Missive #4: New Beginnings

September 30^th, 2009

Hello, Bonjour, & Mambo to everyone!

Here it is – what we’ve all been waiting for – the beginning of my Canada World Youth exchange! I am now in Peterborough with my CWY team, and here is the story of that...

After having arrived at the family’s house in Ottawa in the beginning of September, I stayed for long enough to, unpack, re-pack, visit the National Art Gallery, spend some time with the family, pelt Harry with his nerf-guns, and draw a huge reproduction of a full-page manuscript illumination from the Book of Kells on Dad’s chalkboard-painted door – about a week. After that I said goodbye to Mom, Harry and Clouseau, and Dad and I drove down to Toronto to witness the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). We stayed at a neat little hostel in downtown with a restaurant in the cellar, a gigantic cathedral on one side and the Toronto stock-exchange on the other. Spending a full day at the ROM, we viewed the 2000 year-old (and over) gospels from Qumran, on the coast of the Dead Sea, and their accompanying artifacts. Seeing inscribed bricks from the original Temple Mount of Jerusalem juxtaposed with extremely fragile and ancient relics including not only parchment, but also papyrus, linen fabric, palm-leaf basketry, and improbably thin woolen nets from the time of Christ was a revelatory experience. After spending many hours marvelling over the scrolls (even my stomach clock was too distracted to tell the time until I got out of the exhibit at around 3 o’clock) we had a quick lunch at a hotdog-stand (where my Dad, Ray John, met a co-world-domination-conspirator Ray Von), and rushed back to view other amazing exhibits of medieval and Renaissance arms, armour, statues and furniture. Having arrived right at opening time in the morning, we ended our day at the museum rushing through rooms of Cypriot terra-cotta model chariots, busts of Thusidides and Herodotus, Corinthian helms, and Alexandrian tetradrachmas as we were being called out for closing time. Dad and I enjoyed a very nice last dinner together at a friendly and inexpensive Thai restaurant (I believe it was ‘Golden Thai’, for future reference), and spent a last night at the hostel.

The following morning, on the 9^th hour of the 9^th day of the 9^th month of the 2009^th year of the Gregorian calender, I was sitting cross-legged outside of the Toronto Canada World Youth office with my backpack, violin case, and 50 lbs. suitcase. I was soon admitted into the office, and my fellow CWY participants began to arrive. Scott, a Katimavik alumni of London, Ontario; Andrea, from a small town north of Toronto but who had lived in such far-flung parts of Canada as the Yukon; and Edith, a professional English/French/Spanish translator from Gatinau, Quebec (who’s impressive linguistic skills would make her one of the most valuable members of our team) all arrived at the office, and we went for a stroll around Chinatown and the Kensington Market. We caught a big school bus, with our facilitator, Liz, to the airport to pick up our remaining Canadian participants. There we met Colin, a journalist from Prince Edward Island; Marie-Josee (called MJ), a sporty and fun-loving citizen du Montreal; Sean, a humorous guy from Winnipeg; Sally, from New Brunswick, although born in Melasia; and Jean-Phillipe, a fellow fencer from Quebec, all of whom had flown in. It was interesting to note that all but two of us were of different signs of the zodiac, and we varied in more ways than that. At 19 years old, I was the youngest of all of the Canadians, the rest of whom had done university and were in their twenties. We drove out and met our Canadian Project Supervisor – Julie Pyon – at a peaceful, secluded former convent school outside of Hamilton, where we would spend our orientation week. We inhabited our dormitories, gathered for sessions and games, and by the time we retired for dinner we had melded into an inseparable family. We were the only group spending the night in the big, dark building full of statues and broadly-framed paintings, and several of the boys reported the sounds of mysterious piano-playing and large numbers of people moving down the hallways when none were there...

