Wow. I just want to say that I am thrilled to be a part of this and that it is such a great idea and a wonderful way to stay in touch. I’m not sure where to begin or how much I will write, so please be patient as I ramble on. I think that I may not be alone in feeling that this task is ridiculously huge, to give everyone a glimpse into my life after this time apart. I know that I have always taken friendship for granted in some way, because it’s always been easy to remain in contact with people at the same school, when you see each other nearly every day, but now I’m realizing what effort it takes to maintain a true contact with those who are physically farther away.
So, to keep some sort of order, I will attempt to keep this chronological. My summer was spent working for my father’s aerial photography company, based out of Toronto, but travelling around to various job sites in Quebec, Ontario and then Ecuador. My parents sold their house this spring, and moved into a one-bedroom apartment in May. I stayed in the partly converted sun room, with a makeshift bed cut to fit, with most of my things in a storage room, but spent so much time away from home due to work, it mostly worked out. It’s interesting because I’ve never felt a strong connection to Toronto, and this summer I was hardly there, but I now think that maybe I could end up there at some point.
At the end of July I headed down to Ecuador, flying down in the tiny twin engine airplane that we were going to be using for our work down there. We (my pilot and I) took four days to get from Toronto to Guayaquil, and most of our delays were due to customs issues. Our first day took us down to Fort Lauderdale, where we had to pick up a new GPS system for the airplane because the built-in system only had precise information up until Panama. The next day, after picking up the system, and after organizing an over-flight permit for Cuba, we flew into Kingston, Jamaica. We were planning on going straight through that same day to Panama, but ended up being held up by island time. It took a few hours to clear through customs and immigration, and by the time we started getting our fuel, we were told that they couldn’t accept credit card payment and that all of the banks, in which we could change travelers’ cheques, were closed. So we spent the night, leaving around the middle of the following day, and going down to Panama. We arrived in the heart of a huge thunderstorm, and luckily the clouds cleared just enough in the minute before our landing so that we could see the runway. Our flights always took us nearly to the end of our fuel reserves.
In Panama, we were suddenly immersed in Spanish, which neither my pilot or I spoke properly; our month of being lost in translation had begun. We arrived and were whisked away by a trio of men from an agency that assists foreign aircraft and crew, and were given muddled Spanglish instructions on what to do the following morning. All that we understood was that we would likely be picked up in the morning from the hotel where they brought us, and that they would organize our flight to Ecuador. The following morning, sure enough, we got a phone call from someone in their organization, and I tried to use what little Spanish I knew to communicate our intentions, and we waited in the lobby of the hotel to try to determine the best plan of action on how we could fly out with all of the storms around. At the airport we were assured that everything was taken care of for our flight to Ecuador, the most terrifying stretch of the journey because it was almost all over open-ocean.
Halfway through the flight, we got a radio call from Cali, Colombia, over whose airspace we were flying. They stated that we did not have the requisite permits and that we had to turn back to Panama and wait for the permits – for Colombian airspace as well as for Ecuadorian landing – to go through. Not only did we not have enough fuel to legally fly the distance back to Panama, there were such storms in Panama that we didn’t dare to do it on such short fuel reserves. Eventually we convinced Cali that we were in fact allowed to land in Ecuador, and that we didn’t really have any choice anyway, and continued on our way, but it was a very stressful twenty minutes in the air over Colombia. We had no idea what the Colombians would do to us if we didn’t comply, but also knew that we had to keep going in order to land safely.
Guayaquil was an interesting experience. Because we were always on call, waiting for sunny weather (which hardly ever came), we didn’t ever get a chance to see any more of the country than that one city. And because I was there with my pilot who refused to do any cultural activities, and I was not allowed to go out on my own, I didn’t really even see much of what the city had to offer. Nevertheless, it was an exciting opportunity to attempt to learn rudimentary Spanish, and the city itself seems like it could be a really cool place to be. All the same, life on the road wore me down, and by the end of August I was desperate to go home.
I spent two weeks in Toronto, mostly saying goodbye and packing everything that I owned into boxes and bringing them to a storage room, trying to wrap my head around how I felt about my now-familiar feeling of homelessness. I had planned an extensive trip to Europe for this year, allowing myself to believe that I wanted to move to Berlin, or somewhere equally exciting, but really having no idea what I would be doing after the beginning of October, my cousin’s wedding.
My trip began with two weeks in Rotterdam, visiting my sister and winding down after the stress of the summer. Most of that time was spent figuring out where to go next, in terms of my travels but also in terms of real plans for the future. I began for the first time to realize how King’s never taught us where we could go next, but rather just left us with the vague feeling that we could go anywhere. And Anywhere is a pretty huge place to start looking for a future.
Since the beginning of October, I have been spending my time trying to get to know my family in Vienna and in Innsbruck, trying to pay attention to photos and stories that have always seemed so far away. My father moved to Canada with his family when he was two years old, and now his siblings have almost all moved out west; with the exception of one sister in Niagara Falls and his mother in Mississauga, my immediate family has hardly any tangible connection with this far-flung family. My mother moved to Toronto when she was 19 years old and had gotten married to my father (that is a long story in itself, but they met in Austria, had a two-year long correspondence in which they “dated”, and then were married in Austria as she was finishing her high school exams), leaving the rest of her family over here. It was interesting to read Orion’s comment about roots and rootedness, and the desire for community, because I have often felt uprooted, without home, without a stable starting point. My father’s parents moved their entire family to Canada in an attempt to escape the burden of history, and then my mother also emigrated and left everything behind. I feel like these decisions came out of a willingness to erase the family, erase all ties, and those are the threads which I am now attempting to gather together into some sort of tapestry, however patchwork and bare.
In Vienna, my paternal grandfather was born the youngest of five. His grandfather had emigrated from Italy, and had found employment as the accountant for the Habsburg family. Religiously speaking, he was from the Greek Orthodox church (some generations back I have roots in Greece), and was furious when his son decided to marry an Austrian catholic. My grandfather’s older brother, Gilbert, had three daughters, one of whom I stayed with, my father’s cousin Monika. My father’s immediate family, however, are the only Giannelias left in the world. I feel a kind of responsibility to the name and to the history, this family of wanderers who had moved on, changed names, changed citizenship, changed religion, and hardly ever stayed put.
Monika told me about the family gossip and intrigue from the 20th century, the Viennese century: the distant uncle who had three children through an affair with a woman, who he then set up in a house which his “legitimate” children were supposed otherwise to inherit; the great-grandmother who would stand in the doorway of their downtown tobacco shop screaming about the Nazis in 1940 Vienna; another distant uncle who had found a way to give Greek citizenship to a Jewish family, and then later fled to France, leaving behind a wife and four children; Hans (my grandfather) meeting my grandmother, who 10 years later would decide to move the entire family to Canada; the gambling problems of the two Giannelia brothers who never could hold on to their money, &c, &c. I would look at the distant photographs, the old portraits of the Giannelias with their crazy monarchist beards, and begin to get a glimmer of understanding that this was my family, the family who had been left behind in the search for peace and a future in the new world. I am now also starting to realize the power of the concept “new world,” a place not so darkened by the shadows of death and war and human catastrophe.
I left Vienna at the end of October, making it to Innsbruck for Halloween – not a tradition – and Alle Heiligen, or “All Saint’s Day”, which is very much a tradition. On the first of November, all the cemeteries hold a service to remember the dead. It is a national holiday, everything is closed, and all you can hear are the bells. The times of the services are staggered, to allow each person the opportunity to go to all of the different cemeteries where their families lie. I went with my Oma (my mother’s mother) to two different cemeteries, one for my grandfather and his brother, and the other where the rest of her family rests. We met with different distant relatives in both cemeteries, and the roads were filled with people all on their way somewhere. This holiday is something that I can’t remember ever hearing about, a method of remembrance that lies so far outside of my immediate family experience, and I felt incredibly lucky to be able to spend the time here.
Every year on the first of November, my grandmother makes a “Kugelhupf”, a delicious cake with almonds, as well as a simple meal, and invites everyone over for coffee and cake after the cemeteries. The entire experience is a whole day long affair, because many people go to different places and spend time with different parts of their families (such as my cousins with their long-term girlfriends who have become family by now), and Oma and I just stayed at her apartment as the other relatives came and went. I heard stories about my Czechish great-grandmother and her three sisters, about my grandfather and his family, and tried to take it all in.
Since then, I’ve been spending most of my days with my Oma, probing her for more stories and spending hours poring over photo albums. I’ve now seen photos of her kindergarten class, photos of her climbing mountains with an aunt at the age of 8, the wedding photo of my great-grandparents, and baby photos of my mother and her brothers. I’ve heard about my great-grandmother’s sisters, none of whom had any children and hardly any luck, and about my grandfather trying to convince his parents that he should be allowed to go to art school. All around this apartment are examples of his work, clay sculptures and ceramics mostly, but also paintings, miniature books, jewelry, tinwork and more, although he never did get to follow his dreams as an art student. My mother has told me how every night when he got home from work (he worked as a city official of some sort, I’m not sure of the details, but I know that he organized wedding certificates and did some work with food quality control), he would spread out all of his art supplies and begin to work.
My Oma and I talk every day, about politics, the state of today’s youth, the idea of marriage and motherhood, and how to live well in the world. She laughs about how she is so old fashioned, and I assure her that she is supposed to be old fashioned at the age of 85. We speak in German (she learned English in school, but never spoke it since), and I struggle to keep up with the complexity of the stories. I kick myself everyday for never having taken a German language course, for not being able to better understand my family. I’m trying to write down the stories, to keep them fresh, but it almost feels fresher when they are not written on a page. My ideas about language, writing and translation are becoming stronger, truly taking shape as I try to understand my personal roots through the sometimes-hilarious process of misunderstanding. Every day I feel my German becoming stronger, and I’ve even started to understand a few jokes!
