Life from Canada to Latin America, one word at a time.
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,
“It is not futile to sing the pain and beauty of having been born in America.” –Eduardo Galeano Before I moved to Latin America, I researched the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. Every Thursday during the dictatorship, and for years afterwards, the mothers marched around the government square in Buenos Aires, the
“Don’t talk about aliens. Talk about people.” Raul turns around to fully face our group, giant stone blocks in the background.While we are gazing in wonder around Machu Picchu, pinching ourselves to try to believe that we actually made it over the Inca Trail, our guide Raul is done with our nonsense. We are sunburnt and
I once bought a pair of yellow wax eyes at the bottom of the walking trail up to Monserrate in Bogota. As I climbed the stairs, I kept noticing vendors selling wax body parts. Arms. Legs. Torsos. Pregnant bellies. Pilgrims carried them with them and left or burnt them at the top. Rather than placing
When people greet each other in the Indigenous language of Tsotsil, they ask “How is your heart?” To respond “My heart is blooming,” means that all is well. To be healthy, to be well, is to be rooted and blossoming. As we open the public day of meetings in southern Mexico about disappeared migrants, Flori,
My post-accord Bogota feels pretty much the same as pre-peace accord Bogota. My neighbours all go about their daily routines- grocery store, walk the dog, go to work- and so do I. When I have a conversation with a friend in public, even in English, we still instinctively lean in closer, lower our voices, and
If I actually had milk and butter in my house, I would be eating pancakes for dinner tonight. However, it appears, at least looking in my fridge, that I have already given up grocery shopping for Lent. Truthfully, besides facetiously giving up everything I don’t have or like- this year, vaccum cleaners and salsa dancing-
Almost five years ago to the day, I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua for MCC orientation. Equal parts anxious and excited, I did my best at making awkward small talk with my new colleagues and trying to figure out how I could best fit into this strange new world. I had no idea that I would
