The Jeep had been stolen, Reno finally admitted. Natalie and I were halfway across America by that point. We had been thumbing our way across the continent, our last hurrah as reckless teenagers. Reno and Penny had picked us up in Fox Creek, Arizona?a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, but with less sex appeal.

On day four with our new desperado friends, we drove into Forrest City, Arkansas. Natalie and I left our duffle bag in the car to go into a Wal-Mart to use the washroom. Reno and Penny were going to a gas station to ask directions. When we came out, the car was gone.

It was a chilly December night. The snow had begun to fall. We stood on the concrete, Natalie and I, the flakes coming down around us, the empty white lines of the parking lot stretching out like a field. We were 3,500 kilometres from home. In our pockets we had our wallets with ID, but no money. We had one cotton sweater between us.

It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Have you ever lost everything you thought you needed? Have you ever cleaned up your desk and found it easier to think? Have you ever gone on vacation and only used three out of the ten t-shirts you packed? When I was little, I used to wonder about the cartoon characters who set off on their adventures with nothing but a bundle tied to a stick. Where was the rest of their stuff?

Hello. My name is Max. I’m a 24-year-old student. My favourite color is green. And I am a minimalist.

A minimalist is someone who wants as few objects as possible. If this is you, you are the opposite of a hoarder. You will never be one of those TV types who lives alone with 27 felines in a massive house full of furniture left behind by three dead spouses. As I write this, I sit in the bedroom of my tiny basement suite. In the room there is a desk and a mattress. On the desk sits my laptop. There are two duffle bags full of clothing and essentials, like my passport. There is a closet that holds a few shoes and my tent. In a corner there is a pile of beat-up wooden furniture that is about to make its way to the alley. It took me an hour to move into this place (it was furnished). The move was completed when my girlfriend brought over a knife and fork from her place. She insisted, although I do fairly well with a metal camping spoon and my Leatherman pocketknife. Every day I commute on the Canada Line, the same line that goes past my regular stop and on to Vancouver International. In an instant I could be gone. In an hour, I could be on a flight to anywhere.

How do you become a minimalist? Like everything worthwhile, it takes time (except in those instances when You’re suddenly stranded in Arkansas without a toothbrush). You don’t have to throw a Molotov cocktail into your house and call it a day. Minimizing, keeping output high and intake low, is a lifestyle?something you do every day. And It’s very rewarding.

As a student, especially at a place like AU, where the nature of the institution attracts flexible, DIY types, minimizing is a ticket to good grades. Less clutter is guaranteed to boost your concentration. It’s also a money saver: Fewer payments on fewer big toys means more liquid assets, which means tons of flexibility. Honduras on a whim, here you go.

For a starter guide to minimizing, look below. It’s not an extensive list (that wouldn’t be very minimalistic of me). But It’s a sampling, and downsizing is easy and fun to figure out once you get started.

1. Get rid of something every day. This does not have to be wasteful. Give things to charity or thrift stores, or sell them at consignment shops and in classified advertisements. Kijiji will be your friend.

2. Digitalize your life. Banking and bill paying can all be done online. School notes, homework, and music can all be kept exclusively on a laptop. Only print out the essentials.

3. Spend money on experiences. Go bungee jumping instead of shopping. Attend an event or get involved with a community group. It doesn’t have to be a book club: Join a rock-climbing gym or take a carpentry class. You might even learn something?a rich alternative to owning another pair of blue suede shoes.

4. Move to a new place. This is a good way to start out fresh. Look for a furnished apartment so you don’t have to go through borrowing a friend’s truck every time you move.

5. Ditch the TV. This could go in with Step 1, but It’s such a big item that it deserves its own number. All our clocks are ticking. Every time we sit down in front of the boob tube, we’re inadvertently watching other people have adventurous, enriching, glamorous lives, while cheating ourselves out of the same experience. If you knew ahead of time that tomorrow afternoon a shoddy plywood construction tunnel would leave you crushed under a fallen pile of bricks, would you really be thinking about another House rerun or would you be doing things that mattered? Spend your time?and your money?on your dreams.

Standing in the parking lot with Natalie, I felt something lift from my shoulders. It was a mystifying sensation: a revelation. We had nothing. But we were still okay. I stood there frozen in my spot, not from the wind but from the freedom. Natalie was swearing a blue streak. Late-night shoppers looked at us. I swore and said something to make her feel better, pretending to be upset. But I was trying to stop myself from smiling. What we would do now, where we would go, I had no idea. But there was nothing tying me down, either. By the wrenching away of everything I had, my life had suddenly started.

(Read the continuation here.)

The night of the robbery was the first night of my life as a minimalist. The Wal-Mart was open 24 hours and we had nowhere else to go. Walking the aisles, feeling weightless, I realized the absurdity of all the needless things that people came to buy there every day. Plastic action figures and BPA-laden water bottles filled entire shelves. Hundreds of years from now I’d be dead, and the plastic bottles would still be sitting in a South American dump or floating in an ocean garbage patch.

