Monthly Archives: July 2015

A world of good-bye

For me, it really started with the SPCA good-bye on Wednesday. My last volunteer shift in the feline and small animals area, working as an assistant to the lovely Sam.

SPCA messages

Little messages that were distributed throughout the cats’ rooms.

They didn’t make it easy. Even the cats decided to team up and just be so cuddly that I couldn’t go. From Dawson, who climbed out of his box to get cuddles, over Nero, who tried to sit on my lap when I was kneeling and kept sliding off, to Phoenix, even, who cuddle-jumped against my knee with his head when I was walking to get all the attention he wanted.

Thank you so much, feline team and Wellington SPCA, that I could have such a great time with you. You are an amazing bunch of people and I will miss you.

Blood test

As part of preparing for the journey, we wanted to know our blood groups and put a sticker on the helmets stating these blood groups…just in case we’ll have an accident and it comes in handy.

For testing, we needed a little detour as our GP doesn’t do it, so we had to get it done at the lab. Turns out I am AB+ which is quite a rare blood group and renders my blood generally useless as I can only donate to my own blood group. On the other hand this blood group is known as the ‘universal receiver’. Any other blood group is compatible to mine. In other words: Flo will be able to donate blood for me if push comes to shove, I won’t be able to return the favour.

Reading up on my blood group though was good. I don’t need to feel bad for not donating blood for the reason stated above. However, I should seriously think about donating plasma. For plasma, things are turned upside down: I am the ‘universal donator’. Because I have A and B in my blood, my plasma does not contain any kind of antibodies and is thus usable by every blood type while I can only received plasma donations from my own blood group.

I might have to look into this a bit more in the future.

Making a difference – UNICEF NZ

In the tradition of other great, long distance motorcycle travellers, we decided to add a cause to our journey. So in addition to experiencing a new country, a new culture, meeting people and seeing places, we want to be able to give something back. For this reason, we will try to raise money and have a fundraiser going for each country that we will travel through. This is our contribution to the decrease of world suck. šŸ™‚ DFTBA!

Nina visiting UNICEF NZ

Visiting UNICEF NZ

We will break it up into parts for each country or section to be able to help diverse charities, make it interesting for you, the lovely people who donate, and to keep having a fundraising goal within a month or two rather than half a year away. The money will go to big, established charities rather than to small local ones; as much as we want to support small ones, it seems unrealistic to believe we can discover a small charity for every country, that is also legit and vouchered for, without constant access to the internet or putting hours of work into it.

Givealittle campaign image

Givealittle campaign image

For the start of our journey, we will explore more of New Zealand. We haven’t been to the East coast or Northland yet! Thus, we will also fundraise for a New Zealand charity. We have decided that the money of our first fundraiser will go to UNICEF New Zealand. To get a better feel for and connection to UNICEF, I met up with the lovely staff of the Wellington Office today. To be honest, I was quite overwhelmed that three people took the time to see me and were interested in what Flo and I are trying to do.

UNICEF New Zealand is helping many Pacific islands that we will not come through on this journey. However, they also have projects in Nepal and Laos, two countries that we WILL come through. Giving money to UNICEF NZ allows them to allocate it to where it is most urgently needed.

Both projects, in Nepal and Laos, aim to better the educational situation for children. To be able to go to a school has a lot of prerequisites that need to be fulfilled first. Access to clean water, medical treatment and general hygiene are a priority. As is getting children who work full-time into a better position.

Nepal, which was hit so hard by the earthquake, now faces a different problem: Child trafficking. Exploiting the poverty after the disaster, children are bought from their families with the promise of sending them to school and then sold into slavery of one form or another.

If you are interested in specific regions or projects, please read up on it on www.unicef.co.nz

So to help children in these countries and around the world: Please consider donating for our fundraiser. We added an extra page labeled ‘Making a difference’ for all our current and future efforts.