2 am Argentina wins.

It's 36 degrees and I'm sitting on a plastic chair inside a sweltering, dusty, bamboo and plastic building. I'm completely drenched in sweat, and heavily regretting having not brought my running shoes today as I'm getting hotter by the minute in my knee-high rubber boots. My required long pants, long-sleeve shirt, and scarf around my neck further make me feel like i'm suffocating from the heat. And as I sit there in this camp coordination meeting, frantically trying to simultaneously take notes, wipe the sweat out of my eyes that keeps pouring down my face, and not look completely lost by all the acronyms that define aid work, I'm pretty sure it's completely obvious to everyone else in this room that I'm the newbie here...

Instant coffee fueled meetings

That was yesterday. I'm now 5 days in to my new job. I'm now officially an aid worker, and I can't even answer how it's going yet. This week as been crazy. My days have been filled with numerous briefings - safety briefings, security briefings, program briefings, health briefings, team briefings - and meetings. I'm slowly getting to know my international and national collegaues (that is, international staff who have come from all over the world to work in this program, and national staff who have been hired from within the country to work for the organization), but there are a lot of us working here and it's taking time. I've been pretty jet-lagged this week, and despite trying to fuel myself with the instant Nescafe that's stocked in our one tiny shared kitchen, I'm still struggling to get through the days.

However, I'm endlessly thankful to have my own bathroom, and my own air-conditioned room here. Our team is staying in an apartment style-hotel and I'm sharing a two-room flat with a Canadian-Swiss couple. It's simple, yet clean, and the view from my room looks straight out into the building across the street from us (not some beautiful ocean view).

On the rainy days you have to meticulously plot your line when you're walking down the street to avoid the muddy ruts, the accumulating trash piles, and the wild goats and cows slowly sauntering from shop to shop as if window-browsing. There are always lots of people milling about, and the cars and "tuk-tuks" line the street waiting to give someone a lift to anywhere else. And when Argentina is playing, you better believe that you will be woken up at 2am to the screams and shouts of ecstatic football world cup fans who have been up all day and night waiting to cheer on their country's favourite.

I'm only 5 days in, but it's honestly been an amazing experience already. I've met some amazing new people - in our organization (including chats in the dark when the power unexpectedly goes off), in coordination meetings, on the dancefloor, and have been randomly re-united with people I've worked closely with years ago. And then I think of the work I'm doing. Ultimately I'm here to serve. I'm here to do the work I feel I have been called to do. And right now my focus is on the Rohingya.

The near 1 million people who have fled their country because of mass killings, burnings, rapes, violence, and overall destruction of themselves and the lives they've always known. The near 1 million people who now live in a country that isn't their own, crammed together into terrible make-shift living conditions that are the "refugee camps" of Bangladesh. One camp alone is home to over 600,000 people, many of whom are women and children. It's heartbreaking. And I pray that I can do something... that our organization will be able to help those who are hurting, who are struggling to have their basic needs met. Because at the end of the day this is why I've decided to leave my life back home in Canada. And when I walk through the camp, sweating and dying of heat, and see the eyes of weary men and women carrying stacks of bamboo on their shoulders, and piles of sticks on their head, hopeful to make and provide a loving home for themselves and those precious little kidlets running around butt-naked, screaming with joy and happily playing in the mucky waters that dot that camp, I wipe my face with my scarf and carry on walking....because I know with all my heart that this is what I'm meant to do.