Weellllllll, young children that are overtaking my favourite class, I am going to dedicate a blog to you…hopefully you read the Mongolian blogs. I am not going to lie, at first I hated the idea of being replaced by 30 younger people who don’t know precisely what they are doing and think they understand what they are getting themselves into. I then realized I was the exact same thing one year ago, a young and eager grade 11 preparing myself for the experience of a lifetime. I thought of myself as a somewhat proficient traveller with a solid background in global travel. It wasn’t until I tried to sleep in negative 30 degrees that I realized I have not even come close to seeing even a small portion of our vast planet. Many of you too, will experience something in Fiji that lets you know just how small you are in this universe but how BIG of an influence you can have on others. I want to share with you a quote from the letter I wrote to the random Fijian I selected… “every single one of the 30 Colts to Mongolia globals wants to be in your position more than anything else in the world right now. We are having a very hard time watching you guys replace us as we have all fallen in love with this program. You may be thinking that we shouldn’t feel this way because we’ve already had our turn, at least that’s what I thought last year. I have never wanted anything to end less than I want Global Perspectives 12 to end, and I assure you that you will feel the same as me in one year’s time. Embrace every second of Global Ed. Every second of Fiji. When you are overseas, take as many pictures as you can, open up to as many people as possible, write notes for loved ones back home to give to them when you get back, keep a journal for yourself, love every minute of it. Be safe. My young Fijian, you have much to learn, I now release you into Matheny’s world hopefully somewhat prepared.” Enjoy this class, every one of you. Appreciate the opportunity you have been given and prove to each Mongolian that you deserve to be here. Congratulations and good luck from your friend Bentley Sackett.
I have been thinking about our trip to Mongolia lately. Thinking about Anje and Buddy and all of the friends we made, not to ever forget Bathyum. I wonder how they are doing right now, how their lives are going and in what ways we changed their lives. I wonder if Bathyum will be able to go to university or college like I will be in a few months. To be honest, despite that fact that a high level of education is difficult to obtain in countries like Mongolia, I do think that Bathyum will be able to go to college. The teenagers we met there did not seem overly impoverished and they were definitely happy (at least that’s what we saw). I like to tell myself that my Mongo friends will go to university and have similar opportunities that I have, just to make myself feel better. What I will do however is not take my post-secondary education for granted. I am now going to start paying for my pricey education myself and I will for sure take it more seriously than high school. I have put in countless hours to studying and homework this year but I, of course, could have done better. I want to say in a years time that I tackled my first year of college with my all and obtained good marks, for myself. Education is very interesting, it is needed by all, wanted by the poor, and dreaded by the wealthy. I plan to enjoy next year but also not forget about the importance of education. I plan to rock it.
The past few months have come and gone so fast, I honestly don’t even know what to say. Three months ago I was in Mongolia with 29 other amazing students, 4 amazing teachers and 7 other amazing individuals trying to make the world a better place. Now I am facing the last couple days of high school, marks are being cut and transcripts and being finalized. Before I know it I will be in post secondary for round three of “school”. I am anxious to move on. I will miss having close relationships with a high percentage of my grade population, I will miss being able to be known by all my teachers on a first name basis, and I will miss global ed. My grade 12 year has been highlighted by the trip of a lifetime which has changed me only for the good. I will now face the struggle of trying to keep the special bond me and 29 others share when we hardly ever will get to see each other. I am upset that it is over now…Fiji is rollin’ through trying to break our previous fundraising records (not my scratch card though HAHAHA) and they are doing a great job. I am proud that they have been able to succeed in their endeavours so far and I will be checking up in the future to ensure that each and every one of them is doing their part. I hope that I will be able to find the time to keep in touch with my global family as I embark into the next chapter of my life. COLTS TO MONGOLIA 4evaaaaa.
We have faced a few hardships, especially in the beginning, in the construction of our school. Now, as I blog, I am looking at a completed wall and a nearly completed back wall. I cannot clench my hands together nor bend my legs because of all the pickaxing, hammering, shoveling and sawing and I must say I have never felt happier to be sore. We have gone to cultural nights held by different schools the past few nights and every time we have danced. Mongolians love their dancing, raves and techno. There is a song called “Fusion – bx egshiglen agiimaa quiza” (the last part is the band name) and it is absolutely amazing. To anyone reading this near youtube…search it up 
. I am having an amazing time in this different world and have made tonnes of Mongolian friends, this whole experience is just…surreal. Tomorrow is our last day at the worksite and I am a little bit scared that we may not finish everything we had planned but the people here have promised us that no matter what it will be finished when we leave.
In the morning today, I helped the dentists pull teeth and give a general cleaning of teeth. I also pulled my first tooth that wasn’t my own or someone else’s with dental floss around it. It was astonishing how many people/children in this country need proper dental care. One young girl had to get 5 teeth pulled (one of which I did) and another needed a wisdom tooth to get pulled without being put to sleep or tylenol 3. I can’t wait to tell all my stories to everyone, but now I must go back to hammering walls 
.
Bentley
PS – Imym bb <3
Wow, we are finally in Zuunkharaa. This town is absolutely nothing like what I expected it to be. It is an actual city with buildings and what one could call roads, and on top of that, there are many school’s. Back in Canada I was under the impression that we would be in a small town of “ger’s” where no one had a car or was educated to know English. I was completely wrong. Everyone know’s a little English it seems and they are going to insane lengths to welcome us to the town.
