing of beautaaay)

Without helmets (for shame!)

With attachments on the front or back for carting along infants.

I didn’t realize what an important part of the culture it is but it’s endearing to see it embraced so widely.

In Montreal I lived pretty centrally and liked the idea of walking (hate/hate relationship with the metro), and a 20/30 minute walk was decent - nothing to write home about.

But in the Netherlands? People will offer to give you a ride on the front/back/basket of their bike to avoid the idea of having to walk for even five mins.

I cast this idea off as ridiculous, it was a brisk 15 mins between home and the university/city centre.
I could handle that, easy.

But then something happened, a combination of peer pressure and laziness spontaneously collided into a perfect storm (exaggerating. but it was definitely cloudy and gray) when a friend going home for the weekend said, “Here, take my bike.”

Internal thought bubble:

And ride it?

With all these other people whizzing past?

Without getting hit by a car?

Or hitting someone myself?

Be responsible for it so that it doesn’t get stolen?

Ummm ok!

New bike - Dutch status confirmed

So after “walking it” ½ way home like a coward, I turned down a quiet street with not a soul to be found and hopped on.

I learned how to "cycle" (two wheels, official) in San Francisco, green and black Toys-R-US bike, my bro cheering me on when the training wheels came off.

I HAD this. No fear right?

Once I got going, the wind in my afro (you can all relate right?) it was incredible to be in the flow, in the stream, keeping pace with all of these other strangers and moving so deliberately.

And now I’m accustomed to a certain lifestyle –
A non-helmet wearing (my Dutch friends promise I'll never gain my respect back if I do), hand signalling, bell ringing lifestyle.

Brand spanking new bike! That I only fell off of twice in the span of "test-riding".

Assuming no accidents it'll be a great semester!

Two Dutch friends riding ahead of me while casually balancing suitcases

#dutchlife indeed.

In Your Head & On Your Feet (or RADOMSKA)

(Country count 2/10 - Poland)

So barely three sleeps into being in the beautiful Netherlands, I was jet-setting off to Poland for a 10 day vaycay adventure in Warsaw. Sounds great in theory right?

Except it was technically an assignment - a school assignment, with 140 other classmates!

The humanitarian program I’m doing, starts off with an “Intensive” week-long session of “Humanitarian 101” in an attempt to bring us all up to speed on the basics of the discipline and to “steady” us for the program ahead. 

Everyone doing the program from participating universities joins (Ireland, Sweden, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland), which is handy because everyone ends up doing a semester abroad at one of the OTHER partner schools. It’s basically a week long meet & greet/party with wonderful people from all over the world who have the same basic interest in humanitarianism and doing good (I’m not biased at all!).

We do all of this against the scenic backdrop of Warsaw, Poland – but actually (+1 for country count). I’m not gonna sit here and type like Warsaw has always been a prime destination of mine but it truly exceeded my expectations of a post-Soviet era city.

A few of my fabulous classmates and I went down a few days early to actually explore/enjoy the city before the Intensive Program (IP). It was such a beautiful combination of new and old, embracing the destruction and creation that the city endured during Nazi/Soviet occupation. 

Classmates in Warsaw!

Łazienki Park, Warsaw, Poland

We saw the house where famed scientist Marie Curie was born - that's right (#knowledgedrop) she was born in Poland before moving to France to settle with her family.

We were told off for rolling on the grass at Łazienki Park, the biggest park/palace in the country.

"Old Town", Warsaw, Poland

We toured the "Old Town" which holds the heart of historic Warsaw. 

We ate at a "Soviet-era" milk bar which still serves the type of meals people ate back then - economical vegetables, potatoes, soup (nom-na-nom-nom!)

The Intensive Program (IP) was focused on teaching us about humanitarian basics and was framed around the upcoming “World Humanitarian Summit” in May 2016 in Turkey. This was a really powerful and productive way to get us to think about different themes in “Effectiveness”, “Innovation”, “Risk Management” and “People-Centred Response”.

All these buzzwords basically point out that the way forward for humanitarian response is to focus on the people who need help most, creation of new, sustainable and timely ways to deliver aid, and preparedness to reduce the impact of crises.

The IP was also a chance to meet some big players in the profession including the likes of Anthony Val Flynn, Directorate General of the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (a mouthful, I know!) (ECHO) - a major funder of humanitarian aid. We were also joined by many other speakers with field and management experience from the United Nations' (UN) agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 

(These links are indeed a "hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink" to read up if you're interested in these organisations!)

