The start of something new
Welcome! This is my first blog post, so please bear with me while I try to figure out all the nitty gritty details of blogging while I go at it. With that said:
YAY!
As some of you might already know for a while now, I’ve been accepted into a program called ‘ACE’, which stands for American Conservation Experience. It’s main goal is twofold: to provide the various U.S. services with much needed help with regards to nature conservation in a wide radius around Flagstaff, AZ, and secondly to give (young) people a chance to develop themselves and their peers in an international group while doing that conservation work on a volunteer basis. Sure, it may be 40-hour working weeks, in sometimes bad conditions, but the ultimate goal for you and your fellow crewmembers is to be able to work through all that with a smile, and taking very much pride in the work you’ve finished together.
That is, in a nutshell, what ACE is about. Now, if you want to apply for this program, you must do so through a booking agent, because they only accept U.S.-based candidates directly. For Belgium, this booking agent is WEP, and I can fully attest to their competence. They’re very friendly people to communicate with, and you can always go and meet them on an ‘infoday’, which they organize on a regular basis throughout Belgium.
I’ve first seen this program in their brochure back when I was sixteen, but I had to wait until I was eighteen before I could register. Needless to say, my disappointment was fairly big when they then told me that there was an extra rule (at that time not mentioned in the brochure), that states that you must be 21 or older to participate during the summer months. I guess they introduced that one (WEP Belgium is the only booking agent for ACE that does this) to avoid possible problems with regards to the different views on the consumption of alcohol in Belgium and in the States. If you don’t already know, the legal age for alcohol in the U.S.A. is 21, and this is strictly enforced. You can’t even enter a bar without being asked for an ID.
Anyway, now that I’ve turned 21, I successfully applied for the program back in January, passed an interview (partly in English) with a WEP agent, got accepted, and started preparing to leave at the end of July. I’ll be in Arizona from the 14th of July until the eighth of September, at which point I’ll do some more visiting, and finally return back home the 16th.
My goal is to keep track of my adventures on this blog, so be sure to keep checking for more!
Steven