How’s that for perspective?

Maybe by this point I’ve almost gotten you convinced. You’ve looked around at things in your house. The dead potted plants, the old souvenirs, and a bunch of electronic gear you don’t use anymore have been put out the door. You’ve gone through your closet and gotten rid of the clothing that you never wear. Books? Take them to a dealer. With a library card you can be as literate and unburdened as you want.

If You’re a beginner and intimidated by the prospect of getting rid of stuff, take your time. The downscaling process can be daunting, so start small?you don’t need to throw stuff away or sell everything of value just yet. If you have storage space, put away things that you don’t use. Leave them out of sight for a month or two to see if you miss them. If you can make do with seven t-shirts, you won’t need the dozen others that you put away. The same goes for shoes. And the same for kitchen gadgets. A good way to get priorities straight is to look around your home and decide what you would grab if the place were burning down. I would grab my journals and laptop.

Now the space around you looks bigger. The walls are brighter. You can see the carpet. While you were clearing the place up you realized how well this coincides with the season. It is spring cleaning time after all. Earth Day this weekend will have nothing on you. Since You’re already on the path, get rid of the pizza boxes that have been sitting in the kitchen for a month, and all the other ?just in case? containers. Cleaning up takes a lot less time once the extras are out of the picture.

This is beginning to feel good. You feel healthy, awake, and seem to have things under control. Now go over to your computer. Minimalism can go digital, too. If You’re a writer like I am, You’re bound to have early stage documents that just never made it further than your hard drive. Get rid of them. New ideas have room to grow when we rid ourselves of old ones.

Finally, go to your garage. Do you have a vehicle that requires too much maintenance for the amount of time you spend using it? How much money do you shell out on insurance every month, money that you could be using for a car sharing service? Because I live on the temperate West Coast, I’ve recently given up my car for a motorcycle, which saves a lot of money on insurance, maintenance, and fuel. To top that off, the emissions output is significantly lower.

By this point everything in your life is getting streamlined. You realize that you don’t need as much room anymore, and that moving is simple when you only have a few possessions. What about economizing a bit by moving into a house with friends? Take a room each; the rent will become almost nominal, no matter where you live.

With all that money you just saved, you can now treat yourself. Can you think of anything you’ve always wanted to do but never got around to doing? Now is the time to go skydiving or wine tasting. You can easily afford it. And no, gathering experiences does not count as hoarding.

It is also time to use your money on some fine goods. Did I just say that? I sure did. While you can almost certainly make do with some of the good things you spared from your previously congested life, it may be a good time to look at some new, longer-lasting gear. We all need things, just not too many. You’ve saved money by paring down on cumbersome one-purpose items, so now is the time to get creative and do some research on high-quality footwear, clothing, and other multi-purpose pieces. In my place there are no blankets; I simply use my sleeping bag. It will come with me when I go, and it won’t require a special comforter storage bag. Interestingly, there is an entire industry directed toward minimalists. It is up to you, though, to make sure you don’t get caught up in the gear game again. Simply stick with what you need.

Minimalism is not just for the student. Once you get into it, there’s a high chance that you’ll see the benefits and begin to enjoy it. Keeping your stuff to a minimum means competing with yourself. It also means that you will begin to measure yourself, and what you deem to be satisfying, in a new way.

You will also find common ground with some interesting people. A Google search will bring up innovators from all over the world, people who know that small is the new big. Jay Shafer, who has been pushing the benefits of small houses since 1997, is just one example. He is an excellent model of someone who has built his life and career around going small. The bottom line is, living as a minimalist is possible and is being done.

The post-robbery part of our trip was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was actually easier to travel with nothing. We arrived at my parents? place in Vancouver a week later on December 22. We had new thrift store jackets, but that was it. My back was light and empty. My brain was full.

On day four with our new desperado friends, we drove into Forrest City, Arkansas. Natalie and I left our duffle bag in the car to go into a Wal-Mart to use the washroom. Reno and Penny were going to a gas station to ask directions. When we came out, the car was gone.

It was a chilly December night. The snow had begun to fall. We stood on the concrete, Natalie and I, the flakes coming down around us, the empty white lines of the parking lot stretching out like a field. We were 3,500 kilometres from home. In our pockets we had our wallets with ID, but no money. We had one cotton sweater between us.

It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Have you ever lost everything you thought you needed? Have you ever cleaned up your desk and found it easier to think? Have you ever gone on vacation and only used three out of the ten t-shirts you packed? When I was little, I used to wonder about the cartoon characters who set off on their adventures with nothing but a bundle tied to a stick. Where was the rest of their stuff?

Hello. My name is Max. I’m a 24-year-old student. My favorite color is green. And I am a minimalist.

