A little intro for those of you I don't know reading this blog (am I maybe a little overly-optimistic?): My name is David Kemp and I'm one semester away from graduating with a B.A. in International Relations from UBC-O (UBC's less-known little brother in the Okanagan). I decided to take the semester off to volunteer at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics the second the volunteer opportunities opened up and I've been stupidly excited ever since.
As to my role here, I got slotted into a program called the NOC (National Olympic Committee) Assistants because of my ability to commit for the entire Olympics and the fact that I speak a few languages (fluent French, decent German, and gringo Spanish). The job of the NOC Assistants is to deal with one country's delegation and help them with basically everything. If they need translation done, we do it; if they need to be driven somewhere, we're the ones with the keys in hand; if they want a tour guide for the day, then we'll be stomping the Whistler streets with them. It should be really interesting because we get to follow the delegation around and see the inner workings of the games.
So what delegation am I with? I was put with the Swiss off the bat because of my German and French, but as Im learning very quickly, nothing is concrete at the Olympics! Because of athletes qualifying, dropping out, etc., team's needs change and so now after being shuffled around a few times I am finally with.....
Algeria!
As stunned as I was that such a hot, arid country would have Olympic athletes (in Torino they had a cross country skier and a downhill skier), I can't wait because I've been told that with small delegations you get to literally do everything! So right now I'm brushing up on my non-existent Arabic in hopes that I might be able to decipher some of their conversations by the end of the Games. Luckily, French is also an official language, so I'm set just in case my Arabic isn't quite up to snuff by the time they arrive in the next few days!
Right now everything is mostly quiet - the Olympic Village is largely deserted, the Whistler Village is sparsely populated, and only a few teams are starting to slowly arrive. But already, we're seeing the skeleton of what will be the full Olympic infrastructure come Games-time. To put it lightly, I can feel the electricity in the air already as Whistler gets ready to explode in the next week.
I'll keep you all posted!
