Guatemala-bound for life altering experience
Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 07/01) - Colinda Latour doesn't mind being a human pin cushion.
The weekly yellow fever, hepatitis, and rabies shots remind her that Canadian Crossroads (CCI) International has the faith to send her to Central America.
In September, the 27-year-old Prince of Wales Heritage Centre employee will arrive in Guatemala: a country known for its coffee and its abysmal human rights record.
CCI is a non-profit organization sending volunteers of all ages and all educational backgrounds to developing countries to work on development projects for four months. Yellowknifers have participated in the exchange for years.
The bespectacled anthropology graduate will work on a leadership strategy with a Guatemalan non-governmental organization in the city of Quetzaltenago.
Which means?
"It's kinda vague right now," she says.
"I have confidence in myself that if I get down there and there is not a secure position that I'll find things to do."
Already misses friends
Latour, a voracious reader, hopes her cross-cultural experience will lend itself to promoting literacy programs once she returns to Canada.
Although still six months from boarding a plane, Latour is thinking ahead. "I'm going to miss my friends," she says.
Her absence will be profoundly felt by her friend Rhonda Howells, who is planning to join Latour in January.
"I'll miss her for the same reason Crossroads picked her. She's a really caring individual who I can pour my heart out to and she'll make me feel 100-times better," she says.
There is, of course, a price to pay. CCI expects Latour to raise $2,225. In exchange, she receives a plane ticket, rent and likely the opportunity of a lifetime.
So far the former Hay River resident has raised $1,600 through a garage sale, tea party, craft fair and private donations from her hometown.
She's hoping for a good turn out at a pot luck dinner and silent auction at Northern United Place this weekend.
Karl Geraghty, one of Latour's four roommates, says her constant list-making will be missed.
"She writes everything down," he says. "She's going to do fantastic. Colinda is the type of person who figures things out and makes the best of any situation."
Her mother agrees.
"She's always had a good sense of curiosity and a lively interest in other places," Vicky Latour says.