The following day was the one we’d been awaiting – the day our Tanzanian counterparts would arrive. After breakfast we gathered in the craft room to design and paint a banner to welcome them, which said on it: “Welcome! Karibu! Bienvenue!” The paint was mostly dry when an urgent whisper called “Quick, they’re here!” and we all rushed out the front steps bearing the banner. Laughter, greetings and welcomes filled the air as the two groups intermingled for the first time, and I piped “Habari za safari?” as I shook the Tanzanian’s hands, to which they replied with a smiling “Nzuri.” Having introduced ourselves to Suzan, Jackson, Saome, Frank, Deborah, Tegemeo, Sarah, Norbert, Rahel, and their supervisor Hoyse, we helped them lug their bags to the dormitories, then headed out to the field to toss Sean’s football and frizz-bee between us.

It is hard to describe a group of friends in analytical terms, but considering that I am planning an education in anthropology I should probably give it a whirl. The Tanzanian team consisted of well-educated youth, mostly in their twenties and mostly Catholic, but with two members being younger and one a Muslim. There were several from Arusha, in the northern part of the country (near Kilimanjaro), one from the north west (near the Rwanda/Uganda borders), one from Zanzibar, and some from the Dar es Salaam area. I had heard from a friend who had been in a CWY exchange and had a Tanzanian counterpart who had poor English. When I mentioned my friend’s experience to Frank he raised his eyebrows and said “so I suppose you expected us all to be that way, did you?” Many of the group were fluent in English, although a few required an English speaker to slow down slightly, and often added an “i” to the end of many of their words. They are very often laughing, smiling or singing, and when asked about their values, the first things that they list are love, respect, manners, and equality.

Time warped during the camp – I will not go into the details which were delightful for us but probably tedious to a reader, but it seemed as though we’d been there and known eachother for as many years as it was in days (although we were not, by any means, bored). Being asked to consider and discuss things that were very deep down in the vaults of our identity which seldom saw the light of day, and to bring them amongst a group was a very enlightening, self-discovering and bonding experience. It established a sense of trusting and connection between us, allowing us to be very honest and open with one another without invoking judgement or offence. But then, I guess a drowning person will cling to what ever he can reach.

On the evening of the Tanzanian’s second day at the camp came the much anticipated moment: the pairing of the counterparts. After dinner we were all called into the main meeting room and were blindfolded and jostled about by our supervisors. Liz struck up some party music on her computer and we could hear Julie and Hoyse murmuring “Is that right?” and “Are we ready?” before we were told, on the count of three, to whip off our blindfolds and turn around. When I turned I found myself facing Jackson Mushi from Mount Kilimanjaro, the youngest member of our group at 18 years old, and we made incomprehensible sounds of joy, hugged twice, and said “Mambo Kaka!” Down the line everyone was laughing, shouting and hugging: Andrea was paired with Rahel, Colin with Tegemeo, Edith with Saome, Frank with Scott, MJ with Sarah, Sean with Suzan, Deborah with Sally, and Jean-Phillipe with Norbert. After spending most of the evening getting to know our counterparts more personally, we all got together for an evening snack and Sally taught us a loud table-clapping game, Sean showed us a cup-clapping game (clap-clap, tippy-tap, clap bang boom...), and MJ and JP did swing dancing between the tables. MJ introduced us to “The Game” which was lost every time it was thought of, and everyone conspired unsuspecting methods of making others loose. The boys retired to bed at quarter to ten, and the snoring chorus began on the hour with a virtuosic duet performing in perfect counterpoint, accompanied by an occasional crescendo from the harmony section. The rest of us were laughing to hard to get much sleep...

We wrapped up our final day of with a big game of soccer (football to the Tanzanians) in which we found that – although we had some fine Canadian players – the Tanzanian boys were unrivalled. We left the camp the following afternoon on a school bus for Peterborough, to meet the host families with whom we would stay for the next three months. We arrived at a Peterborough bed-and-breakfast where the families were gathered in the garden to meet us. When we were ready we arranged ourselves into a long line and filed out into the garden singing and clapping:

“Jambo, jambo bwana.

Habari gani, nzuri sana.

Wageni, mwakeribishwa

Tanzania yetu, hakuna matata...”