A minimalist is someone who wants as few objects as possible. If this is you, you are the opposite of a hoarder. You will never be one of those TV types who lives alone with 27 felines in a massive house full of furniture left behind by three dead spouses. As I write this, I sit in the bedroom of my tiny basement suite. In the room there is a desk and a mattress. On the desk sits my laptop. There are two duffel bags full of clothing and essentials, like my passport. There is a closet that holds a few shoes and my tent. In a corner there is a pile of beat-up wooden furniture that is about to make its way to the alley. It took me an hour to move into this place (it was furnished). The move was completed when my girlfriend brought over a knife and fork from her place. She insisted, although I do fairly well with a metal camping spoon and my Leatherman pocketknife. Every day I commute on the Canada Line, the same line that goes past my regular stop and on to Vancouver International. In an instant I could be gone. In an hour, I could be on a flight to anywhere.

How do you become a minimalist? Like everything worthwhile, it takes time (except in those instances when You’re suddenly stranded in Arkansas without a toothbrush). You don’t have to throw a Molotov cocktail into your house and call it a day. Minimizing, keeping output high and intake low, is a lifestyle?something you do every day. And It’s very rewarding.

As a student, especially at a place like AU where the nature of the institution attracts flexible, DIY types, minimizing is a ticket to good grades. Less clutter is guaranteed to boost your concentration. It’s also a money saver: fewer payments on fewer big toys means more liquid assets, which means tons of flexibility. Honduras on a whim, here you go.

For a starter guide to minimizing, look below. It’s not an extensive list (that wouldn’t be very minimalistic of me). But It’s a sampling, and downsizing is easy and fun to figure out once you get started.

1. Get rid of something every day. This does not have to be wasteful. Give things to charity or thrift stores, or sell them at consignment shops and in classified advertisements. Kijiji will be your friend.

2. Digitalize your life. Banking and bill paying can all be done online. School notes, homework, and music can all be kept exclusively on a laptop. Only print out the essentials.

3. Spend money on experiences. Go bungee jumping instead of shopping. Attend an event or get involved with a community group. It doesn’t have to be a book club: join a rock-climbing gym or take a carpentry class. You might even learn something?a rich alternative to owning another pair of blue suede shoes.

4. Move to a new place. This is a good way to start out fresh. Look for a furnished apartment so you don’t have to go through borrowing a friend’s truck every time you move.

5. Ditch the TV. This could go in with Step 1, but It’s such a big item that it deserves its own number. All our clocks are ticking. Every time we sit down in front of the boob tube, we’re inadvertently watching other people have adventurous, enriching, glamorous lives, while cheating ourselves out of the same experience. If you knew ahead of time that tomorrow afternoon a shoddy plywood construction tunnel would leave you crushed under a fallen pile of bricks, would you really be thinking about another House rerun or would you be doing things that mattered? Spend your time?and your money?on your dreams.

Standing in the parking lot with Natalie, I felt something lift from my shoulders. It was a mystifying sensation: a revelation. We had nothing. But we were still okay. I stood there frozen in my spot, not from the wind but from the freedom. Natalie was swearing a blue streak. Late-night shoppers looked at us. I swore and said something to make her feel better, pretending to be upset.

But I was trying to stop myself from smiling. What we would do now, where we would go, I had no idea. But there was nothing tying me down, either. By the wrenching away of everything I had, my life had suddenly started.

(To be continued.)

That summer we had started playing capture the flag in the cemetery a lot. Pat and James and I, and some other kids from school: the usual crowd. We’d sneak around and crouch behind the big tombstones late at night, talking on those little Motorola radios you can buy at Canadian Tire. Most of the time, it was awesome.

But one night in July there was nothing to do. Everyone else had gone up to the music festival in Pemberton, and the three of us had been drinking in the basement at Pat’s place.

?Let’s go down to the graveyard,? someone said. Maybe it was Pat, I don’t remember.

But we went. It was about midnight on a weekday and the back streets were quiet. It had been a wet summer, so the street glistened in the faint light. The Bacardi sloshed in the bottle as we raised it up and down and passed it on.

We got to the cemetery right there by Fraser Street. Lights were on across the street, and I wondered who in the world would buy a house beside a graveyard.

Toward the middle of the block, right where a gated road bisected the cemetery, there was an open grave and a big orange Cat sleeping soundly on its tracks. We tried the door to see if there was anything to mess with in there, but it was locked. When I was about to say we should go somewhere else, Pat jumped down into the grave. It was six feet deep. His forehead was underground, and his blonde head looked up at us.

?Dude . . . can you imagine . . .?

?No,? I said. I was drunk, but not that drunk.

Stop for a sec. I need to talk about Pat. He makes up his mind and no one can stop him. A year ago, when we were in Grade 10, Gordie from work said he’d give Pat a commission to steal his car and drive it out to an old road by the Britannia Mine and torch it for the insurance money. Only Gordie almost chickened out at the last minute, called Pat on his cell, and said, ?don’t do it!?

?So what does Pat do?? James told me later, breathless on the phone. ?He hot-wires the thing and takes it anyway.? And Gordie got the insurance money, no one the wiser. They actually got away with it.