Negative 20 something degree’s celcius is pretty cold. We found this out for ourselves when over half of the stove’s in our ger’s didn’t work on our first night sleeping in them. All the teachers and Geoff were up all night trying to make them work so we didn’t freeze our you-know-what’s off. Despite their much appreciated efforts the ger I was in with Andrew, Graham, Jasmar and Darren was SOFREEZING. I went to go number one in the middle of the night (unfortunately the longest pee of my life) and thought that something would freeze right off. One thing that I cannot deny, despite the uncomfortable sleep, is that the sky here looks sooooo beautiful, and I could see our stars with no problem at all J.
Well, here we are, in Korea. Our final destination for last night was of course Ulanbaatar but our flight got cancelled due to poor weather an hour before we landed in Seoul, South Korea. It was a major bummer but that is what this program is all about isnt it? Adapting to situations that are less desirable and fixing the problem. Last night we stayed in an amazing hotel and got free dinner all courtesy of Korean Air (I will be filling out a customer appreciation form online for them lol) and now today we will try to get on the 7:30pm flight to Ulanbaatar so we can truly begin our project.
I am ecstatic to be in ASIA for the first time in my life!!!!! Today we are going to explore some of Korea’s capital and I am soooo excited to experience a completely new culture, if even for a day.
Mom and Dad I will let you know when we end up getting to our destination okay?
And I miss you…BSAC
Bentley out until I soon blog again :)
So…there are 16 days left. I do not understand how this has snuck up on me so quickly….on us so quickly. I can feel it as strong as ever, the excitement of leaving; each and every one of us is beginning to get the pregame jitters. I feel like I am ready to go but I also have butterflies flapping around carelessly in my stomach. I want this project, our mission, to be a total success. The grads of Paraguay want this mission to be a success and I plan to NOT disappoint. This whole month is going to have been completely insane! We have the Olympics here with hundreds of thousands of new people bringing new cultures to our home town followed by leaving to the other side of the planet to experience a completely different culture elsewhere. I do not even know what to say…I am nervous and excited, anxious with purpose and ready yet unprepared. My final preparations for the trip are going to happen this weekend, everything will happen this weekend, both physically and emotionally for me. On top of the excitement of Olympic action and leaving in just over two weeks I also have an English oral exam coming up (as well as something like 11 other globo’s) and the stress of term two being over to deal with. I think a deep breath is in order, for all of us, just to inhale, exhale, and realize that this is really happening and that we really will succeed.
Bentley OUT!
The UBC game. I had no idea what to expect from when I heard about the night in the beginning of the course ‘til the moment before I walked into the T-Birds stadium. You know how you always have a picture your mind creates when a place is explained to you? Yeah well that image was nowhere close to what our booth area looked like in real life. The first thing that came across my mind that day, when we arrived, is that I really wanted some Burger King, as I was starving. We began to set up our booth, using some pretty wicked awesome teamwork if you ask me, and before I knew it we were receiving instructions for selling raffle tickets to people. At our dinner break I went straight to A&W (it would have to do) and ate 3 mama burgers, which made me rather content. Getting back to the stadium for the girls basketball game I found it very difficult to sell tickets to people when they were watching the game because you simply did not want to bother them while they were watching. All was well and good though because large groups of us were working together to sell our tickets and in co ordinance ourselves and our program and that’s what was important. Before I knew it once again, the night flew by for me, I was being summoned to start working my part time job at 10pm. I had to leave my mongo allies and battle the dank confides of my work kitchen that required my cooking talents and cleaning abilities for a solid three hours. By the end of the night I was dead tired and as I lay down in my bed, thought to myself, this is the kind of tired that I appreciate. This is the kind of tired that one can feel good about because they worked their behinds off yet had fun with a great group of people and felt ever-so-closer to their classmates afterwards. The UBC night ended with a good tired. A great tired. If this truly is our last fund-raising event before Mongolia, I can honestly say it wasn’t our best attack, but it definitely was a great success in the long run.
So, I said I would blog on Sunday night right after I ripped off that email, an email that I had many revelations while writing. Unfortunately my internet went down for like two hours after I sent the email and I didn’t blog and for that I’m sorry for breaking the promise Mongo’s. The past week has just been such a ridiculously large handful of…stuff to deal with and I think everyone understands where I’m coming from by saying that. We got to see our interims, which is just great (insert sarcasm); IB kids had various crazy assignments due (that’s right I did say assignment Hammer J) and on top of all the schoolwork we had the guilt of failing a passable test to deal with. You know what, last week happened for a reason, and it was the test. Matheny came back from a very negative situation and, today, made all of us feel special and realize that bumps in the road really are just bumps in the road that can be smoothed out. I did not know what to expect coming to school today, and furthermore going to global. I was ready for the bad or the good, but more expectant to hear more of the bad. The bad is not what we are about and I think all of us truly realize that now. We had the most open class that we have had since the beginning of the year that includes our teachers, and I think the discussions and points that were brought up today were totally awesome and completely vital to our success as a group of young adults.
I brought up the point that this year is our last year and what that really means, and I want to expand a bit here…I’m sure each student in grade 12 this year has said, at some point, some form of “Oh My God, we are in grade3 12 and we are going to grow up and become adults soon!” Well I think that the 30 of us have learned what grade 12 really entails through our past few discussions in class. Going to school and learning countless pointless subjects is not pointless at all, from each minute we sit in class and watch our teachers move back and forth in front of the overhead talking and possibly rambling is like one minute of training for being an adult. We have learned that one large group of students can openly discuss problems and subjects that would usually be discussed with finger-pointing and whispers in small, isolated groups. I’m not going to be as bold to say that we have “grown-up” in the past week, but I will go as far to say that I believe each student going to Mongolia this year now has more of an understanding about what education is really about and why it truly is important.
That is all I have to reflect right now. I am sorry to myself that I have not blogged recently…I forgot how much I enjoy voicing my opinions .
-Bento