I am now more than halfway through my trip, and the slow pace of my life is starting to feel normal. Most of my time is spent chatting with my Oma or some cousins, and then I do some reading or writing when I feel motivated. I try to go on a walk every day, attempting to take advantage of the glorious mountains that surround me on all sides. I am looking forward to going back to Canada in January, but I feel like the unknown that faces me in Europe now (where to go next, who to stay with, what to see, &c) is somehow more bearable than that which I am going to hurtle into in the new year. Grad school? A job? A new apartment? So-called “real life”? So, as I venture into the unknown, I gather strength from all that I read here, and am aware that travelling has a knack for illuminating the ordinary. Now that I am becoming closer to my roots, I am also feeling more confident in my ability to bring something important to life, over in the new world.
Best wishes from across the ocean,
Melina
Friday, November 12, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sebastian
I love hanging out in Motels all alone! I am totally jonesin’ around all over the place in room 11 of the Last Port Motel in Canso, Nova Scotia. You don’t know where that is? Canso is at the pee hole of the Northern Nova Scotia peninsula. I drove here in the dark, talking to myself to stay awake. This was out of necessity because the Tim Horton’s coffee product doesn’t have enough caffeine. I had to drink Tim Dog’s because there isn’t much of a market for the fresh roasted, grinded and brewed beans in rural Nova Scotia in November. Isn’t the drive through line just so much more appealing then being served some by a groovy hippy? Did you know Slim Horton doesn’t even brew real coffee anymore? Earlier this year they switched to the instant stuff without telling anyone. Well, no one noticed, so after a few months they spilled the beans. Anyway, back to what you really want to hear about - me. I was driving along, all tired like. Just when I needed it most, my good buddy Caleb calls me up. Boy, was he excited.
“Seb! Have you heard about EARTHSHIPS?”
I’m happy to be on the same team as Caleb. Especially now that he is excited about earthships. GOOGLE. Earthships are low impact, high efficiency homes built mostly from recycled and natural materials. They are the coolest. Most of them are off the grid, use very little energy and produce most or all of the energy they do use themselves. The most common type seems to be built half below ground, half above, using old tires and mud. Caleb wants to build one. I want to help build one and then build at least twelve more.
Maybe you’ve heard some conversing about acquiring some land as a group. Some people seem to be interested, and it’s great to hear the excitement. Land in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is cheap. It’s really cheap, and it is also beautiful and fertile. With a little bit of effort and one less cup of Tim’s a day, in a few years we could be digging our very own earthship holes. Seriously though, in the near-distant future (?) we could all be kicking back in futuristic mud huts. Let that process while I spin some groovy tales:
In October, over Thanksgiving, I spent some time in New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta. Coincidentally, at the same time my cousin Caitlyn was getting married to Steve, who just so happens to be one of the best dudes. They met at Middlebury where they were both studied fine arts. They love each other so much they decided to get married. The wedding was beautiful and simple. My grandfather presided over the non-denominational ceremony, which was awkward because Steve’s parents are fundamentalist Christians (his Dad is one of the boss men).
It was great to spend time with family and friends during such a festive love party, but I was just happy to be back in New Mexico. I was born there, in Albuquerque, where my family lived until I was 5. I don’t remember much from those days, and I don’t get to spend much time there. When I am lucky enough to be back in “The Land of Enchantment” (state nickname) do I feel a strong connection with the landscape, the people, the art, and maybe most importantly, the food. The red chile ristras are hanging anywhere anything can be hung. The green chile roasters are roastin’ in most of the vacant lots, where the smell is sure to gather in your good weather clothes.
New Mexican cuisine is unlike Texican food in that it is less greasy, less fried, but still sort of greasy and sort of fried, and it should always be smothered in red or green chile sauce. Much of it is meaty, but I spent most of the trip with my vegetarian brother and sister in (sort of) law, Elijah and Moorea, and they were never unsatisfied. Even my vegan cousin Sarah was happy, but she’s been known to cheat the cheese rules.
I also mentioned art. Albuquerque is where my dad studied fine art and where he began his career painting and doing graphic design. It is where the newly wed couple moved to pursue careers in art. When I spent a summer there a few years ago, I found work with an artist named Allan who only paid me in cash, disappeared for a few hours at a time every afternoon, and had a tear-drop birthmark/tattoo (?) below his left eye. What I’m getting at is that there are all kinds artists all over the place, and that might sound like the worst, but it is amazing because people really appreciate art. Art art art art. Public art is everywhere: on the highways, parks, buildings, street corners, etc. Most of it is reminiscent of the ideas that stem from the people of New Mexico’s roots. It’s a fine blend of Peublo Indian, Mexican and American. Earthy with a hint of turquoise. I guess it is the same aesthetic behind the Adobe style architecture that is everywhere.
One of the greatest parts of being in New Mexico is getting to know the friends my parents had when they were my age. My brother and I decided it would be worthwhile to pursue a career in time travel in order to be able to hang out with them our-age parents in the 70’s. One of them was my dad’s old roommate Ken, now living in Taos. In a gas-mobile, you can get to Taos from Albuquerque in three hours. The driving is nothing, though, because the landscapes are so hot! New Mexico isn’t all deserts, although if you ask me, the desert is some of the best scenery.
Beyond the billboards littered along most highways (My dad was proud to point out that the now-metal sings are the solution to the relentless war that he fought - with axe and saw - against what used to be wooden bill-board posts) are vast stretches of open, empty land covered with sagebrush. I couldn’t stop humming THIS. In fact, you should probably let that play as you continue reading. There are also mesas and plateaus, beyond those are mountains. Lots of mountain ranges: the Jemez, Sandia, Zuni, even the Rockies. Between the mountains are these lush valleys that are fed by rivers like the Rio Grande. There are also a few incredible canyons and gorges. Geologically, the place is fucked. There is a continental rift running through the state, so when the continental plates are bumpin’ and grindin’, the vibes are amplified. I think that is why the landscape is so cool, but another reason is because it is really dry. Only the toughest plants can survive, plants that you don’t see in the moist soils of Nova Scotia. People get really creative in their landscaping. Only the crazies have grassy lawns, because in draught times, the lawn watering types are heckled. The lawnscaping you do see is called xeriscaping: using only indigenous plants that can survive without being hose fed like little babies. Having a gravely backyard full of cacti and shrubs is a reality for a lot of people, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. It looks great with adobe houses. Ok, back on the topic of Adobe. I mentioned Ken earlier; we visited him in Taos. Besides fighting forest fires, teaching skiing and white water rafting, Ken makes a living building and selling Adobe houses. He cuts and mills his own wood, sources his own gypsum from the local mine and uses it to build houses that he designs. They are nice. When the climate is hot and dry, the doors really open up in terms of how you can build a house. Wood doesn’t rot, first of all. You don’t even need to pressure treat wood with chemicals that turn it green. There were three houses that Ken built within a few minutes walk, so we went to check them out. All I’ve wanted to do since then is learn to build these Adobe houses. They are sort of what gave rise to the earthships that Caleb called me to talk about. YES, ok, back on earthships. Now, here is the plan: when I am done school I am probably going to eventually find my self back in New Mexico, at least for a year or two. So now you understand that all of that ramblin’ was mostly a ploy to get all of you thinking about how cool New Mexico is so you will come hang out with my while I live there. Caleb is coming, he already signed up to come learn how to build earthships / adobes with me. My cousin is planning on starting an organic farm to provide all the produce for a hot restaurant in Albuquerque that friends of our parents run. So while we aren’t building, we can farm! Won’t that just be a time?
After a stint in NM though, I fully plan on coming back to the Maritimes. In fact, I might not even leave. Either way, pretty soon we’ll be ready to buy up a pretty little (100+ acres) piece with a lake, forest and farmland. I got to drive 1100 kms around the province last week, and oh my!
We’ll build ultra sustainable eco homes, grow our own food and generate our own electricity. Our green houses heated by Nick’s wood gas stoves will be producing Avocados in January! This kind of land is easier to secure in really rural areas, but I think that is just great. Our electric vehicles will have just enough range to get around, if necessary. I’ll probably run whatever business I will have started by then out of a lab/workshop/garage/office that I will have also created by then in my earthship, so no need for a commute. No need for a mortgage either, because your house cost less than $50,000 to build and there will never be electricity bills. Or expensive plane tickets to visit old friends, because they will live just behind the peach orchard, or around the herb (weed) garden, or across the root vegetable field, near the chicken coop. I think some of them will be living in tree houses as well.
See what I mean?
Thanks for reading.