So that night in the cemetery, Pat didn’t even hesitate when James said, ?I dare you . . .?

The next day we built a coffin out of plywood stolen from the Polygon site by the China Creek skate park. Easy enough. In the right corner of one end we left a hole about two inches by two inches, then went down to the hardware store and bought seven feet of PVC piping and a noodle-shaped angle joint that we welded on with crazy glue. That was to keep rain or dirt out.

?You sure you want to do this?? James asked. Maybe the dare had been one of those rhetorical ones. The crazy ones that people tell lies about, lies that everyone loves because they know they’re not true and they know no one would ever be dumb enough to take the dare, even if they got put on the spot.

Yup, Pat nodded. Hell’s yeah. That’d be it. This is why junk like this is worth it. Nobody could top a story like this.

First we planned to go in the woods by UBC to do it.

?Naw,? Pat said. ?Go big or go home, man.?

It was almost like this side of him I’d never met. Even more crazy than the first Pat, a version that had just showed up one day as we got older. Definitely not the blond kid whom I’d ridden BMXs and set off Amish bombs with since we first tried smoking at age seven.

Still, this was a kid who had once dived down and gone inside an old boat which had rotted and sunk by its moorings in False Creek. Breathed air from a bicycle tube which was linked to six others by duct tape, while one of us up top on the old dock held onto the end. But he hadn’t been down there for very long.

We drove out to the roads where we always went shooting with James? dad?the logging roads by the Britannia Mine where Pat had blown up the car. We parked the old red Subaru at a turnaround point 10 kilometres off the highway.

James had a nervous-horse thing going on, breathing fast through his nose and looking around. His hands were shaking. ?I don’t think you should do it,? he said.

Pat swore at him. ?Relax, dude,? he said. ?This is like that trust thing we do at school. You know, fall backwards off the chair into everybody’s arms.?

?I never did that,? James said.

?I did it once and I got dropped,? I interjected, and Pat just laughed.

The hole didn’t take long. The soil was wet and leafy. It always rained up here along the Sea to Sky. We had to take turns digging when we got further down, since only one guy could dig down there at a time.

I’ll never forget the way Pat lay down in the coffin. He folded his arms over his chest and shut his eyes, but kept looking up at us under his lashes, as if someone had not closed his eyes quite properly after he died.

?Stop it, That’s way too creepy,? I said.

We closed the lid and lowered him down on two nylon ropes from the car. Then we put the PVC air pipe into place and James jumped down and sealed around the edges with duct tape so dirt wouldn’t fall in. ?Are you sure You’re up to this?? he asked.

?I’m good,? Pat’s voice echoed. Maybe there was a tremor in it now. It was hard to tell with the noise coming up through the pipe.

James looked at me and I looked at him, and then we started to fill in the hole. The soft, dark earth made hollow thumps as it landed on the wooden lid.

Now there was just a low mound about six feet long. It felt weird talking down into a pipe. I had to lean way down and bend my head upward at an angle, like drinking from a water fountain. ?Pat? You there??

?Where the hell else would I be?? He sounded like he was calling on a pay phone from some distant country.

?Okay . . . we’re going now . . . Have a good night . . .? And then we walked away. We left the shovels and the rope right there to wait for us.

On the drive home, we didn’t look at each other.

The fog was rolling in from the ocean. I couldn’t even see the islands anymore. The rain came again and pelted the windshield.

?Whatever,? James said. ?He’ll be fine.?

?He’s got balls.”

Condensation lay thick on the windows. The heater in the old car only worked once in a while?usually only on the warmest days.

James broke the silence again. ?Can you wipe it off? I can’t see anything.?

?Sure.? There was a red rag in the glove compartment just for that.

I was wiping and James hit the button on the radio. Static. ?Man . . . It’s not my day.? He fiddled with the knob.

We were coming around a sharp bend when the truck hit us.

Just winged us, but it was enough to send us off the edge, plummeting toward the sea through the evergreens, tumbling us around like clothes in a dryer.

My last thought was the image of a crumpled car like the one on the back of the school agenda that every kid got to keep track of homework and classes. It was an ad against drunk driving.

Four days later I woke up in a hospital bed. I was on and off drugs for over three weeks. People came by to visit. Mom and Dad. James? parents, since we got moved into the same room. He was a lot worse off than I since he’d been on the driver’s side when we got hit. They kept wheeling him in and out for one operation or another?a brain scan, an x-ray?every day a different menu. Both his legs were up in splints and he was in a coma. His ribs had punctured both his lungs when they broke: a double tension-pneumothorax, someone said. Doctor talk for a closed sucking chest wound.

We’d stopped rolling right side up, half-in and half-out of the ocean by the rocky shore. The waves had been coming through the shattered windows. North Shore Rescue had been first on scene, and SARTECH had come from Comox with a chopper to lift us out.

