Life from Canada to Latin America, one word at a time.
I come from a long line of freezer people. We save and we store and we plan and we work. Growing up, every Sunday after church, we would go to the grocery store to buy food on sale to put into the freezer. After a Saturday bake day, we would stick loaves of bread and
Note: Edited on Feb 10th due to helpful reader response, including removing the reference to Ghandi due to some increased yelling at schools as part of protest behaviour. Keep the feedback coming! I have a sign from MCC’s migrant welcome campaign in my window: “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you are our
We are so tired. We are tired of hard conversations, of finding nuance, of the equal parts angst and adrenaline that fill our bloodstreams when we pick up our phones. We are tired of trying to find that impossible balance between calling out injustice and maintaining relationships. We want to attend potlucks and go dancing
I went to sleep and woke up to the sounds of honking horns. As the sun set last night, an airplane with a banner reading “mandate freedom” flew past my window. The city is filled with more beards and coveralls than I have ever seen in Ottawa. Canada flags attached to hockey sticks are everywhere.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.Just keep going. No feeling is final.Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life.You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. –Rainer Maria Rilke On July 9, 2011, two armed men shot Facundo Cabral in Guatemala City. I had been in Colombia
My first night in Mampujan, the community leaders came to Juana’s house to meet me. The evening turned into an impromptu meeting about community events. Voices were raised. I didn’t understand everything, but the tone felt was harsh. I went to bed that night convinced that I had witness the fragmentation of leadership. I woke
The last time I lived in Ottawa, the Arab Spring was just beginning. I would come home to my mansion to watch the Al Jazeera live feed for hours. I had studied nonviolence for social change; here was nonviolence for social change taking place right in front of my eyes. I moved to Colombia and
It is an understatement to say that coming back to Canada has been a change. A panel I attended in November with Kate Hennessy, Dorothy Day’s granddaughter, was a space for calm. Kate shared lessons and memories of growing up in a Catholic Worker home. Surrounded by anarchists, in the audience and on the panel,
I tell lies in taxis all the time. Instead of trying to explain that yes, a single Canadian woman is living and working alone, it is simpler to nod along to the assumption that I am happily married I knew things would be different, however, within three minutes of getting in a recent cab. Instead
My sister came to take me from Victoria to her home up island. Before we left, we had to make a slight detour, she told me. We needed to pick up some pigs for her farm. Yet even as Bonnie informed me our plans, she looked dubious. I would have to help with loading, and
The Llama Diaries 