Love, Sebastian
P.S. In case you were wondering why I am in the Last Port Motel in Canso, and why I drove a thousand kilometers around the province, it was for work. I work for Efficiency Nova Scotia, which used to be the Conservation and Energy Efficiency Dept. of Nova Scotia Power. My job is to help Commercial and Industrial customers reduce energy usage by retrofitting their facilities to become more energy efficient. The projects we do could include switching out lighting (incandescent to high efficiency fluorescent), installing new motors or pumps, switching resistance heating for heat pumps, even installing solar thermal panels. We help by providing incentives and financing for projects to make them economically feasible. It’s a good program. It is funded entirely by you and all the other NSPI customers.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monica - Bonjour mes amis
Bonjour toute le monde,
Sorry my poste is a little late. Also, as an EMSP grad I have to disagree with the statement that we have never been modern, but laisse tomber. I am in the south of France in a town of 40 thousand called Ales, a 45 minute train ride from Nimes or an hour from Montpellier. I have the best roommates ever (except of course for those of you I lived with in Halifax). I'm living with a German girl Mareike who is also working as a language assistant in primary schools and three french guys. One, Kenji, is doing a work placement in Ales until the end of November and then he is going back to Grenoble. Manu is finishing his last year of high school and is pretty much always high. Clement is a physchologist and just started working in Ales, and despite better judgement of not dating roommates, on est ensemble. Ales is not the prettiest town, and it is funny when we decide to go to one of the two bars in town because as there's no university it's all high school students or real grown ups. We have a huge garden and a veranda which was really nice when it was warm and sunny we would eat outside but it is getting cold now and most of the leaves are gone. Cold relatively speaking, light jacket and scarf weather. I am working in three schools teaching kids from age 6-11 and for the most part the kids have been great, really enthousiastic about learning english which is nice. I know for a fact though that I do not want to be a teacher after this. I work about 12 hours a week, and the rest of the time I plan lessons, drink coffee and eat a whole lot of baguette with Mareike. Last week we were on holiday and went to Barcelona for a few days. I still can't believe that you can get on a bus and six hours later be in Barcelona. From Toronto you would be in Montreal. I like Montreal, but no comparison. For the most part I really like it here. I told my mom that I was dating one of my roommates and she said "fine, just come home at the end of it. and don't start smoking." Bon. On verra bien. I miss the wonderful world that was King's, but France is pretty great too. and if any of you want to come visit me please do! et, c'est tout. A bientot.
Monica
Monday, October 18, 2010
Hi everyone!
I am posting the oxford street full feature movie. Unfortunately, the only way I could manage to share it was by splitting it into different youtube videos. So, please be patient as you have to load the videos in their even worse than usual quality!
follow the links and enjoy.
xo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mwIWR1OUsg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXRZdlictrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SDiwJugIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTi9cNAGQN0
I am posting the oxford street full feature movie. Unfortunately, the only way I could manage to share it was by splitting it into different youtube videos. So, please be patient as you have to load the videos in their even worse than usual quality!
follow the links and enjoy.
xo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mwIWR1OUsg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXRZdlictrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SDiwJugIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTi9cNAGQN0
Friday, October 1, 2010
Orion - Correspondence
Hot Damn everyone; formative experiences you're on.
Also, gosh. I want book reviews. The Halifax Review of Books. My mother always told me to write down a few words in a special book everytime I finished a book, so that I would remember. Well let’s do it collectively online. Ella – you are reading plays. I want to hear about them. And also read them in a hammock with you. But mostly read about you reading them online. Jacob – you have been reading Tompson Highway, Nick impersonated him for a long time on Facebook – I’m sure he’d like to hear about his work. Cynthia – you have just exhausted an author! I have wanted to read Douglas Coupland for a while. Well? I hereby declare a modification to the Blog format! Anyone can skip the schedule to toss 100 words down as a review of some cultural production.
Alright fine. Nevermind. ‘We’ don’t have to.
Where am I and what am I doing? I’m not sure. Many of us are in between times which is why Natalie made this blog, right?
This blog is great. How come? Well here is a long story of why. I’m in Halifax, but have just recently returned from a long two weeks in Michigan where I was with my family, grandparents, aunt and cousin.
My time was split between Ann Arbor a small university town bigger than Halifax, and our idyllic family cottage on the shore of Lake Michigan – our small chunk of a collectively owned land my grandparents were part of buying when my father was still a serious little child. It was a wonderful time to be with my family. I used to go there every summer but this was the first time in years. I have a nephew now, Istvan, who is almost 1 ½ and cute and funny as hell. He is well on his way to being a Dal jock – his two most common words (and activities) being ‘Ball’ and ‘Cheers.’ He also loves to go clubbing – particularly when ‘all the single ladies’ comes on. 
We all made a special effort to be there for a sad reason. My Grandfather, Nagypapa, had cancer for the past three years – and we knew this might be his last summer. Right at the end of our visit he died. We were out shoe shopping at the time. Before we’d gone out shopping we’d been hanging out, and Nagypapa asked me what I’m excited about these days. I answered with vague excitement about the future and made comments about all my options and how I felt between communities – Toronto? Halifax? Elsewhere? Academia? Activism? Arts? Nagypapa responded that the question of roots and rootedness has been a theme of his thinking and experience throughout his life.
More recently in specific intellectual guises he has pursued the theme in studying the history of the ancient near east, and linguistics. In linguistics he is a fierce proponent of the out of Africa Theory. He holds that all languages stem from a common single language, and hence single people and single place in Africa. As opposed to language evolving separately in several homo-sapien-sapien communities already spread out geographically and culturally. In the ancient near east he studied the roots of the west, the history of the bible, Sumerians etc.
But right from his childhood Nagypapa was living during reign of nationalism and much of his life has involved crossing borders and changing identities. He was born to a Slovakian mother and a Hungarian father in 1920. 1920 that’s three years after the Russian revolution. He would be ten when the great depression would hit North America. When he turned 20 the Second World War was breaking out. He spent his early childhood in a rural town in Slovakia. He learned Slovakian and Hungarian in the home. In Slovakia he was made fun of for his Hungarian accent, while later in Hungary he would be made fun of for being a Slovak. As well as his two parental tongues his father began teaching him to read Hebrew and German when he was three. His father was a deeply or perhaps a desperately religious Jew. After a military career in the Hungarian Army (wrong side of WWI) he became a Cantor and ritual slaughterer and made a meager living as religious functionary. He would wake up four year old Nagypapa before dawn and violently force him to learn Hebrew and religion by studying and memorizing the old testament. Nagypapa loved the Bible. He identified with its stories of the poor and oppressed. But he quickly rebelled against his father’s violence and rejected religion. He consciously held himself to be an atheist before he was ten. Nagypapa found no home with god nor would he find roots with the jewish community – though he would never be gentile in his own eyes or the eyes of others.
When Nagypapa was seven his father disappeared. Seven years earlier borders had changed and Czechoslovak Republic was formed. His father had not done the necessary paperwork and found himself without citizenship. He snuck from Czechoslovakia to Hungary. A year later, the family received word that he had found a job and they picked themselves up and tried to follow him to Hungary. For travel documents they had a letter from the local Catholic priest stapled to a family photo. It beseeched Hungary’s authorities to allow the family across the border to be re-united. They tried to cross by train four times in different places and were rejected each time accompanied by anti-semitic invective.
Finally they ended up in a jail in a small border town. The town’s Jews heard that a jewish family was being kept in jail and got them out, welcoming them into their own homes instead. Nagypapa’s mother took her youngest and snuck across the border by foot. The rest of the children were scattered amongst different Jewish families in the town. They stayed with their new families for months with no concept of what was going on. Nagypapa’s adopted family began having him memorize the details of their son’s life, who was about the same age. It was a mystery to him why. Eventually, they took him across the border with their Slovakian passports, claiming to be on holiday and claiming Nagypapa as their son. He was questioned by the border guard. They passed. This occurred in various ways with his siblings and they were re-united with mother and father in a Hungarian town – Albertirsa where there was a small jewish community that his father found work.
The Jewish community was quite assimilationist. His father’s insistence on orthodox practices won the family no love. At the same time the public school he attended when he turned six had no Jews except he and his sister. He was bullied and beaten often both for his timid malnourished-ness as well as his shorn head with prominent orthodox ear locks.
Most striking to me of his tales of persecution is perhaps his story of being late. It points to those deep subtle persecutions which are often dismissed and overlooked in favour of more spectacular violence. He was a star pupil and loved school. His teacher marked him fairly but treated him coldly. She was a proud Hungarian nationalist, and as a Slovakian Jew, his bettering of his classmates was begrudged. Her anger towards him grew, however, because he was late every Monday and Thursday morning. According to his father’s practice a prayer service had to be held every Monday and Thursday morning. A ‘minyan’ of ten adult jewish males had to be present for the service to be held. The quorum was almost never met and Nagypapa was enlisted into spending each of those mornings running all over town trying to convince a few more congregation members to show up. He was inevitably late for school. But he had to meet his teachers demands for an explanation with silence that made him seem insubordinate and arrogant. In a town where jewishness and more so orthodoxy were scorned and belittled, he could not begin to explain about his father and a minyan -neither of which he himself believed in- to a proud Hungarian National. Nor could he hope to have it pass as an excuse. So he stood dumbly and received the rod.
Nagypapa describes himself living in three different worlds simultaneously at this time, none of which he felt at home in completely. One was the religious, rigorous, tedious and abusive world of his father, which he rejected, but parts of which he admired and was inspired by. One was the gentile world of school, where he saw other poor children like him, where he learned songs and stories of Hungary that he loved, but which rejected him as a Slovakian Jew. The third was his own private world in the fields, the attic, the chicken coop and other hiding places he could escape to where he mused about the world, and fell in love with nature, but felt alone and frightened of shadows and his imagination.
When he was ten Nagypapa moved away from home to go to school. He went to a Jewish seminary on singing scholarship. He was passed from jewish household to household to be fed – going to a different house each day for his meals. It was this time that he found one of his homes in revolutionary Marxism. I’ll quote him about it:
Charlie Mann, the alto soloist abandoned school and went to work in a bicycle repair shop. He was a jolly, strong, easy-going, very likable fellow. He took pity of me, as I was constantly crying. One day he told me, I will take you with me to a place, but you must never tell about it to anybody and whatever you see, you must keep it as secret forever. He took me to a decrepit courtyard in the back of it was an almost empty junky apartment with a few benches as furniture. There were pictures and some posters on the wall. It was Friday night. Soon young people began to arrive, mostly boys in their late teens, early twenties, a few girls of the same age. Their attire betrayed that they were workers or poor students. They were very friendly and treated me gently with interest and kindness.