For a while I was blind. Somebody, the same somebody with a deep voice whodunnits’d told me about James? chest, said my skull was fractured, that both orbital bones around my eyes were broken. I had broken ribs and a fractured wrist. But I would be okay. It was too early to know how long I’d be in physio.

I kept wondering, in the haze, why Pat hadn’t come by. We were best friends.

Then a VPD detective came to ask about him. Pat had disappeared on the day of the crash. Had he been with us?

That’s when I remembered.

I couldn’t shake my head. I couldn’t even talk properly because I’d nearly bit my tongue off when we were falling.

?I don’t know where he is,? I mumbled. ?I don’t know where he was that day.?

I have to keep on riding?what else can I do? In one village I stop for gas. Five elders and a few women are sitting under a thatched kitchen shelter on a bench made from the dried stems of palm branches. One of them is the Chairman of Refugees in that village.

?Bonjour, ça fait plaisir,? I say to him. I’ve been using my French a lot out here, much more than I ever did in Canada; many of the Ivorian refugees do not speak English.

But the language is where the cultural similarities stop.

During May, my first month in-country, I helped with the distribution of water tablets, buckets, and other items. The team was comprised of 10 Liberians and me, the only North American. We had been driving truckloads of supplies from a main warehouse in the town of Saclepea. The operation was constantly grinding to a halt due to vehicle breakdowns and fuel shortages; one problem with working in such rural areas is keeping a steady stream of supply and maintenance. At one point a woman came up to me near the village of Zwedru, saying her baby was sick. There was a clinic nearby that we had just resupplied, I told her. Dozens of other people came to me with questions. There were unregistered refugees in this-or-that town, when was help coming to them? It was surreal to be the 20-year-old that everyone was hanging onto for reassurance.

Aid work is very hard. No matter where you are, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East, you will be thrown into a myriad of cultural differences. In many places even the local language and village culture will be different if you drive two hours down the road. There is danger of malaria and other diseases. Very often you won’t see the benefits of the work immediately, though when you do, it is incredible. Gratitude is evident in the smiles of kids and elders who might not even speak your language. Working with the youth in a community?everyone’s back running with sweat as you dig or build in the hot sun?or meeting with local leaders to discuss projects is a life-enriching experience to which there are few equals. Then there is the matter of all the interesting food you will sample!

Working with an aid organization is a great way to achieve a wide world view, not to mention a different perspective for the next time you watch a 10-minute infomercial on giving surgery money to the adorable, teary-eyed child who has a cleft palate.

Margaret Fryer, 26, is the newly arrived Project Administrator for EQUIP. After graduating with a BA in linguistics from the University of Victoria and spending a year with a home-stay family in Yemen, she heard about the EQUIP position through a well-connected friend and knew instantly that it was right for her. ?I’ve always been interested in NGO operations and seeing the effects of aid work first-hand,? she says. ?This is a great chance for young people to take on responsibilities that they might not get the chance to in a Western context, since so many other people are also competing for those positions. You are thrown into things and you get to know your limits.?

For those who don’t have friends with connections like Margaret, websites like Idealist, NGOabroad, and uVolunteer are all great starting points for finding the organization that is best suited to your interests and areas of expertise or experience.

Once you’ve settled on an organization, how best to prepare yourself for the tough-but-rewarding volunteer experience? First, read up on the country You’re going to?and do it thoroughly. What is the social/economic situation (and what is the likelihood of a war breaking out while You’re there)? It is also a good idea try to get a grasp of some of the local language. This can be difficult on a continent like Africa, where many of the languages are spoken by only a small demographic and have not been put into written form. You may just have to learn when you arrive, so go with a very open mind.

It is also crucial to find out what medicines or vaccines you need?just as important as bringing a swimsuit, a strong work ethic, and a positive attitude. Finally, pack light, don’t take yourself too seriously, and invest in a good travel insurance plan. You’ll be just as thankful as I was when my hotel got broken into and everything except my toothbrush disappeared into the African night.

So how did I find my way out of the jungle? I asked for more directions, of course. Even Africa can feel like good old Canada once or twice a year. After riding around hopelessly for six hours I gave up on finding the work crew. Instead I asked for directions to Toweh’s Town, a name that doesn’t rhyme with 12 others in the same 20-kilometre radius. Most importantly, from Toweh Town I knew how to get out of the bush?and back onto the main road.

After five hours, I admit to being lost.

I’ve been riding through the African jungle on my slick-tire Chinese street bike. The mud covers everything; my boots are saturated and my Denver Hayes jacket is red from the rich soil.

I had spent the night in the village of Gblarlay, where I met the chief, sat drinking palm wine with him, and then went to sleep shirtless on the thin mattress in a mud hut, sweat running down my sides, the crickets and jungle sounds enveloping me. In the morning I ate rice and potato greens with smoked fish from the Cestos River, the border river that the refugees from Ivory Coast have been crossing in dugouts. I thanked my hosts and set off on the bike to find the work crew I was supposed to be supervising. They had been busy for two days hauling sand for a water and sanitation project in Butuo.

