Thursday, March 26, 2009

"Voluntourism"


Max learning about donuts at 7 weeks old! Is that so wrong??

**


After writing about getting involved in the community and being a family that helps others - I ran across the word "Voluntourism"

Have you heard of this?

I was looking around the website "Daily Candy"

and was snooping around the Daily Candy travel newsletter and found an article about this idea of going on adventures all over the world with the intention of helping others.

You can join organizations that take you to greece to help the stray dog population get spayed and medical attention. Um - that's fricken cooooool!

So many more adventures.

I read about an organization called Roadmonkey that was started by a New York Times correspondent.

you can find out more about it by clicking here.

I know there are college students heading down to help victims of Hurricane Katrina instead of taking their Spring Break in Miami - those people are rock stars in my book.

It's so inspiring to see what other people have created to help others and to get other people involved.

I can see Jerry, Max and myself joining something like this in our future.

**

Today was our DSALA mom's luncheon. Jerry came with us - and it was nice to meet about 40 other mom's and kids ranging in age from 7 weeks ( our Max ) up to about 2 years old.

It was a nice introduction to the larger community. We went around the room and introduced ourselves and our babies and a little about our stories. The stories varied a lot depending on whether the mom's had the amnio test done prior to the birth of the child.

The one consistent theme was that we all feel blessed to have the baby we have.

Our friend Kristen was there with her 9 month old Sebastian. I just ADORE that little boy and am so glad I met his mama.
Tomorrow we go to the Club 21 play group - this time without papa. I'm looking forward to going again and meeting more moms and kids.

I am Verrrrrry tired. But Jerry has a harder schedule then I do. He does the hardest 2 feedings of the day. The 10pm and then 2am.
I sleep all night until the morning feeding time at about 5 or 6am. I'm trying to figure out how to give him a break and it might just be that he sleeps all weekend long.

Right now he has Max in the new Sling we bought called the Maya. Love it. And Max fell asleep after 5 seconds in it so we know it works!

xo

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Voluntourism is a massive field, once you start looking around at different trips and opportunities you'll be amazed.

Another good resource for Volunteer and Adventure trips is adventure travel website Off the Radar - www.travelofftheradar.com. If you click on the search page and enter "volunteering" you'll come up with trips in Argentina, Cambodia, and Turkey for example as well information about a type of credit card that gives discounts on airfares to people traveling to volunteer!

momjeans said...

I can just see you and Jerry trekking the globe with Max on your back in a little papoose. Such adventures you all will have together!

Catherine Just said...

thanks Christina for the tips - I'd never heard of this before - so it's exciting to research it.
And yes - M.C. I can see it too - with our cameras and the baby! It would be quite the adventure!