Team Turbo working on a house in Guatemala

My name is Brian Robert Kimiksana and my nickname is Bushman or Bush. I’m from Fort McPherson, NWT. I was an NYA participant in 2010 with the Canadian Phase, where my host buddy was Jacob Peffer from Inuvik, NWT and my host family was Dean and Dolores Scott. My volunteer placement was with the YMCA and I was volunteering with a summer camp for children. I was really fun.

Now I’m completing the International Phase. We began in Ottawa for four weeks. We were first at McSkimming Camp for Orientation learning what we were going to do in Guatemala. We split into two groups – the “EH team” and “Team Turbo”. I was in Team Turbo. We met are group leaders who are awesome, random, nice, funny and one of a kind. The next 3 weeks we spent at Algonquin College where we completed construction class. We had a great teacher. We all finished a doghouse in one week. The highlight was our graduation ceremony.

Our Guatemala experience has been fun and awesome, but really busy with work and activities. The first day was pretty good, we learnt how to build a house. By then end of the first week we have complete our first house. We also visited hot springs, a toy making shop, a volcano and went to the market.