I rode from village to village, asking directions. Everywhere on the path the small tributary trails slid away out of sight into the cassava and banana trees. Women and children wrapped in sarongs and carrying firewood bundles on their heads flitted into the bush on the side of the trail as I rode by. Finally, I stopped to ask directions. Did I really mean Butuo, the villagers wanted to know, or Bealatu? Or was it perhaps Beadatuo or Beatuo? They pointed me down trail after trail, directing me in colloquial English. The jungle became thicker around me. The warm rain came in squalls every half hour. I crossed over mossy, one-log bridges, holding my breath.

My name is Max. I’m serving as a volunteer in West Africa?but by night, I’m an AU student.

Have you ever looked up from your studies and wished you were somewhere else? Did you ever groan at the endless pile of books, wishing you could find a shortcut? Most of us have learned by now that there are no shortcuts, but studying online gives a flexibility that allows at least a change of scene. If You’re learning from a distance, why do it at home? In fact, why do it in Canada at all?

At the time that I write I’m living at a house called Silver Beach in a suburb of Monrovia, Liberia. For months I’ve been up in the ?bush,? working at a leprosy rehabilitation centre near the town of Ganta. I’ve ridden hundreds of kilometres on my motorcycle, helping with well construction and distributing essential non-food items to the refugee population created by the civil war next door in Ivory Coast. I’ve lived in the bush for days on end with my Liberian co-workers. Tonight after work at the office in Monrovia, I will walk 50 metres to the lukewarm Atlantic and go surfing on the mighty rainy season waves. When the darkness falls, I will go inside, sit down at my desk, and do some homework for my Athabasca University classes.

The only problem? I might have to wait for the Internet to start working so I can hand in my assignments. In the scheme of things here, That’s no big deal.

The non-governmental organization EQUIP Liberia, with which I’m volunteering, has served long-standing needs in this war-shattered country since 1998. The EQUIP Country Director David Waines is an eccentric, Vancouver-born Canadian expatriate who has made his life?and raised a family?here since 1986. He was in-country for almost the entire 14-year civil war and genocide (1989-2003), serving the people by bringing in medicines and vaccines when every other person with money or connections had already evacuated.

There are now over 80 international NGOs registered in Liberia and hundreds all over Africa. The most common question I get from North American friends with cabin fever is ?How did you get involved?? How did a ski patroller and part-time student from Vancouver land a volunteer position in Africa?

The answer is as easy as firing off an email to an organization?and asking what they’re looking for. Some really adventurous few have even obtained the right visas, packed a small bag, and set off for Africa on their own. On a continent where white Land Cruisers emblazoned with aid organization logos abound, finding an unpaid position comes easily. Much help is needed.

In fact, the great trouble that most NGOs face is finding good help. It’s important to do your research, though. For example, be sure to know what your time commitment is; most organizations want people for six months to a year, though many are set up specifically to accommodate people who can only do shorter terms. Some organizations will even pay for your plane ticket if they think You’re open-minded and flexible (crazy) enough to take on new challenges and unexpected ?work details.?

If It’s a longer-term, paid position You’re eventually hoping for, all you usually have to do is stick around with the organization long enough. If you really want to advance yourself in the area it might be a good plan to volunteer for a year or two first, then head back home to get your Master’s in Public Health.

Even if you don’t want a career with UNICEF, getting away from the North American rat race for a year might be the best thing you’ll ever do for yourself.

?It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love,? says Waines. ?We have 400,000 people to help today, and we could really use a hand. Partnership and exchange is always very healthy and very important in this type of work. The partnership between locals and international volunteers is very beneficial. It gives the people hope.?

So how did I find my way out of the jungle? Come back for Part II of the adventure next week?and find out how to get started on an adventure of your own.

I remember jumping out of the slowly moving vehicle on Route Brown, watching where we stepped as we set up ambushes in the grape fields, hoping the ground wouldn’t blow up beneath us.

I remember the entire body of troops, hundreds of men and women in the desert uniform, our hands pinned rigidly in the long salute as the sun set over Kandahar Airfield. To the wail of the bagpipes the flag-draped casket was carried slowly up the ramp of the C-17 Globemaster.

Most Canadians will never have seen it, but a handful will never forget it.

Every year the schoolkids write essays describing what Remembrance Day means to them. But the truth is, to a large number of Canadian adults Remembrance Day doesn’t hold a lot of meaning. To many It’s a day off: a day off school or work, a Day of the Pillow, a Day of the Remote (while carefully avoiding the CBC). It’s kind of sadly ironic that so many people forget about what is supposed to be our day of remembrance.