Charlie had introduced me to a clandestine Marxist youth group. Despite my tender age, I was integrated in a cell with older kids which was led by a 17 year old student by the name of Lichtman whom I greatly admired. We met clandestinely and read, studied and discussed watered down scientific Marxist theories and leftist literature. In the spring we went on hikes in the thick forest that surrounded Debrecen. With my short but heavy life experiences I was destined to be part of this movement. It was a natural evolution of things for me that I felt I found a meaning of my life amidst these young people, to become a revolutionary, to dedicate myself to the struggle against injustice, oppression, exploitation, violence, and prejudice. We also had discussions about the peculiar situation of Jews in this configuration which befuddled us with its complexities because the Jewish proletariat was subject to all above, but in addition it also shared with the Jewish bourgeoisie the ethnic prejudice and hatred directed at them collectively as Jews. What is the solution??? Hungary was a fiercely anti-Semitic country. I remember agonizing a lot over this dilemma. In short, "the movement" became the center of my life. Charlie introduced me to the rudiments of clandestine practices of an underground movement, to watch out for informers, to see if anybody is following you, to maneuver your approaches when you go to a meeting or to the headquarters.
Hungary was led by a fascist regime from 1919 to the end of the second world war. Socialists were fiercely persecuted, and the movement had to remain absolutely underground. Eventually Nagypapa’s activities were discovered and he was expelled from school. Being expelled was a disaster for Nagypapa – for a moment his dreams were dashed. School had meant a lot to him, and he could not afford to go to any other. The seminary had been free. Further, he feared for his life. If word of his commitment to a communist reading group (then for his age ‘the movement’ was little more – apart from some hiking and singing) reached other authorities he could be jailed or killed. Cell leaders – also teenagers, had been discovered a year before. They had been arrested and thrown out the police station window. Their parents were told they committed suicide.
He eventually made it into another school by passing rigorous examinations. This time it was a more secular Jewish Gymnazium. He almost didn’t make it in, and was set back six months in his education, because of another little ethnic conflict. One of the entrance exams was in English. He had no way teaching himself English until a kind Presbyterian minister in his hometown helped tutor him with some books he’d scrounged. Unfortunately, the minister had learned his English at St. Andrews seminary in Scotland. Nagypapa’s examiner knew Oxford english. When Nagypapa opened his mouth his examiner was disgusted by his accent and failed him.
He would succeed six months later. He managed to pay by working various jobs and eventually becoming a Hebrew tutor, and then a respected tutor in general. One classmate began quietly bringing him lunch. In his second year – he could not afford to enroll and so stayed away – he classmates asked after him and then raised enough for his tuition amongst themselves and brought him back.
He graduated with dreams of becoming a filmmaker but he could not immediately afford to get to France or Italy where he would study. Also, by this time the second world war had begun. He became a shoemaker, and he became good enough that the skill, and the favour it won him, would save his life in the concentration camp.
In 1941 he was drafted into the Hungarian Army. He would not fight but was put into a Jewish Brigade of forced labourers. They were gradually stripped of their uniforms and status as citizens and finally as humans.
He survived the holocaust, he says, due to his experience with hardship and hard labour growing up, luck, and his bootmaking ability which was highly prized amongst the officers. His camp was liberated by Russian soldiers.
After the war he finally went to Paris. He wrote a letter from there to his cousins in Michigan. He’d never met them before, but had heard of them and tracked down their address. It’s a funny and amazing document – written in his school learned English, at 24 or 25 years old – he tells these distant familiar strangers about himself and asks about them. The majority of his family, including his parents, did not survive the holocaust. In the letter it is evident he is reaching out to any family he has left in the world, just for the sake of having family.
In Paris he met my nagymama – she was washing her socks at a fountain at the moment. She was an American girl, from a not very well off family in Michigan that had also found its way to hope in communism. She had collected money from friends to make the trip to france with a group to aid in restoration. After a week they agreed to be married. Then Nagymama went back to Michigan for two years to finish her university degree. The corresponded. Afterwards she returned to Paris and they were married. My aunt was born and they moved to Budapest; they were both devoted to helping build socialism in Hungary.
However, Nagypapa became frustrated in Hungary. Again, he almost did not make it across the border. Once he was in he was treated with constant suspicion because of his American wife. There was a fear that he was some sort of spy or counter-revolutionary. He got a job in a library, but wallowed in the same position for years. It was a bitter experience because he was quite ambitious.
In 1956, when my father was a two, there was an uprising in Hungary against the existing socialist regime. It was lead or sparked by the students. Nagypapa believes it to have been a real revolutionary attempt made by committed communists against a regime they considered to have strayed from the communist cause. The soviets soon moved in a squashed the uprising. They re-instated a pro-soviet status quo. But in that brief interim the borders became more permeable. My grandmother and baby father and aunt took the opportunity to defect. Nagypapa, for some reason stayed behind and followed later. I’m kicking myself right now for not remembering this particular story in more detail. But once again he was repulsed on several occasions by national lines. Finally he escaped through farmer’s fields, carrying his dress shoes in his hands.
Before he left Hungary, his younger brother, like all good brothers gave him a parting gift of a couple pairs of underwear. Nagypapa’s brother is the opposite case of Nagypapa. He did not have his ambitions blocked by the communist party. Instead in communist Hungary he found respect and rose to heights of responsibility that a poor jewish peasant could never have dreamed of otherwise. He was in the army. And his underwear were army issue, with ‘Hungarian Army’ printed in bold Hungarian script on their elastic.
Nagypapa is on a ship crossing the atlantic. He is coming from England and he is on his way to McCarthy era United States. In his bag are underwear boldly declaring their membership in the Peoples’ Republic of Hungary Armed Forces. His bunkmate is an American. Nagypapa begins to get nervous. Is his bunkmate just any American? Or is he C.I.A. – is there even a difference? Nagypapa is nervous and getting paranoid. Finally, after several days of amiable conversation, during which nagypapa is constantly on the verge of vomiting, it gets to be too much. In the middle of the night he sneaks out of his bunk anxiously clutching his underwear under his coat. He creeps up to the deck and with furtive looks around, shaking with fear, he casts his brother’s underwear as far as he can into the middle of the Atlantic. Nagypapa always laughed telling of that nervous purge and liked to wonder where those underwear ended up.
There was a huge picture and headline in the local newspaper when Nagypapa arrived in Michigan. The press snapped up any story of defectors from the Soviet Bloc. It made large of the family escaping the clutches of communism. The story Nagypapa told the reporters was that he had moved back to postwar Hungary because as an aspiring short-story writer he felt he could only make it in his mother-tongue. This was partially true. He would never say that he had moved there to help build socialism. In the united states he could never identify as a socialist and dream of a future. So began a new identity of the rigorous academic of library science.
Just two months ago, we were sitting down for lunch in Ann Arbor. We’ve gotten into the habit of singing a song before each meal (I mouth along). Nagypapa picks the songs usually. Being jumbled in ethnicities and nationalities {link?} all his life, he’s taken delight in learning folk songs and national anthems and passed them on to his grandkids. This time before we sat down he said, go and close the windows. We thought, hmm, it’s mighty hot, but we closed them. He said we are going to sing l’internationale. L’internationale is the anthem of the international communist movement. We did and when we were done he said okay go open the windows now, and we ate.
….After calling all this depth of life history to mind –being tossed between motherlands and ethnicities, being split amongst worlds, and rarely finding an unproblematic home- he said to me ‘And you know, Orion, what I finally concluded? That home is where the junk-mail finds you.’ He was grinning with pride at this bad joke, this little gem of ironic wisdom. Home is where your name is known, you have a place associated with you – and most importantly, people keep track of you. Too bad its people who want to sell you crap, but at least its people keeping track of you. So that’s why this blog is so great. We can all send each other periodic junk mail and feel a little kept track of and a little at home with each other. It’s such a nice bonus that the mail isn’t junk.
Thanks,
Orion
p.s. thanks especially if you made it through. I planned more humour - cause that happens with boundary crossings and Identity confusions --- but I dunno it went this way instead.
Also, gosh. I want book reviews. The Halifax Review of Books. My mother always told me to write down a few words in a special book everytime I finished a book, so that I would remember. Well let’s do it collectively online. Ella – you are reading plays. I want to hear about them. And also read them in a hammock with you. But mostly read about you reading them online. Jacob – you have been reading Tompson Highway, Nick impersonated him for a long time on Facebook – I’m sure he’d like to hear about his work. Cynthia – you have just exhausted an author! I have wanted to read Douglas Coupland for a while. Well? I hereby declare a modification to the Blog format! Anyone can skip the schedule to toss 100 words down as a review of some cultural production.
Alright fine. Nevermind. ‘We’ don’t have to.
Where am I and what am I doing? I’m not sure. Many of us are in between times which is why Natalie made this blog, right?
This blog is great. How come? Well here is a long story of why. I’m in Halifax, but have just recently returned from a long two weeks in Michigan where I was with my family, grandparents, aunt and cousin.
My time was split between Ann Arbor a small university town bigger than Halifax, and our idyllic family cottage on the shore of Lake Michigan – our small chunk of a collectively owned land my grandparents were part of buying when my father was still a serious little child. It was a wonderful time to be with my family. I used to go there every summer but this was the first time in years. I have a nephew now, Istvan, who is almost 1 ½ and cute and funny as hell. He is well on his way to being a Dal jock – his two most common words (and activities) being ‘Ball’ and ‘Cheers.’ He also loves to go clubbing – particularly when ‘all the single ladies’ comes on. 
We all made a special effort to be there for a sad reason. My Grandfather, Nagypapa, had cancer for the past three years – and we knew this might be his last summer. Right at the end of our visit he died. We were out shoe shopping at the time. Before we’d gone out shopping we’d been hanging out, and Nagypapa asked me what I’m excited about these days. I answered with vague excitement about the future and made comments about all my options and how I felt between communities – Toronto? Halifax? Elsewhere? Academia? Activism? Arts? Nagypapa responded that the question of roots and rootedness has been a theme of his thinking and experience throughout his life.