After shaking the hands of all of the host families, we presented ourselves in counterpart pairs for selection. Each family had been given a drawing that we had done of an animal (Jackson and I had drawn a “Mamba”, a crocodile), and we had to go forward and imitate our animal until our family recognized us. We were soon claimed by a smiling silver-haired lady, Wendy, who was an ESL teacher. After introducing ourselves and biding a surprisingly difficult good-bye to our team-mates who we would see again in two days, Jackson and I hauled our luggage out to Wendy’s car and she drove us to her house. There her husband Randy, a native Ojibwa artist, came down the steps of the 100 year-old heritage house to meet us and help us with our bags. Inside we met Jiang, a Chinese exchange student at Trent who was staying there, and Sam, the cat. Our room had a bunk-bed, which pleasantly reminded Jackson of boarding school, and one of Randy’s paintings on the wall. Wendy and Randy took us for a drive in their car out to the Ojibwa reserve to see Randy’s childhood home and some of his relatives. Randy, who shared his name with one of my Dad’s brothers, had a brother named Ricky, the name of my Dad’s other brother. I had dreamed of having a host family with a lute, but had hopes of finding one with a guitar, and Randy had a compromise between the two: a very nice twelve-string Seagull guitar.

The following day we had free to explore the town, and Jackson and I walked a long ways. Our group met back together the following day at “The Bridge” youth centre and related our experiences and began our week-long Community Orientation Camp. Among other things, we prepared for our volunteer work placements, Educational Activity Days (EADs), and established some committees to help with the running of the exchange, of which I found myself on the Communications and the Morale committees. At the end of the week we were told our work placements for the following six months, and I received my first choice of the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre at Trent, along with my workplace counterpart, Norbert. Coincidentally, Norbert’s counterpart, JP, was paired with Jackson at the Brock St. Mission homeless shelter. On Norbert's and my first day, his host mom drove us out to Trent (and I learned that she was a former SCA member) and dropped us off at the Environment Centre. When our supervisor, Jen, arrived she gave us a tour of the 100% energy-efficient naturally built building. It is mostly straw-bale built, but used several materials for demonstration purposes. Part of the roof is thatched, part is a living or “green” roof, and the rest is galvanized metal for the collection of rainwater. The grey-water is filtered though a series of conventional filters an then into a garden of detoxifying plants, and the toilets are composting. The whole building is passive-solar designed, and receives additional heating from solar-powered under-floor hot-water tubes. Being an education centre, Norbert and I had the job of designing school-group programs and displays, and this we have been working on, three days a week at the library, planning an interactive Grade 3 program about seeds.

On our free time we got together with the whole group, going to public music concerts, roasting marshmallows over a fire in Colin and Tegemeo’s host family’s back yard, watching movies and playing board games. On our first weekend, Wendy drove the whole group out to Randy’s reserve in her school bus for an equinoxal pow-wow. After she’d explained all of the dos and don’ts surrounding the ritual dancing, we walked down and sat on the edge of the dancing ring. At the centre of the pow-wow grounds was a shelter for the drummers and singers who were beating out their powerful music, and in the open ring around it danced the dancers in all of their regalia. There were eagle dancers with extraordinary fans of feathers on their backs, buffalo dancers with horns and painted faces, healing jingle-dancers with brass bells sewn to their dresses, and fancy-shawl dancers who reminded us of the ultimate life-giving importance of women. Seeing the costumed warriors spinning around the ring to the beat of the Big Drum brought us back to the essence of the North American spirit. On one dance, when “all tribes” were invited to come dance, I entered the circle through the prescribed gate and danced around the ring with the dancers.