Granted, we have to be realistic: the reasons for remembering aren’t in the common experience. In a quiet country like Canada, where most people will apologize to someone who has just stepped on their foot, it is easy to file war and sacrifice in the bottom drawer. There are so few people left who fought during the Great Wars and Korea. Everyone knows about peacekeeping missions in general, but very few Canadians could describe what ?peacekeeping? really means. Perhaps we have a vague image of men in blue helmets outlined against bombed-out Bosnian towns?or a dusty television clip?but for most people, that is as far it goes.

What about the conflict in Afghanistan? Most people know there is a war going on somewhere, but judging from the number of people who’ve looked me in the eye and said that in their opinion Canada should get out of Iraq, most of them are both unconcerned and uninformed. Unfortunately this applies particularly to my own generation?the next leaders of the country.

My parents emigrated from the neutral country of Sweden in 1973. They had very little idea what Remembrance Day was all about until one October morning, when their son got on the grey-painted military airliner and flew off to Afghanistan. What I had been trying to explain since the start of my cadet years was suddenly at the front of their minds. Every day for the next six months they would stop for a minute and wonder, ?Is he dead now and I don’t know it yet?? The same question has been asked by many households in this country, and sometimes the parents haven’t been so lucky.

Furthermore, it is not just the dead we must remember. Countless Canadians have been permanently injured in the service. Enter any Canadian Forces base, from Edmonton to Gagetown, and you will see men in their 20s working to rebuild their lives on the running track with their new prosthetic limbs. You might see someone rolling up to the mess hall by use of the wheelchair ramps.

But how can the average person relate? If you don’t know any soldiers, or don’t have relatives who once fought, how do you get a sense of all those faceless people? Perhaps parachute flares and crimson tracer bullets will never light up the night sky above your head, but everyone aged 15 and older remembers where they were when the Twin Towers went down. Do you know a police officer or firefighter? This is their day as well: whether we know the specifics or not, we all owe something to the people who patrol our streets and wait for the fires that may break out in our homes. Some perish in the line of duty, too?like the four RCMP officers who were killed near Mayerthorpe, Alberta in the spring of 2005.

This year is an important time in the annals of the Canadian Forces: it is the beginning of the end of Canada’s nearly decade-long mission in Afghanistan. While a smaller body of personnel will stay behind to train local police and military, the time of actively routing Taliban fighters is running out as far as Canadian troops are concerned. Already there is a new mission in Libya, although how big it will get or how long it will draw itself out is yet to be determined. As veterans from the old times depart, new ones take their place. But even if someday there are no visible symbols of war and sacrifice, Remembrance Day must never stop.

On this day, 11/11/11, go downtown, to the cenotaph, or the stadium and join with the others who have decided that today will not be a Day of the Pillow. It is a day to hear the guns fire in salute and to hear the bagpipes of the local reserve regiment. It is a time to get together as a community. It is not a day for politics. It is not a day of fear-mongering or propaganda. If anything it is a day of peace, a day when everyone from every corner of the country, from Cape Spear in Newfoundland to Masset, Haida Gwaii, comes together to be thankful and mournful at the same time.

But one night in July there was nothing to do. Everyone else had gone up to the music festival in Pemberton, and the three of us had been drinking in the basement at Pat’s place.

?Let’s go down to the graveyard,? someone said. Maybe it was Pat, I don’t remember.

But we went. It was about midnight on a weekday and the back streets were quiet. It had been a wet summer, so the street glistened in the faint light. The Bacardi sloshed in the bottle as we raised it up and down and passed it on.

We got to the cemetery right there by Fraser Street. Lights were on across the street, and I wondered who in the world would buy a house beside a graveyard.
Toward the middle of the block, right where a gated road bisected the cemetery, there was an open grave and a big orange Cat sleeping soundly on its tracks. We tried the door to see if there was anything to mess with in there, but it was locked. When I was about to say we should go somewhere else, Pat jumped down into the grave. It was six feet deep. His forehead was underground, and his blonde head looked up at us.

?Dude . . . can you imagine . . .?

?No,? I said. I was drunk, but not that drunk.

Stop for a sec. I need to talk about Pat. He makes up his mind and no one can stop him. A year ago, when we were in Grade 10, Gordie from work said he’d give Pat a commission to steal his car and drive it out to an old road by the Britannia Mine and torch it for the insurance money. Only Gordie almost chickened out at the last minute, called Pat on his cell, and said, ?don’t do it!?

?So what does Pat do?? James told me later, breathless on the phone. ?He hot-wires the thing and takes it anyway.? And Gordie got the insurance money, no one the wiser. They actually got away with it.

So that night in the cemetery, Pat didn’t even hesitate when James said, ?I dare you . . .?

The next day we built a coffin out of plywood stolen from the Polygon site by the China Creek skate park. Easy enough. In the right corner of one end we left a hole about two inches by two inches, then went down to the hardware store and bought seven feet of PVC piping and a noodle-shaped angle joint that we welded on with crazy glue. That was to keep rain or dirt out.

?You sure you want to do this?? James asked. Maybe the dare had been one of those rhetorical ones. The crazy ones that people tell lies about, lies that everyone loves because they know they’re not true and they know no one would ever be dumb enough to take the dare, even if they got put on the spot.