More recently in specific intellectual guises he has pursued the theme in studying the history of the ancient near east, and linguistics. In linguistics he is a fierce proponent of the out of Africa Theory. He holds that all languages stem from a common single language, and hence single people and single place in Africa. As opposed to language evolving separately in several homo-sapien-sapien communities already spread out geographically and culturally. In the ancient near east he studied the roots of the west, the history of the bible, Sumerians etc.
But right from his childhood Nagypapa was living during reign of nationalism and much of his life has involved crossing borders and changing identities. He was born to a Slovakian mother and a Hungarian father in 1920. 1920 that’s three years after the Russian revolution. He would be ten when the great depression would hit North America. When he turned 20 the Second World War was breaking out. He spent his early childhood in a rural town in Slovakia. He learned Slovakian and Hungarian in the home. In Slovakia he was made fun of for his Hungarian accent, while later in Hungary he would be made fun of for being a Slovak. As well as his two parental tongues his father began teaching him to read Hebrew and German when he was three. His father was a deeply or perhaps a desperately religious Jew. After a military career in the Hungarian Army (wrong side of WWI) he became a Cantor and ritual slaughterer and made a meager living as religious functionary. He would wake up four year old Nagypapa before dawn and violently force him to learn Hebrew and religion by studying and memorizing the old testament. Nagypapa loved the Bible. He identified with its stories of the poor and oppressed. But he quickly rebelled against his father’s violence and rejected religion. He consciously held himself to be an atheist before he was ten. Nagypapa found no home with god nor would he find roots with the jewish community – though he would never be gentile in his own eyes or the eyes of others.
When Nagypapa was seven his father disappeared. Seven years earlier borders had changed and Czechoslovak Republic was formed. His father had not done the necessary paperwork and found himself without citizenship. He snuck from Czechoslovakia to Hungary. A year later, the family received word that he had found a job and they picked themselves up and tried to follow him to Hungary. For travel documents they had a letter from the local Catholic priest stapled to a family photo. It beseeched Hungary’s authorities to allow the family across the border to be re-united. They tried to cross by train four times in different places and were rejected each time accompanied by anti-semitic invective.
Finally they ended up in a jail in a small border town. The town’s Jews heard that a jewish family was being kept in jail and got them out, welcoming them into their own homes instead. Nagypapa’s mother took her youngest and snuck across the border by foot. The rest of the children were scattered amongst different Jewish families in the town. They stayed with their new families for months with no concept of what was going on. Nagypapa’s adopted family began having him memorize the details of their son’s life, who was about the same age. It was a mystery to him why. Eventually, they took him across the border with their Slovakian passports, claiming to be on holiday and claiming Nagypapa as their son. He was questioned by the border guard. They passed. This occurred in various ways with his siblings and they were re-united with mother and father in a Hungarian town – Albertirsa where there was a small jewish community that his father found work.
The Jewish community was quite assimilationist. His father’s insistence on orthodox practices won the family no love. At the same time the public school he attended when he turned six had no Jews except he and his sister. He was bullied and beaten often both for his timid malnourished-ness as well as his shorn head with prominent orthodox ear locks.
Most striking to me of his tales of persecution is perhaps his story of being late. It points to those deep subtle persecutions which are often dismissed and overlooked in favour of more spectacular violence. He was a star pupil and loved school. His teacher marked him fairly but treated him coldly. She was a proud Hungarian nationalist, and as a Slovakian Jew, his bettering of his classmates was begrudged. Her anger towards him grew, however, because he was late every Monday and Thursday morning. According to his father’s practice a prayer service had to be held every Monday and Thursday morning. A ‘minyan’ of ten adult jewish males had to be present for the service to be held. The quorum was almost never met and Nagypapa was enlisted into spending each of those mornings running all over town trying to convince a few more congregation members to show up. He was inevitably late for school. But he had to meet his teachers demands for an explanation with silence that made him seem insubordinate and arrogant. In a town where jewishness and more so orthodoxy were scorned and belittled, he could not begin to explain about his father and a minyan -neither of which he himself believed in- to a proud Hungarian National. Nor could he hope to have it pass as an excuse. So he stood dumbly and received the rod.
Nagypapa describes himself living in three different worlds simultaneously at this time, none of which he felt at home in completely. One was the religious, rigorous, tedious and abusive world of his father, which he rejected, but parts of which he admired and was inspired by. One was the gentile world of school, where he saw other poor children like him, where he learned songs and stories of Hungary that he loved, but which rejected him as a Slovakian Jew. The third was his own private world in the fields, the attic, the chicken coop and other hiding places he could escape to where he mused about the world, and fell in love with nature, but felt alone and frightened of shadows and his imagination.
When he was ten Nagypapa moved away from home to go to school. He went to a Jewish seminary on singing scholarship. He was passed from jewish household to household to be fed – going to a different house each day for his meals. It was this time that he found one of his homes in revolutionary Marxism. I’ll quote him about it:
Charlie Mann, the alto soloist abandoned school and went to work in a bicycle repair shop. He was a jolly, strong, easy-going, very likable fellow. He took pity of me, as I was constantly crying. One day he told me, I will take you with me to a place, but you must never tell about it to anybody and whatever you see, you must keep it as secret forever. He took me to a decrepit courtyard in the back of it was an almost empty junky apartment with a few benches as furniture. There were pictures and some posters on the wall. It was Friday night. Soon young people began to arrive, mostly boys in their late teens, early twenties, a few girls of the same age. Their attire betrayed that they were workers or poor students. They were very friendly and treated me gently with interest and kindness.
Charlie had introduced me to a clandestine Marxist youth group. Despite my tender age, I was integrated in a cell with older kids which was led by a 17 year old student by the name of Lichtman whom I greatly admired. We met clandestinely and read, studied and discussed watered down scientific Marxist theories and leftist literature. In the spring we went on hikes in the thick forest that surrounded Debrecen. With my short but heavy life experiences I was destined to be part of this movement. It was a natural evolution of things for me that I felt I found a meaning of my life amidst these young people, to become a revolutionary, to dedicate myself to the struggle against injustice, oppression, exploitation, violence, and prejudice. We also had discussions about the peculiar situation of Jews in this configuration which befuddled us with its complexities because the Jewish proletariat was subject to all above, but in addition it also shared with the Jewish bourgeoisie the ethnic prejudice and hatred directed at them collectively as Jews. What is the solution??? Hungary was a fiercely anti-Semitic country. I remember agonizing a lot over this dilemma. In short, "the movement" became the center of my life. Charlie introduced me to the rudiments of clandestine practices of an underground movement, to watch out for informers, to see if anybody is following you, to maneuver your approaches when you go to a meeting or to the headquarters.
Hungary was led by a fascist regime from 1919 to the end of the second world war. Socialists were fiercely persecuted, and the movement had to remain absolutely underground. Eventually Nagypapa’s activities were discovered and he was expelled from school. Being expelled was a disaster for Nagypapa – for a moment his dreams were dashed. School had meant a lot to him, and he could not afford to go to any other. The seminary had been free. Further, he feared for his life. If word of his commitment to a communist reading group (then for his age ‘the movement’ was little more – apart from some hiking and singing) reached other authorities he could be jailed or killed. Cell leaders – also teenagers, had been discovered a year before. They had been arrested and thrown out the police station window. Their parents were told they committed suicide.
He eventually made it into another school by passing rigorous examinations. This time it was a more secular Jewish Gymnazium. He almost didn’t make it in, and was set back six months in his education, because of another little ethnic conflict. One of the entrance exams was in English. He had no way teaching himself English until a kind Presbyterian minister in his hometown helped tutor him with some books he’d scrounged. Unfortunately, the minister had learned his English at St. Andrews seminary in Scotland. Nagypapa’s examiner knew Oxford english. When Nagypapa opened his mouth his examiner was disgusted by his accent and failed him.
He would succeed six months later. He managed to pay by working various jobs and eventually becoming a Hebrew tutor, and then a respected tutor in general. One classmate began quietly bringing him lunch. In his second year – he could not afford to enroll and so stayed away – he classmates asked after him and then raised enough for his tuition amongst themselves and brought him back.
He graduated with dreams of becoming a filmmaker but he could not immediately afford to get to France or Italy where he would study. Also, by this time the second world war had begun. He became a shoemaker, and he became good enough that the skill, and the favour it won him, would save his life in the concentration camp.
In 1941 he was drafted into the Hungarian Army. He would not fight but was put into a Jewish Brigade of forced labourers. They were gradually stripped of their uniforms and status as citizens and finally as humans.
He survived the holocaust, he says, due to his experience with hardship and hard labour growing up, luck, and his bootmaking ability which was highly prized amongst the officers. His camp was liberated by Russian soldiers.
After the war he finally went to Paris. He wrote a letter from there to his cousins in Michigan. He’d never met them before, but had heard of them and tracked down their address. It’s a funny and amazing document – written in his school learned English, at 24 or 25 years old – he tells these distant familiar strangers about himself and asks about them. The majority of his family, including his parents, did not survive the holocaust. In the letter it is evident he is reaching out to any family he has left in the world, just for the sake of having family.
In Paris he met my nagymama – she was washing her socks at a fountain at the moment. She was an American girl, from a not very well off family in Michigan that had also found its way to hope in communism. She had collected money from friends to make the trip to france with a group to aid in restoration. After a week they agreed to be married. Then Nagymama went back to Michigan for two years to finish her university degree. The corresponded. Afterwards she returned to Paris and they were married. My aunt was born and they moved to Budapest; they were both devoted to helping build socialism in Hungary.
However, Nagypapa became frustrated in Hungary. Again, he almost did not make it across the border. Once he was in he was treated with constant suspicion because of his American wife. There was a fear that he was some sort of spy or counter-revolutionary. He got a job in a library, but wallowed in the same position for years. It was a bitter experience because he was quite ambitious.