The following Thursday, on our first Community Activity Day, we travelled on a school bus through the beautiful pastoral landscape to volunteer on an organic farm. There we were greeted by a large, black, loud “ombwa simba” (lion-dog) and Mike and Tera, the farmers of the land. They gave us a tour of their green-houses, vegetable fields, horse and cattle pastures, and wild medicinal plants. They explained to us about farm life and of how they farm in a traditional, environmentally friendly manner. On top of being fully organic, they also use horses to draw their tills and other implements and do their harvesting by hand. We got down to work harvesting beans, onions, pumpkins, squash, and potatoes, and hauled our substantial pickings up to the barn. After a day of enjoyably hard work we said goodbye to our hosts and returned to Peterborough, all cradling our incredibly huge zuccinis that we had picked for ourselves.

A week or so after our arrival, another Chinese exchange student arrived at Randy and Wendy’s: Lam (or Ray) from Makaow. His English was somewhat limited, and after meeting him Jackson did a little dance and said “Now I’m not the only one learning English!” The house now had four cultures in it: two Chinese, two descendants of the British Isles, a Tanzanian and an Ojibwa. It was fun to have Lam, Jackson and I all in the kitchen doing dishes: Jackson would be asking Lam how to say something in Chinese, Lam asking me how to say something in English, and I asking Jackson how to say it in Kiswahili.

On Sunday Jackson went to church and I went with Wendy to an interesting Bah’ai meeting, enjoying the drive through the breath-taking Kawartha scenery. The following Tuesday was our first EAD, organized by Andrea’s team, called the FARCES after the acronym of their combined names. Their EAD was on architecture, and we had a very interesting tour of the downtown area, learning about Peterborough’s unique history and buildings. The second part was held in a very nice heritage house, where we talked about Tanzanian and environmentally friendly architecture. It being Frank’s birthday, Sally, Andrea, Sean, Edith and Saomu went shopping after the EAD, then went to Sean and Suzan’s place to cook a gigantic Chinese birthday feast. Sally was the Iron Chef, and the rest of us her minions as we chopped, baked, wrapped, washed, fried and mixed as directed, and eventually it all came deliciously together. We were a bit worried when Frank, who was tired after the EAD and a long walk to Walmart, decided that he didn’t want to come, but we convinced him that he unfortunately had no choice. After the meal we partook in the Tanzanian tradition of singing as the birthday boy fed us each a piece of cake.

I’ve just finished today’s work with Norbert, but I’m running out of time on the library computer and the power keeps going out in the mild early-autumn storm that we’re experiencing, so I’d better wrap this up. When I began this letter, in the beginning of September, I was in a place of complete insecurity. I was leaving everything, everyone, and every place that I knew behind me, and nakedly entering something new and mysterious. Now, at the end of the month, it is surprising how thoroughly and quickly (so says the calendar...) I have become adapted into something so different from anything that I have experienced before.

If you’d like to be in touch, you can send an e-mail, or a letter to 544 Aylmer St. N., Peterborough, ON., K9H 3W7 within the next couple of months. And what is in store for next month? Work, EADs, Hallowe’en, and... who knows what else? You’ll just have to stay tuned and see!

Your Friend,

Bradley Clements

CWY Volunteer

Peterborough, ON.

Ottawa Pictures

Dad painted the door into the garage with chalkboard paint - and I illuminated the door with a manuscript from the Book of Kells!

Mom (Stella), Dad (Raymond), Harry and I (Bradley) infront of the house in Barrhaven.

Cross-Canada Trip Pictures

One of the Rockey Mountains over Kicking Horse Pass

Observing the Drumheller Badlands

Fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton

The Hollidays together at Ken's place in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. From left to right: Lenn Holliday, Bradley Clements, Ray, Stella Holliday, Kirk Jones, Allie (bellow), Rob Holliday, Seth Jones (bellow), Harry Clements, and Joanna Jones (picture by Ken Holliday).

Missive #3: On the Road!

September 2, 2009

Hey everybody!

“Is it not a fine thing for two Roman consuls [Cicero and Pliny the Younger]…to employ their leisure in arranging and dressing up a pretty missive, in order to gain a reputation for a good knowledge of the language of their nurse? …If the deeds of Xenophon and Caesar had not far surpassed their eloquence, I do not believe they would ever have written them down. They sought to recommend not their sayings but their doings.”