Yup, Pat nodded. Hell’s yeah. That’d be it. This is why junk like this is worth it. Nobody could top a story like this.

First we planned to go in the woods by UBC to do it.

?Naw,? Pat said. ?Go big or go home, man.?

It was almost like this side of him I’d never met. Even more crazy than the first Pat, a version that had just showed up one day as we got older. Definitely not the blond kid whom I’d ridden BMXs and set off Amish bombs with since we first tried smoking at age seven.

Still, this was a kid who had once dived down and gone inside an old boat which had rotted and sunk by its moorings in False Creek. Breathed air from a bicycle tube which was linked to six others by duct tape, while one of us up top on the old dock held onto the end. But he hadn’t been down there for very long.

We drove out to the roads where we always went shooting with James? dad?the logging roads by the Britannia Mine where Pat had blown up the car. We parked the old red Subaru at a turnaround point 10 kilometres off the highway.
James had a nervous-horse thing going on, breathing fast through his nose and looking around. His hands were shaking. ?I don’t think you should do it,? he said.

Pat swore at him. ?Relax, dude,? he said. ?This is like that trust thing we do at school. You know, fall backwards off the chair into everybody’s arms.?

?I never did that,? James said.

?I did it once and I got dropped,? I interjected, and Pat just laughed.

The hole didn’t take long. The soil was wet and leafy. It always rained up here along the Sea to Sky. We had to take turns digging when we got further down, since only one guy could dig down there at a time.

I’ll never forget the way Pat lay down in the coffin. He folded his arms over his chest and shut his eyes, but kept looking up at us under his lashes, as if someone had not closed his eyes quite properly after he died.

?Stop it, That’s way too creepy,? I said.

We closed the lid and lowered him down on two nylon ropes from the car. Then we put the PVC air pipe into place and James jumped down and sealed around the edges with duct tape so dirt wouldn’t fall in. ?Are you sure You’re up to this?? he asked.

?I’m good,? Pat’s voice echoed. Maybe there was a tremor in it now. It was hard to tell with the noise coming up through the pipe.

James looked at me and I looked at him, and then we started to fill in the hole. The soft, dark earth made hollow thumps as it landed on the wooden lid.

Now there was just a low mound about six feet long. It felt weird talking down into a pipe. I had to lean way down and bend my head upward at an angle, like drinking from a water fountain. ?Pat? You there??

?Where the hell else would I be?? He sounded like he was calling on a pay phone from some distant country.

?Okay . . . we’re going now . . . Have a good night . . .? And then we walked away. We left the shovels and the rope right there to wait for us.

On the drive home, we didn’t look at each other.

The fog was rolling in from the ocean. I couldn’t even see the islands anymore. The rain came again and pelted the windshield.

?Whatever,? James said. ?He’ll be fine.?

?He’s got balls.”

Condensation lay thick on the windows. The heater in the old car only worked once in a while?usually only on the warmest days.

James broke the silence again. ?Can you wipe it off? I can’t see anything.?

?Sure.? There was a red rag in the glove compartment just for that.

I was wiping and James hit the button on the radio. Static. ?Man . . . It’s not my day.? He fiddled with the knob.

We were coming around a sharp bend when the truck hit us.

Just winged us, but it was enough to send us off the edge, plummeting toward the sea through the evergreens, tumbling us around like clothes in a dryer.

My last thought was the image of a crumpled car like the one on the back of the school agenda that every kid got to keep track of homework and classes. It was an ad against drunk driving.

Four days later I woke up in a hospital bed. I was on and off drugs for over three weeks. People came by to visit. Mom and Dad. James? parents, since we got moved into the same room. He was a lot worse off than I since he’d been on the driver’s side when we got hit. They kept wheeling him in and out for one operation or another?a brain scan, an x-ray?every day a different menu. Both his legs were up in splints and he was in a coma. His ribs had punctured both his lungs when they broke: a double tension-pneumothorax, someone said. Doctor talk for a closed sucking chest wound.

We’d stopped rolling right side up, half-in and half-out of the ocean by the rocky shore. The waves had been coming through the shattered windows. North Shore Rescue had been first on scene, and SARTECH had come from Comox with a chopper to lift us out.

For a while I was blind. Somebody, the same somebody with a deep voice whodunnits’d told me about James? chest, said my skull was fractured, that both orbital bones around my eyes were broken. I had broken ribs and a fractured wrist. But I would be okay. It was too early to know how long I’d be in physio.

I kept wondering, in the haze, why Pat hadn’t come by. We were best friends.

Then a VPD detective came to ask about him. Pat had disappeared on the day of the crash. Had he been with us?

That’s when I remembered.

I couldn’t shake my head. I couldn’t even talk properly because I’d nearly bit my tongue off when we were falling.

?I don’t know where he is,? I mumbled. ?I don’t know where he was that day.?