Weekends – what every university student lives for. Weekends can be two things: first, they are a time to study for midterms; second, they are a chance to relax and enjoy life. This weekend was a time for adventure. A few weeks ago, Redeemer hosted a Club Showcase where you could go and check out all the different ways to get involved at Redeemer and in Hamilton. I signed up to volunteer with City Kidz, a Christian organization that works with children from downtown Hamilton. Hamilton is one of the poorest cities in Canada. City Kidz's goal is to change Hamilton from “The City of Poor” to “The City of Hope” by reaching the children of this area.
Now for the adventure part. In order to get to City Kidz I had to take the city bus. I have never been on a city bus before except when my grade 10 class went to Toronto on a trip, but then I had my teacher to tell me where to go. This time I was going alone. So, I mustered up all my courage, took a deep breath and asked one of my guy friends if he'd come with me. He agreed.
On Saturday morning, with my Google Map directions in hand, my friend and I left the campus. Google Maps had told me to walk 30 minutes to reach the first stop in order to catch our bus at 10:55am. We arrived at 10:30am. So we sat down on the curb and patiently waited for bus 34 to come pick us up.
Unbeknownst to us, some sewage trucks were working in the background, and the stench of sewage was creeping our way. It came in three waves – the third being the most deadly. After we were finally able to breathe fresh oxygen, I realized our bus didn't come until 11:15am. We waited for 45 minutes in the putrid smell of sewage. My friend was not impressed. Finally, we saw our bus, but then two Redeemer students got off that bus who said that they were waiting for bus 34 – just like us. Turns out we didn't actually have to walk to the bus stop – we could've gotten a ride with the bus that comes right from the campus. By now my friend was quite annoyed with me.
Fortunately, once we got on bus 34 everything went smoothly. At the end of the day, as we were walking back to Redeemer, we were flagged down by a Redeemer recruitment member. Thankfully, my friend is on the recruitment team so we were able to hitch a ride, sparing us the walk back to campus. There are two morals to this story; 1) Make sure you read your Google Map directions carefully and research all bus routes, 2) Don't let bus adventures scare you from becoming involved in the Hamilton community.
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