In 1956, when my father was a two, there was an uprising in Hungary against the existing socialist regime. It was lead or sparked by the students. Nagypapa believes it to have been a real revolutionary attempt made by committed communists against a regime they considered to have strayed from the communist cause. The soviets soon moved in a squashed the uprising. They re-instated a pro-soviet status quo. But in that brief interim the borders became more permeable. My grandmother and baby father and aunt took the opportunity to defect. Nagypapa, for some reason stayed behind and followed later. I’m kicking myself right now for not remembering this particular story in more detail. But once again he was repulsed on several occasions by national lines. Finally he escaped through farmer’s fields, carrying his dress shoes in his hands.
Before he left Hungary, his younger brother, like all good brothers gave him a parting gift of a couple pairs of underwear. Nagypapa’s brother is the opposite case of Nagypapa. He did not have his ambitions blocked by the communist party. Instead in communist Hungary he found respect and rose to heights of responsibility that a poor jewish peasant could never have dreamed of otherwise. He was in the army. And his underwear were army issue, with ‘Hungarian Army’ printed in bold Hungarian script on their elastic.
Nagypapa is on a ship crossing the atlantic. He is coming from England and he is on his way to McCarthy era United States. In his bag are underwear boldly declaring their membership in the Peoples’ Republic of Hungary Armed Forces. His bunkmate is an American. Nagypapa begins to get nervous. Is his bunkmate just any American? Or is he C.I.A. – is there even a difference? Nagypapa is nervous and getting paranoid. Finally, after several days of amiable conversation, during which nagypapa is constantly on the verge of vomiting, it gets to be too much. In the middle of the night he sneaks out of his bunk anxiously clutching his underwear under his coat. He creeps up to the deck and with furtive looks around, shaking with fear, he casts his brother’s underwear as far as he can into the middle of the Atlantic. Nagypapa always laughed telling of that nervous purge and liked to wonder where those underwear ended up.
There was a huge picture and headline in the local newspaper when Nagypapa arrived in Michigan. The press snapped up any story of defectors from the Soviet Bloc. It made large of the family escaping the clutches of communism. The story Nagypapa told the reporters was that he had moved back to postwar Hungary because as an aspiring short-story writer he felt he could only make it in his mother-tongue. This was partially true. He would never say that he had moved there to help build socialism. In the united states he could never identify as a socialist and dream of a future. So began a new identity of the rigorous academic of library science.
Just two months ago, we were sitting down for lunch in Ann Arbor. We’ve gotten into the habit of singing a song before each meal (I mouth along). Nagypapa picks the songs usually. Being jumbled in ethnicities and nationalities {link?} all his life, he’s taken delight in learning folk songs and national anthems and passed them on to his grandkids. This time before we sat down he said, go and close the windows. We thought, hmm, it’s mighty hot, but we closed them. He said we are going to sing l’internationale. L’internationale is the anthem of the international communist movement. We did and when we were done he said okay go open the windows now, and we ate.
….After calling all this depth of life history to mind –being tossed between motherlands and ethnicities, being split amongst worlds, and rarely finding an unproblematic home- he said to me ‘And you know, Orion, what I finally concluded? That home is where the junk-mail finds you.’ He was grinning with pride at this bad joke, this little gem of ironic wisdom. Home is where your name is known, you have a place associated with you – and most importantly, people keep track of you. Too bad its people who want to sell you crap, but at least its people keeping track of you. So that’s why this blog is so great. We can all send each other periodic junk mail and feel a little kept track of and a little at home with each other. It’s such a nice bonus that the mail isn’t junk. Thanks,
Orion
p.s. thanks especially if you made it through. I planned more humour - cause that happens with boundary crossings and Identity confusions --- but I dunno it went this way instead.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Alyza - The Real World DC
Two weeks ago I pulled up to a small house and unloaded my luggage into a 5 bedroom house which would house 8 strangers for an entire year. The living situation is one part of my year in Washington. I am a part of an intentional communal living situation. We have weekly house meeting, we do communal shopping, cleaning and cooking. It is a far cry from MTV’s Real World. I sleep in a room with two other girls (who are amazing). Unlike MTV’s Real World, where participants live a lavish life with dream jobs, in my house we all work in a variety of non-profits which dedicate their time, effort, heart and soul to helping those living in poverty. For many of my housemates, our jobs are our dream jobs. Many of us are working outside our comfort zone and within demographics we may never have encountered before. Some of my roommates work with battered women, other with the homeless, and some with those have been evicted. There are serious ups and downs to each of our days. It is a beautiful and challenging experience to live with like-minded people who spend their days doing really heart wrenching work. However, there are uplifting moments in each day and we try and hold onto those precious moments.
My organization is Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School. It is located in the poorest neighbourhood in Washington DC, Anacostia. It has a reputation of being dangerous and scary. This is true but a lot of it is a misconception and the belief is fueled by the fact that very few white people venture to that part of DC. My school (TMA) is amazing. It is a law themed school. Every single student who graduates is accepted into a University. This is much higher than the national average and ten time higher than the average of the area. The rate of people in Anacostia with a degree from a post-secondary institution is 8%. However, this is not like Glebe or any other High school we went too. The school is strict. Everyone wears a uniform, there is no chewing gum, there is no time in between classes, and lunch is 30 minutes. The school is 99% African American and 1% Hispanic. The faculty and staff are about 50-50 black and white. So far, all I can tell is that this school gives kids who may not have a future, a future with endless possibilities. I edited a student’s essay today about who she looks up to. The list was primarily about her family (specifically her mom). However, at the end of the essay, she wrote about how TMA pushed her to her limits. She wrote about how the school enabled her to recognize that she could accomplish her goals. My personal goal is to form relationships with these kids. Find out their life story and help them whatever that may mean. I have never been a teacher before. They call me Ms. Weinberg and that is strange. Institutionally there is distance between me and them and unlike any other role I’ve had with children in the past. For the first time in my professional career my job is not only about fun and games. I run educational programming including but not limited to homework help (you should see me attempt algebra), anti-defamation league club and law day. Law day is a program where we take the entire ninth grade to firms once a month. The students learn about a specific thing (discrimination, negligence, criminal law) and participate in mock trials and round table discussions. As preparation for these field trips, the permission forms give me insight into the lives of my students.
I work with four other people. All of whom are amazing and being in the office is fun. We have an endless supply of candy and the teachers come in and say hi and eat our food. All of the girls have curly hair and as one girl commented on my first day work. “You program girls all have curly hair, it is like you are taking over the world”. Another girl asked me if I knew Drake or was on Degrassi since I was from Canada. I am going to keep a running tab of how many different white actresses I will be told I look like (currently in 4 days of work- 2 different actresses). I can already tell my job will be both challenging and fulfilling. It is going to take time to win over the students and have them recognize that I’m in it for the long haul. Some days I get picked on by 10th graders. I am the new comer to a school where everyone is family.
My job keeps me on my toes. However, another entirely different, but equally as fascinating part of my life is where I live. I live on the border of two neighbourhoods (Georgia Petworth and Columbia Heights). These are two gentrifying neighbourhoods. As my boss drove me home from our Volunteer Kick-Off (at a law firm with a terrace that just about made me want to join the corporate world), she encouragingly said, this is a very up and coming neighbourhood. I am in the heart of a political, social, and cultural revolution in these areas. I live on a block with a public housing complex but four blocks away are million dollar condos. In my two weeks, I’ve seen at least two people be arrested. There is a police station a block from me but I am somehow not comforted by their presence. I witnessed an eviction which is a heart breaking occurrence. My job and the jobs of my roommates inform us about how complicated living in poverty is. Every day we witness first-hand the structural injustices. We, one on hand, are against gentrification. We observe the condos being built and Target and box super stores moving in. These stores get rid of local business, and they displace local people and businesses. On the other hand, these stores employ lots of people who previously were unemployed. The trend in DC is that when a metro stop is built that brings in business and gentrification. We are conscious of the fact that the metro stop is crucial in connecting the different parts of the city. Ten years ago Columbia Heights was unheard of and what people had heard about was violence. Now, it is a budding area with a vibrant community including an organic market on Saturdays. My part of the neighbourhood is far less built up and we have been given instructions that being out by ourselves at night is not wise. Down the street there is a school that on one side has a liquor store and on the other side as a strip club. I have an internal struggle everyday about what I am doing and how I am contributing to the neighbourhood in which I live. I am not comfortable here yet. And I hate that I jump at the opportunity for a ride home because walking the ten blocks from the metro to my door makes me nervous.
I am really happy though and I know that two weeks in I cannot make any judgments. In my next post, I’ll have more to say I’m sure and will have different opinions.
Until Next Time
Alyza
My organization is Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School. It is located in the poorest neighbourhood in Washington DC, Anacostia. It has a reputation of being dangerous and scary. This is true but a lot of it is a misconception and the belief is fueled by the fact that very few white people venture to that part of DC. My school (TMA) is amazing. It is a law themed school. Every single student who graduates is accepted into a University. This is much higher than the national average and ten time higher than the average of the area. The rate of people in Anacostia with a degree from a post-secondary institution is 8%. However, this is not like Glebe or any other High school we went too. The school is strict. Everyone wears a uniform, there is no chewing gum, there is no time in between classes, and lunch is 30 minutes. The school is 99% African American and 1% Hispanic. The faculty and staff are about 50-50 black and white. So far, all I can tell is that this school gives kids who may not have a future, a future with endless possibilities. I edited a student’s essay today about who she looks up to. The list was primarily about her family (specifically her mom). However, at the end of the essay, she wrote about how TMA pushed her to her limits. She wrote about how the school enabled her to recognize that she could accomplish her goals. My personal goal is to form relationships with these kids. Find out their life story and help them whatever that may mean. I have never been a teacher before. They call me Ms. Weinberg and that is strange. Institutionally there is distance between me and them and unlike any other role I’ve had with children in the past. For the first time in my professional career my job is not only about fun and games. I run educational programming including but not limited to homework help (you should see me attempt algebra), anti-defamation league club and law day. Law day is a program where we take the entire ninth grade to firms once a month. The students learn about a specific thing (discrimination, negligence, criminal law) and participate in mock trials and round table discussions. As preparation for these field trips, the permission forms give me insight into the lives of my students.
