Once upon a time

there was a student a Providence College who was fortunate enough to receive a Smith Fellowship to travel to Sydney, Australia and the Solomon Islands for the summer. As she began to prepare for her trip, she realized that she wanted to have a way of staying in touch with her friends and family back home and so created a blog to keep a journal of her adventures...

As most of you know, I will be spending seven weeks traveling, volunteering, and exploring in Sydney, Australia, and Auki in the Solomon Islands during July and August! The Smith Fellowships are granted by the Office of Mission and Ministry at PC and allow students to create international programs of study or service based on the Dominican traditions. I am so excited to begin this amazing opportunity and I hope to experience the different cultures both in Sydney and Auki, engage in service projects, and deepen my faith and understanding by living and working alonside the Dominicans this summer.
What will I be doing, you ask? I have received a wonderfully detailed day-by-day itinerary for service opportunities from Sister Rose Mary who I will be working with in Sydney, and it includes various programs like No Interest Loans Scheme, Aboriginal Women Catholic Ministry, Interfaith Dialogue, visiting a few of the Australian universities and meeting with other students and program coordinators. I've also been promised to be guided on a 'bushwalk' while in Australia! The Solomon Islands plan is much less strcutured at this point and I will be meeting with Bishop Chris Cardone while he is in the states in the next few weeks to talk about the details. Many of the members of the diocese of Auki do not speak English so I will most likely be working on teaching English and computer skills and also have the opportunity to work with their youth program.
After putting together this program over the past couple of months, the promise of this upcoming strip still does not seem quite real to me yet, although the shots I've had to get in preparation for leaving have helped! These next few weeks will be spent hunting down a good pair of hiking/water/junglewalking(?!) shoes, as I've been told that my TOMs that are a staple in my waredrobe aren't exactly practical for the weather and terrain of the Solomon Islands. I think I'll also be stocking up on sunscreen and mosquito repellent, unless I can figure out how to fashion a full body bug netting suit...