Escaping shell fire attacks (NOHA IP 2015)
Courtesy of NOHA Warsaw

By far, the most interactive and memorable aspect of the IP was the “Field Security” simulation training. Lectures aside, historical perspectives laid down, it was time to become a fearless, humanitarian “badass” and see if we could hack field life. Thanks to PortArthur Poland, field training specialists, for putting us through the effective obstacle course!

Kicking butt in self-defense (NOHA IP 2015)
Courtesy of NOHA Warsaw

We learned how to make DIY tourniquets (one trainer swore he got them as holiday gifts for family, so watch out!), and rolled through vehicle ambush, self-defense and hostage-taking scenarios. Take a look at our hostage-taking below:

Hostage taking scenario (NOHA IP 2015) - courtesy of NOHA Warsaw

It would be a stretch to say that I came full circle by the end of the week (amazing as it was), but I definitely felt a shift in terms of thinking about how to be effective and make a real impact in this field. Egos and heroic ambitions aside, I’m motivated and optimistic to be surrounded by people (veterans and newbies) who question and attempt to flip the industry on its head.

If not full circle, I feel as though I'm nearly halfway - at a point where the possibilities for change, improvement and impact are within reach. It was a memorable team bonding experience to tie together all of the theory and discussion about what it means to be a humanitarian - in your head and on your feet.

NOHA IP 2015 - courtesy of NOHA Warsaw

0H for 10

It’s the afternoon on a perfectly warm and beautiful day in a bright European city, drinking a café latte in the sun while reading something equally impressive and in line with the picture in your head.
Maybe in my cracked out, jet lag dreams (also anyone who really knows me know it’s tea all the way) – it’s really 5 AM, pre-dawn in Groningen, a quaint little town in the northern part of the Netherlands.

Holiday? Nope
Quarter-life crisis? Maybe

Forget a steady job that pays cash money, forget Canada and its six month-long winters – I’m moving on to greener (windmill filled) pastures.
I’ve been in this idyllic European town for all of 24 hours for the start of a Master’s program in Humanitarian Affairs.

In a “not so long” story I started doing some development work after uni (as documented in my Under African Skies blog), become enamoured by the social welfare field, got an awesome job in Montreal working in federal government health research at McGill University, cozied up to some amazing humanitarians (Dr. Kirsten Johnson of HumanitarianU) and steadily decided to make moves into building myself up to have a career in this area. Easy right? Right.

My life and background has been extremely varied and I’ve been fortunate to experience beautiful people and places and hope to continue to do so. Growing up across Canada, Kuwait and Ghana has truly opened my eyes to the diversity of cultures that shape who we become and the challenges/opportunities that people across this world can face. The field of humanitarianism (in conflict and natural disaster) strikes a chord for me because at its basic level (layers of political agendas aside), it’s about people (despite the barriers that we believe separate us) sacrificing, surviving and striving for greater equality and freedom. I respect these people and hope to better understand the systems, organizations and nations that determine our reactions and responses to such crises.

As in my previous experience (Under African Skies) I am the absolute worst on reflecting on life/experience/change after the fact. I resort to the standard “It was interesting – it was great – good times” and could easily be describing going to a 3-day music festival (Osheaga shout out!) or living in the Middle East for 10 years or … washing dishes or something so far away from “Interesting, great or a good time.”

Needless to say writing has always been therapeutic and a natural way for me to be sincere and reflective about my life experience, more or less in real time.
For my famjam and friends all over, I wanted to create a space to feed your curiosity as well as give myself a place to direct people if ever I’m asked “What’s up? What’s new?” (just joking, I’ll be happy to copy/paste my blogs into chat boxes or read them verbatim if that seems like a more personal touch ;))

This blog is called “0H for 10” (0/10, 0h410) for a few reasons:

-         I’ll be talking a lot about life which at the moment will consist of my program/living in Europe – two areas where I don’t know jack. My stats are lowww in this area, but that’s alright because 1) I own it, 2) that’s part of the whole learning process. Things like #dutchlife, #dutchstyles will happen, let it be.

-          My goal over this process is to visit 10 new countries by the time I finish this program (2-ish years). And yes I’m going to count the fact that my program basically demands that I be in the Netherlands, Poland AND Ireland so I get three freebies - just let me have this people, I did pitch for NEW places so I have my work cut out for me. So country count is technically 1/10 at the moment. I’ll start putting my country counts at the start of future posts. #winning

-          Lastly, in order to maintain some shreds of sanity/regularity, I’ve decided to post (roughly) every 10 days (nyahaha “0H” the word play working in my favour). So minimum 3 times a month (***future me is kicking herself). This also puts the pressure on to be a somewhat interesting human being, augh it’s been so long since that’s been required, but I’m up for the challenge.

Thanks for reading and interested to hear any thoughts!