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92)

Well, so far I well deserve the scorn of Monsieur Montaigne, for I have done much more saying than doing. That should be amended herein!
I had just put dinner in the oven on July 30th when a knock came at the door and Bill and Maureen with Sam and Ellie rolled in with their luggage, having just returned from China. Once the baggage was through the door and we had exchanged hugs and greetings – exhausted as they were after 26 hours of travel – they retold their many amazing adventures to me over dinner. The next day – which was a continuation of a procession of beautiful sunny days – was Bill’s birthday and we went for a swim in Beaver Lake and a party at Derek and Joanne’s place. Migrating up to Derek’s studio, he put on a vinyl record of the Yard Birds and we joined in enthusiastically on drum kit, tambourine, and electric and resonator guitars.
I spent the beginning of August studying Kiswahili, learning some new classical guitar repertoire, and honing my rapier lunge. Nonetheless, after months of hectic school-work, fundraising, and preparing and packing for my trip, it seemed like I had finally reached the still-point at which there was little left to do. All of my projects were finished or packed, I lacked time to start any new ones, and I was getting antsy for movement. I was on the road soon enough, though: on the first Wednesday of August I caught city buses and the giant new ferry to Vancouver to meet up with Mom, Dad and Harry who had driven across Canada to visit in BC for the Summer holidays. I waited for them in the foyer of the Vancouver Art Gallery where Dad was viewing the show of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other Baroque art. When they walked into the foyer they didn’t notice me until I was right in front of them and Harry leaped in the air and did a little scream, seeing me for the first time since Christmas. We drove through Vancouver and Stanley Park, then headed for the Horseshoe Bay ferry, Dad pointing out scenes from his childhood all along. Once there, we parked in the ferry line-up and I pushed Harry on the swings in the park. We had fish and chips at Troll’s Restaurant under the cedar sign that Dad had carved and painted when he had lived here, for Garry Troll, the owner. On the ferry to Langdale Harry clasped to my arm and unceasingly read me my driving manual despite my efforts to shake him off.
Once there we drove to Gran’s co-housing village where I slept two nights on her garden porch. During our stay, Dad and I helped to clean up Gran’s garden, Harry drug me off to play many games of ping-pong and bocce at the village Common House, and I looked at Gran’s collection of the family’s books, many of which bore beautiful but deteriorating bindings dating to the 1800’s. We met Gran’s friend Sally who lived a couple of doors down and planned to host a pair of Canada World Youth participants in September. She owned a viola and cello which her uncle had hand-crafted, both of which were beautiful to the eye and the ear, and we played together.
After a nice stay with Gran we drove to Madiera Park where we met with one of Mom’s cousins, Pat, who had lived in the same childhood neighbourhood, and his wife, Marie, on their powerboat. Uncle John brought the Carlisle over from Garden Bay and rafted up to visit. Uncle Rick and three-year-old cousin Alice came over with Lilly the spaniel as we were leaving and invited us to a BBQ party at a friend’s place to watch the hot-rod and classic car parade. Harry and I took turns keeping an eye on little Alice who had a great time swinging twenty feet in the air on the long tire swing, jumping on the trampoline, and sliding on the slide. When the parade began everybody sat on the curb and watched the huge variety of cars roll by. The younger boys made a sign which read “Burn Out!” and yelled “Lay rubber!” and pumped their fists for the drivers to honk their horns. A few drivers were happy to oblige and screeched by in a cloud of tire smoke leaving a black trail behind them on the road. Afterwards, as we drove back to Rick and Lisa’s, many people still on the roadside gave us the thumbs up or exclaimed “What the hell is that thing on that car?” in reference to Dad’s stream-lined plywood luggage rack that he had made for the roof-racks and decorated with hot-rod flames.
