olympics are here!

It is now Day 3 of the Olympics. I have been busy, but enjoying myself. I got here on Friday morning, the day of the opening ceremonies. I didn't get to watch them myself, as I was busy working, but they looked fantastic. I have downloaded them from iTunes, and will be watching them in little bits and snatches.

My volunteer task has been interesting. I am a Load Zone Attendant at the Main Media Centre. For those of us who don't know what that is, I load the media (13,000 of them are here) on and off of the buses that take them to and from venues and their accommodations. It is not a glamorous job, but I am meeting a lot of interesting people on my volunteer shifts.

We are treated exceptionally well as volunteers, I must say. They clothe us (warmly), feed us well, and give us lots of breaks and rotations. And the food... well, I thought I would be eating McDonald's (as they are a sponsor), but we are actually fed well. Lunch was soup and a roll, a choice of sandwich (I had curry chicken salad on pumpkin bread), a piece of fruit, a double-packed Nature Valle granola bar, and a Coke-branded beverage. We can get Coke, Dasani, Five Alive, OJ, etc. It is pretty good. When we get sent off site to work (sometimes we are stationed at hotels rather than downtown) we are given a $15 per diem for lunch and another for dinner. I feel pretty well taken care of.

However, we are exposed to a fair amount of anti-Olympic sentiment. I was stationed on Denman outside the Coast Plaza Hotel, defending a poorly-signed Olympic bus zone. of the 10 vehicles I had to ask to move along, only one was polite. I had a lady yell at me (twice), another lady was poking me in the chest, asking "Do you work for the city? Then you can't tell me what to do!" This was among other incidents. The last one was when a driver was seriously half an inch from running over my toes (he peeled out midway through my "Sorry, this is a VANOC bus zone speech"). I decided at that point I had had enough, called my supervisor, and just said "I'm a volunteer, I'm not getting paid to step into traffic" and returned to the main depot at the Media Centre. They were fine with it. Unfortunately, there have been other problems as well. One of our volunteers was spit on, we've been called "VANOC Scumbags" among other things as well.

I am not surprised by these incidents. There are a great number of people that have been affected by bringing the Olympics here. However, it is not fair to take it out on the volunteers. We are here giving our time and energy to make this the best games they can be. Millions/billions of dollars have been spent - so let's show the world what BC can do, and not sour that investment. The money was misspent, but we need to make BC look amazing. Spitting on volunteers, throwing marbles at police, and smashing windows accomplishes nothing.

However, I will not let that spoil the good time that I am having. One of the chartered bus drivers, who is on contract from Chicago, said to me that he has NEVER seen the level of excitement in a city that he is seeing here, and he has worked world's fairs, superbowls, etc. I think that is amazing.

The Olympics are here. I am here, helping, and having a good time.

Go Canada GO!