I work with four other people. All of whom are amazing and being in the office is fun. We have an endless supply of candy and the teachers come in and say hi and eat our food. All of the girls have curly hair and as one girl commented on my first day work. “You program girls all have curly hair, it is like you are taking over the world”. Another girl asked me if I knew Drake or was on Degrassi since I was from Canada. I am going to keep a running tab of how many different white actresses I will be told I look like (currently in 4 days of work- 2 different actresses). I can already tell my job will be both challenging and fulfilling. It is going to take time to win over the students and have them recognize that I’m in it for the long haul. Some days I get picked on by 10th graders. I am the new comer to a school where everyone is family.
My job keeps me on my toes. However, another entirely different, but equally as fascinating part of my life is where I live. I live on the border of two neighbourhoods (Georgia Petworth and Columbia Heights). These are two gentrifying neighbourhoods. As my boss drove me home from our Volunteer Kick-Off (at a law firm with a terrace that just about made me want to join the corporate world), she encouragingly said, this is a very up and coming neighbourhood. I am in the heart of a political, social, and cultural revolution in these areas. I live on a block with a public housing complex but four blocks away are million dollar condos. In my two weeks, I’ve seen at least two people be arrested. There is a police station a block from me but I am somehow not comforted by their presence. I witnessed an eviction which is a heart breaking occurrence. My job and the jobs of my roommates inform us about how complicated living in poverty is. Every day we witness first-hand the structural injustices. We, one on hand, are against gentrification. We observe the condos being built and Target and box super stores moving in. These stores get rid of local business, and they displace local people and businesses. On the other hand, these stores employ lots of people who previously were unemployed. The trend in DC is that when a metro stop is built that brings in business and gentrification. We are conscious of the fact that the metro stop is crucial in connecting the different parts of the city. Ten years ago Columbia Heights was unheard of and what people had heard about was violence. Now, it is a budding area with a vibrant community including an organic market on Saturdays. My part of the neighbourhood is far less built up and we have been given instructions that being out by ourselves at night is not wise. Down the street there is a school that on one side has a liquor store and on the other side as a strip club. I have an internal struggle everyday about what I am doing and how I am contributing to the neighbourhood in which I live. I am not comfortable here yet. And I hate that I jump at the opportunity for a ride home because walking the ten blocks from the metro to my door makes me nervous.
I am really happy though and I know that two weeks in I cannot make any judgments. In my next post, I’ll have more to say I’m sure and will have different opinions.
Until Next Time
Alyza
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Simon - "Virtue never stands alone. It is bound to have neighbours" (Confucius, Analects 4:25)
Well, I wanted to drink from the big red fire-hydrant, and it has not withheld itself for my favour.
How can I give you some sense of smell and taste in these short pages? I suppose I'll start at the beginning.
My travel only really began somewhere on the way onto the plane in Vancouver Airport. It's one thing to see throngs of Asian-Canadians in a city that has its own reputation and history, but it's quite another to be addressed in Chinese and expected to have some sort of experience for this, and to be given a meal of rice and chicken on board, and to read from a rather gaudy Chinese magazine while watching Jackie Chan flicks and a captivating story about some slaves in pink clothing, a landlord, a prostitute, and a rogue Qing soldier who kills them all. This was followed by a rather terrible propaganda film about some budding young red guards tasked with organizing cleaning and decorating work on the southern gate of the Forbidden City for Mao's infamous, and only, public speech. (The film was obviously a reflection of the party's new values since it did not think it important to suggest that the snappy young red guards probably lost about a good half of their closest friends to starvation, shellfire and execution.)
Speaking of the flight's video entertainment, I invite you to consider the following: You are a flight designer, and you are aware of course that many people have a paralysing fear of flying. Would it then be advisable to place a camera on the underside of the plane which stares down the nose of the behemoth as it taxis its way down to the runway to take off, and to broadcast this show on the personal video system of the plane for curious passengers? It's hard to consider, with our Canadian sensitivities, a Star-Aliant flight doing this. But on China Airlines, this is considered fair sport, and I must admit that it made my own flight one of the most beautiful if not surreal experiences I’ve had in an airplane. After take off, the camera switches to staring immediately downwards, eventually providing some beautiful views of the hills north of Korea. And I didn't even have a window seat.
...
I've had some time to explore a bit. I took a first trip to the Forbidden City, whose premisses are too big and too crowded to see in a single tourist-packed day. We also wandered around the square, which was very impressive, but looked as if some three thousand of its tiles had been cracked under the summer pressure.
I've also managed to make it out to the Confucian temple, which is down the road from the imposing Lama temple in the quiet hub of the old scholar’s corner of the city. This wonderful temple resembles the forbidden palace in that it is two courtyards capped by sitting halls and a gateway, but there are more trees and infinitely less people. You can go read a book all day without being disturbed, which is exactly what I did. For about 35 kuai, I picked up a copy of the Confucian Analects in English and Chinese and sailed my way through four books of the sage's advice.
Some of the Analects, like most pieces of holy drivel, are self-evident. Some of it is pedantic. Some of it evokes a whistle: “Barbarian tribes with their rulers are inferior to Chinese states without them” (3:5). But much of the Analects is profoundly ethical, a profound achievement for a time when there was very little space for contemplation. Confucius, is often thought of as a grumpy old man with his dogmatic commitments to the correct display of rites, but he was living in a time where emperors and officials used their power to shamelessly exploit the splendour of religious events for their own advancement, a crass populism based on who could pay for the most line-dancers. So, Confucius thinks that it is better to avoid obsequiousness when possible. He advises officials holding a rite, when in doubt, to choose frugality before extravagance; but in mourning, “it is better to err on the side of grief than on the side of indifference” (3:4). Think of this the next time a friend you don't know too well has a death in the family. That letter probably isn't as awkward as you think it is. There is also a democratic spirit in his pedagogy. Having come from poverty, though from a good family name, Confucius believed that theoretically anyone with the patience of mind and effort could become a good scholar, and thus a good official. He reasoned that the ability to cooperate with others and to avoid resorting to force were more effective measures of character than all the stupid myths of blood and heredity. Also, I was delighted to find that God's not so accurate claim to Adam and Eve about the nutritional value of apples (Genesis 2:17) is, by number, a sister-passage to the Analects' earlier phrasing of the essential Socratic definition of education: “To say you know when you know, and to say you do not when you do not, that is knowledge.” I think I can easily say which passage is the more honest.
The temple's own walk-thru exhibit on the life of Confucius puts much of this into perspective (though it also helps to illustrate how Confucianism became more like a state religion than a philosophy of governance. We learn of the myths of the sage's birth which, though he had an iconic father, is slightly unexpected and has the familiar traits of a parthenogenesis). There is also an odd moment in the gallery where a page of text is displayed with a caption proclaiming in Hegelian certainty that Confucius predicted that the great “Harmonious Society” would be preceded by a period of “relative prosperity”. The party's own investment in this revelation is evident enough.
...
The TEFL training consisted of a three group split which rotates throughout the day between three teachers. They're all wonderfully nice and helpful people, but you could tell this was as arduous and stressful for them as it was for us.
My favourite thus far however has been Chuck (doesn't give a fuck). Indeed, Chuck does not give a fuck about protocols and the silliness of the usual TEFL business words like “content” or “personalization”. Chick would much rather impart useful advice gleamed from his time on the mainland, like how to use google.cn to download legal and free music that the Chinese will never buy. This spark-plug from Cleveland moved to Beijing to teach English classes and has been doing it for thirteen years. His hair has flattened into a longish grey silk sheet barely covering his crown, and his moustache is stained with nicotine around the nostrils. This is the stuff novels are made of...
...
In part, I came to experience something like the real living contradictions of capitalism. Consequently, I have not been able to avoid dealing with the vulgar topic of money. Some observations:
First, Lenin once said that “money has no smell”, but I have to admit that I can definitely distinguish my fresh crisp kuais from the dirty market pomegranate ones. Bills are still very much common use for even small purchases, and they're hard to stuff into a machine to recharge your subway card. There are single kuai coins, but they're rare. In general, if it's a piece of metal, it's probably worthless.
Second, you can't understand the use value of money without using it. This is especially true in the case of bargaining. Nothing above the price of a meal has a set-price. You must bargain for your clothes, bag, bicycle, mobile phone, tea set, stationary, etc. This is a lot to learn, especially with a minimal grasp of Chinese. Most salespeople keep a calculator for their encounters with the silly “laowai” so they can type their price bids in for one another (meaner fruit vendors will simply flash a one handed number sign). They can be quite shrill when it come to the process. I submit to you my own experience for your moral refinement.
Walking around the third floor of the Pearl Market, I wandered helplessly around the clothing and leather-goods section. Rounding a far corner, a seemingly sensible young lady asked if my hair was real, “and please can I touch it?”
uh oh. I know what comes next, I thought.
