Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 29/99) - She serves coffee, waits tables and toils away in a cubicle, a total of three jobs and 72 working hours a week.

But Erin Freeland-Ballantyne isn't complaining. Come December, she'll use her hard-earned cash on the adventure of a lifetime.

Ballantyne, 17, will spend six months in the South American countries of Ecuador, Costa Rica and Peru. She leaves Dec. 25 and returns next July.

The first three months of her journey will be spent hiking on a wilderness adventure with the outdoor leadership organization Outward Bound.

For the last three months, Ballantyne will work at an orphanage for AIDS- and HIV-infected children in Costa Rica.

Ballantyne, who graduated this June from Lakeland College school, a private school in Ontario, has put off university until next September in order to earn money and then go on her adventure.

She said the hard work now to save money for the trip will pay off later.

Life changing experience

"This will be a life-changing experience," she said in her cubicle at the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, where she works days as a graphic designer.

"I want to do this, even if I never spend this much money on anything again in my entire life!"

The 89-day hiking trip through the three countries with Outward Bound will involve hiking, surfing, rappelling and climbing an active volcano in Ecuador. It will cost Ballantyne $7,000, including airfare. It would have cost more if she hadn't won a $2,500 scholarship from the organization.

And she's paying every cent herself.

"My parents are supporting me to do this, but they're not supporting me financially," she said.

"I wanted to achieve this goal myself."

So several nights a week, when she finishes her day job, she heads downstairs to the coffee shop, Javaroma, or waits tables at Blachford Lake Lodge.

It's the last three months of her trip, working with abandoned "AIDS babies," that she said will be the most rewarding.

"The world only changes when people go out and do something about it," she said.

"It's nice to send money, but it's even more important to send yourself.

"I think I'll be able to share my life and what I've been so lucky to have. If I'm able to make one kid smile and laugh when he didn't before, it will all be worth it."

The orphanage in Costa Rica is run by a Canadian couple, and the children there are mostly victims of ignorance, said Ballantyne.

"These kids, once their parents find out they have HIV, are left in churches, on doorsteps. Their parents just don't understand AIDS.

"You can't get AIDS from hugging and loving these children."

She said her own parents are more worried about her getting sick on the hiking expedition.

"The immunizations alone cost over $780. When I went to the public health centre with the list of shots I'll need, the nurses were like, 'Where are you going that you need all this?' " she said.

Her mother, Health and Social Services deputy minister Penny Ballantyne, is so excited about the orphanage, she's going to visit Erin and help out during her vacation next summer.

Erin will take a video camera with her on the six-month adventure, and said she plans to make a 15-minute video on the orphanage to share with Yellowknife's children.