Sunny's Choyce - Infinities Edge Global Trekking

The children start to bring each other... The line grows and grows with children. They know their friends are sick or hurt in some way so they get in my first aid line with their friends to see if someone can help.  We were told at the start of the day well working here at a small community project (Freshstart) in Smutsville, South Africa that Meningitis was running through the community; but they choose to stay open for the children anyway. I agreed. An hour in, with many children attended to, I finish bandaging one boy with two big gashes on his legs.  I looked up and I now find a sea of kids waiting . I was so focused on what I was doing and trying to pay authentic attention to each child that I did not notice the growing line. Today is hot, very hot, and sweat is just pouring down my face. As I put on yet another pair of plastic gloves, I ask if there is another volunteer to help as well. No, everyone is busy. There are not enough volunteer...

Here in Mexico, I work at a small kids project in the jungle. Often I bring a big 1st aid kit with me and see to the kids wounds, burns, abysses, dog bits …and yes bugs and fungus….but they look at me bight eyed and happy for the attention. I tell them how brave they are and give them some colorful pipe-cleaners to play with while I fix and clean them up. In South Africa toddlers would literally run after my car, and when I would stop they would be quick to show me and the other COLORS volunteers any of their cuts, ringworm or infections. Soon there would be a line-up of kids outside the car. So much of what we do just feels like common sense (…but alas sometimes common sense is not so common.) Today is World Health Day…I know I know…its another one of “those days” marked on the calendar that we are supposed to have some awareness or take action. But when I hear this, I think of all the children I’ve worked with all over the world who just need some basic TLC...

  Newly Weds Give Hope & Health to Total Strangers Why helping across the globe DOES make a difference. By Sunyata Choyce     Every year my small NGO Project COLORS chooses a few families to assist when they are in desperate need of relief due to unpredictable circumstances. Meet Sulochana’s family in Betticaola, Sri Lanka.   The head of the house hold, Sulochana, has been slowly going blind and needed corrective surgery. Her teenage son was diagnosed with Leukemia and needed special care and transport to go Colombo once a month, over a 12 hour drive! Five other family members including an almost blind 90 year old grandmother live in a tin roof home made of mud and sticks over a floor of sand.   When I saw the grandmother, I was saddend at her state.   She was sitting in a dark room in the corner on loose old boards which were meant to be a bed.   She was shocked at first at my presence in her home, but soon gave me a bi...

As a child I loved to venture into my grandparents’ bewildering dark cellar. A cellar filled with an amazing hodgepodge of whosits and whatsits, this and that, thingamabobs and every semi-reusable, recyclable item imaginable.  (Something like this but crazier) I remember my grandmother Norma saying to me, "When me and Grandpop are gone, you guys will have to figure out what to do with it all." Little did she know that some of her collected treasures would bring great happiness to children all over the world.  You see my grandmother saved every button she ever had. EVERY….single….button! These buttons were passed down and around and somehow made a stop at each one of my international aid projects including a recent one in Sri Lanka. The girls I worked with at Herman's Girls Home enthusiastically created long strings of button necklaces from my grandmother’s buttons.  Part of my work in Sri Lanka was teaching the...

It all started with the tarantula .  Amber awoke her 1st night  at 2 am  to find this furry friend scaling the walls erratically .  After the sleepless night she told Sunny who causally said " oh yeah there's always something crazy in the rooms, I'm sure it's fine".  Sunny goes in with the broom and looks behind the picture Amber said it hid behind, low and behold it was a brown /red haired big ass scary tarantula. Sunny screams Amber screams and eventually after moving the beds chairs and screaming some more the hairy beast is set free far outside with the broom. Amber picks up her pillow and wham.... A patch of the hair from the spider embeds in her arm causing a painful and itchy reaction. Sunny pulls each if the micro fiberglass like hairs from Ambers arm with tweezers . The girls from the orphanage next door all come running to see what all the excitement is about.  Hopefully it was not a poisonous spider.... But some people said it was and to see the ...