But really, I had no idea. The lady had barely taken time to register my unwillingness to visit her little stall before she grabbed hold of my wrist and began to pull. Between sliding behind me and draping her breasts all over my back, this dragon lady asked about my nationality, my time in China, and then moved on to simple flattery. I said that I knew very well what came next, and once again had no idea. I don't remember how the subject came up, but my wrist-guardian playfully insisted that I must buy something or else she would have to kill me. When I gave my equally playful “ok”, she drew her palm across my throat in a mix of eros, thanatos, and commerce. With another pull (and what a pull at that!) I was staring at a few nice knock-off belts. I circled in on the white one, just to get a price and get out of there, but at the instance of 280 kuai, I had my out. I started my goodbye and wandered round the corner. No sooner was I a few pace away when I was grabbed by the other wrist by yet another girl and pulled back in by the two of them, fully clothes-lining another western shopper in the process (goodness knows what happened to him). Despite my best efforts, I was routinely failing to get the price bellow the one hundred line. My saving grace you ask? I only had a miserable 25 kuai in my wallet (about five bucks). They literally searched my wallet to prove this. Well my inquisitive readers, that's how you get a bargain. Don't have money. I walked away with the belt, an odd feeling of arousal, and just enough cents to buy a bottle of green tea.
...
On the subject of children and teaching, I will only say a few things since many of you have already written excellent accounts of both already.
First of all, it is impossible to speak about China's children without talking about the notorious “one child policy”. Much has been said about the resulting “xiao huanli” or “little emperors”, often describing how much they are coddled and spoiled, while simultaneously receiving gigantic expectations from their parents and family. What I never thought of, however, came brilliantly to hand in class one day. “Ji-ji” (let's call him) got into a fighting mood and started a kicking fit before being hauled away into another room. A coworker shook her head in an unconcerned manner and explained to me, “he has trouble learning to play nice with others. He doesn't have any siblings at home, you see?” I'm often annoyed how little my favourite political authors had to say about China, but there was something compelling in Hitchens' claim that the party might be the first to succeed in making fraternal love literally impossible...
Given this, the children come to school and have a little trouble being weened off the comforts of home. I am in the first trench of this awkward moment, the first year of kindergarten for some very well-off 2-year-olds at a prestigious and expensive kindergarten (see what I mean about the combination of privilege and demand?). Their mothers or grandmothers are often there, either helpfully or unhelpfully, to help their children ease into what will become the normal rhythms of school life. This puts an odd sort of pressure on me at least and I have more patience for some than others. Like those mothers in the US who show up at their son's law firm interviews, these ladies can insist in a manner that lets their children forget their normal courage; and I'm also somewhat annoyed by how many of them tug on my arm and point while demanding their child to go speak with “the foreigner”.
On a similar subject, I've lost some of my confidence in that euphemism we were all brought up on that “racism is not engrained, but learned”. While this may still be true, it is nonsense to suppose that children “do not see race” before they are given the appropriate spectacles to see differences in skin colour, face shapes, hair (for which I receive daily compliments), etc. They notice pretty damn early, and lacking any relevant experiences of the world, it is natural for them to treat the new with suspicion and fear, like green things on a plate one has never eaten from before. To make matters worse, I'm also one of the only boys my age many of the girls have ever seen (besides their fathers or policemen of course). For the first two days, and finally thawing as of the date I am writing this sentence, girls would literally sink into corners and burst into tears if I so much as waved hello. Giving away treats was an opportunity for a meltdown. Vina, my coworker, anticipated all of this and our first lessons are essentially Welcome to School! Free play until children are not scared of the foreigner. Oh sky!
...
I've run out of space and of time. I will write again, I'm sure, but must breath a little first. I hope you all keep writing and remind me that I'm not the only one well off my usual track. Keep well, keep writing, keep arguing, and continue to keep the harmonious society alive, the only one I believe in. And spare a though for me this Wednesday when I shall be taken to a banquet by my school, on the accidental date of my birthday, and asked to take a toast from everyone at the table, one at a time, draining my glass for each of theirs. The firehouse, alas, is a formidable pressure.
-Simon-
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Attawapiskat
Dear Friends,
Sorry about the delay, I find this task daunting... Here goes nothing!
While I am currently sitting in my parents' house surrounded by newspapers, pots of coffee and all the fresh fruits and vegetables my simple little heart desires, that is not how I spent my summer. To be honest I find it quite difficult to think about how to properly write about and convey my time up in Attawapiskat. There just seems to be so much I could write about it, the summer was challenging but easy and also sad but hilarious. At the end of camp I was exhausted and burnt out, but since leaving the north I miss the stray dogs, the expansive skies, the sense of community, the river outside my window and most of all the kids.
Attawapiskat has a population of about 1800 and is located just off the western coast of James Bay. The town is built right on the river bank and hunting, fishing and camping are very important to the people in the community. I got to go camping with my co-workers family and to watch her mother skin a polar bear! (I have a lot of photos if you are curious and not squeamish). There are many large canoes pulled up on the bank, and from what one of the kids told me I believe they are shared between the community, or least between some families. In terms of infrastructure there is a Northern store (which had a Pizza Hut/ KFC take-away counter, and at times even had avocadoes in stock, 6$ avocadoes that is...), a couple candy stores (kids ate SO much candy, and they have so many rotten teeth!), a coffee shop, a few convenience stores, a hospital (sans doctors), a health centre, a social services office, a community hall (for the super popular BINGO), one playground and a high school. Elementary school has been operated out of portables for the last 10 years, but after years of lobbying the government has only just given word that the community will indeed get a new elementary school built (there were no signs of any work getting done this summer).
Camp itself was pretty crazy. As for the 'literacy' aspect of camp... We tried, but it is damn near impossible to make kids read and write (especially the older ones) when they are coming to camp of their own free will and can and do walk out if they don't like the activity. It was more important to us to make kids want to come to camp so that they could benefit from healthy snacks and socialization than to be sure every kid read for 15 minutes a day. It was also challenging when some kids could not read or write at all to do a creative writing project. We did have success reading with the younger kids (especially when my special friend Puppeta McSock read to them) and loaning out books for children to take home. Whenever possible we threw the alphabet or new words into activities. We definitely didn't have the staff to manage the amount of kids who came to camp the first 2 weeks (50 kids in the morning and 30 in the afternoon with 4 of us, sometimes only 3). Teasing and bullying is out of control and the numbers dropped pretty drastically in the middle of the summer. Smaller numbers meant we could give kids more attention and do more cool stuff, but it also means that there are kids who are missing out, often those for whom the teasing was too much to handle. The kids didn't even just tease each other, we were fair game for them as well. Those 'spots' on my face were a constant source of amusement. One of my coworkers was black and it was much worse and more serious for her. We had a tough time trying to teach the kids the irony of them calling her racist names and treating her differently because of her skin colour. The whole situation led to some pretty interesting discussions with some of the older campers, but it was quite a challenge getting through to the kids about racism, and also not something I have ever had to deal with before in my life, neither had my co-worker who had grown up in multicultural neighbourhoods in Montreal and Toronto.
I've worked with kids before, but the behaviour of many of these kids was just wild in comparison. It happened regularly at camp or our events that objects were thrown, food, dominos, markers, rocks, chairs, even once a table (thrown into the ditch, thankfully not at anyone). We had to call NAPS (the local police) twice, once when children were trying to break down the doors to our house and pulling at the broken glass on the windows (we did not have a phone, so we attempted on skype, but did not succeed, after about half an hour of being under siege some older kids came and scared off those attacking our house) and another time because a seven year old camper was throwing a temper tantrum after camp was over, refusing to leave the premises and climbing out onto high ledges threatening to jump off (we had called her family and half an hour later they had still not arrived). Both times we were worried more about the kids, but just didn't know who else in the community we could turn to, as frontier college did not bother to arrange a community liaison for us. I was never greatly worried about my own safety, but heartbroken many times by the behaviour of young kids, it just scared me to think what they would resort to as they grew older and stronger. It was expressed to me by elders and responsible community members that they have a huge problem with parenting (or lack thereof). Many of my campers parents were in their twenties, having children in your teens is quite common, and many children are being raised by extended families. I loved the sense of family and community that exists in Attawapiskat. Twice during my stay they held feasts in which the entire community is invited into the community space to come and eat. It was beautiful to see such sharing and generosity.
Despite all the mayhem I loved those crazy kids. I had the best interactions with them outside of camp. There were always kids knocking at our door. They wanted to go with us to the playground, for a swim, for a walk, to play uno or bananagrams on the porch or simply to hang out and talk. The only evening activity is dodgeball in the gym every night at 6 and children are often allowed to roam the town until late at night. It worked to my advantage that I advertised that kids could come knock on my door at ANY hour if the northern lights were out, and on two occasions they did. The second time we didn't actually have a door to knock on but the windows were open and I could hear "HEATHER HEATHER HEATHER" being yelled from the street. Not only were the lights dancing across the sky but I saw many shooting stars and the sky is so large and beautiful, no light pollution or skyscrapers in the way! We had some issues with housing, and the school board lied to us about having to do work in the house we were living in, and kicked us out when we had 2 weeks left in the community. The priest (who WAS the spitting of Mr. Rogers from the TV show, riding around town in his little cardigan on his bicycle) heard from the band council that we needed housing and offered us to move into the apartment in the church. Unfortunately there was no porch the kids could hang out on, and the outside doors were locked at 10 p.m. It definitely changed the dynamics that kids could no longer come by easily on evenings and weekends, but our camp numbers did go up and perhaps that had something to do with it.
I feel as if there is just too much to talk about, and I don't know if I have said even half of what I wanted to say, but ask me about it in person next time you see me. I will show you our funny camp video and tell you about my favourite kids. As for now I have a wisdom tooth to be extracted tomorrow morning and am spending time in Ottawa in the sun and catching up with friends, then soon it is back to Halifax! At times this summer I was incredibly homesick for Halifax and friends (especially the day I saw Emma's photos on facebook!), right now I must go get dressed and head off on my (mother's) bicycle to visit with Alyza, Erin and Natalie!
Love,
Heather
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