Volunteering and Friendship

Volunteering and Friendship

2nd April 2007
Volunteer friendships have always featured highly on my various top ten lists (see here, here and here). It was with much joy that I have met up with all sorts of ex-volunteers here in New Zealand.

The first were Matt and Lydia, a married couple from New Zealand with whom I volunteered with in the Philippines. I met up with them a couple of times for dinner and caught up on all the gossip from Dumangas: Old Welshmen marrying young Filipinos, oil slicks around Guimaras, old volunteer buddies. That sort of thing. It was great to see them again. They are awesome people.

The next two people I met up were Meghan and Spike. I volunteered with Meghan in the Philippines and Spike in Uganda. Seeing Matt and Lydia in New Zealand was weird. See Meghan and Spike in New Zealand was surreal. Meghan and Spike are both from England. They either belong there, or in some volunteer placement. It most certainly should not be in New Zealand!

Meghan is over here on a six month secondment for her law firm and Spike is here as part of her round the world trip.

Chris Browne, an old university mate, was kind enough to take us all out on his sail boat around Waitemata harbor. It was a fantastic day out. It was great to lounge around on the boat for the day and just chat and catch up with what they were all doing. Afterwards we had fish 'n' chips (that great Kiwi staple) on Eastern Beach.

Making friends from around the world is one of the best thing about volunteering. Showing Meghan and Spike the beauty of New Zealand was great and I hope I can make it to England one day and they can return the favor.

Do you like the work that I am doing?

Wanna help in a real and tangible way?

Then visit GrassRootsUganda.com and purchase some crafts made by Ugandan ladies. 100% of the profits are returned to the ladies

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(c) 2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.