Rick and I slept aboard the Orythia, and in the gray-misted west-coast the morning I disturbed a huge blue heron out of a tree. I went to visit my great-aunt Shendra down the road and had an enjoyable visit. Back at Rick’s place, Alice was in one of her many pretty dresses and wanted to jump off of the dock, but daddy Rick told her to stop showing off and wait until she had her bathing-suit on. Once they both did, Rick did back-flips off of the dock and Alice copied him and swam around to the ladder, without the aid of a life-jacket, while laughing and spouting jets of water at Dad. Uncle John brought the Carlisle around to Bargain Harbour and rafted to the Orythia, braving the heavy seas and 30 knot winds that blew outside but which were completely cut out within the bay. We all visited and had dinner together.
The next day Rick, Alice, Lilly, and the lot of us, drove up to the cabin which Uncle Rick is building in Lund. Mom, Dad and I visited with our Aunt Rosemary and her husband Jeff in Powell River, while the others went swimming. At the cabin Mom and I made dinner and we all went for a trail-run through the forest. Alice had a great time in her jogging stroller as Rick barrelled along over the rough path, but she soon wanted to use her own legs to prove that what boys who are from four- to nineteen-times her age can do, she can do at least as well. She ran along and, although she fell often, she was always back on her feet and at it again without a complaint. We reached the trail end and rested on the rocky bluff looking out over Savary Island.
We slept the night in the cabin, and drove back to Powell River the next day to catch the ferry to Comox on Vancouver Island, and drive to Port McNiell to catch another ferry to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island to visit our friend Dorothy. Dorothy was a magnificent hostess for the three days that we stayed, feasted, conversed, hiked, and visited with her and other friends around the island, old and new. We also visited with our good friends Jamie and Vicki Taylor and their grand-daughter Amethyst. Harry and I helped the boy next door to Jamie to put up a zip-line between the trees, which was great fun for those light enough to ride it until the block became to hot with friction to use.
On the 13th of August we bid farewell to our friends and drove back down island, catching the ferry that Jamie was First Mate aboard. Entirely unannounced, we stopped in to say hello to Dad’s friends Pat and Beverly. Having tried and failed to contact us three days previous, and having just returned and being just about to leave again for holidays, they were very surprised to see Dad’s face peering through their glass door after years without contact. They had some very nice antique furniture, vinyl records, and books. Most of the books dated to the 18th and early 19th Centuries, as well as a 16th Century bible. Continuing down we stopped in Cowichan to visit our Aunty Bobby who was very happy to visit with us. We descended the Malahat as darkness thickened and arrived at Bill and Maureen’s place around 10 pm. During my time away my official driver’s license card and graduation certificate had arrived in the mail.
The ensuing days consisted of much visiting. Harry played golf every day with Bill. On Friday, as Mom and I were going about town running errands we ran across our friend Andrea. On Saturday Dad drew me as I shot my final practice at the Victoria Bowmen archery range, after which we went out for lunch with Mom’s step-aunts and uncles, Norman, Doreen, Marion, and Roy. From there we went to visit life-long friends Eric and Susan and their children Terrence and Eleanor, before going back to Bill and Maureen’s for a somewhat impromptu party. Many of our closest friends from the Victoria area came and contributed to the potluck feast. When we were finished discussing history, philosophy and periodic tables with Eric, Allison taught Alex and I to play “Killer Bunnies”, and Harry and Angus soon joined us in the very imaginative and giggle-inducing card game. Barry and Angus took turns on the guitar and keyboard, I played guitar and violin, and Dad got some drums together and we swung “I’ve Got Rhythm” and some other fun tunes. The following day was my final fencing practice before leaving, so I challenged all comers and faced all six of those who arrived one after another for two and a half hours. By the end I was drenched in sweat, but it was fun!
Ken, Peggy, Kenny and Will, our sailing friends from S/V Zeeotter whom we had met in Fiji, drove up from their home in Washington to see us. After meeting them at the M/V Coho dock we toured Fisherman’s Wharf, our old neighborhood from our days on Silent Sound, then went to camp at Aunty Mary’s ranch in Goldstream. For three days Ken, Rob, and I played guitars, Harry and Carter golfed, us kids hiked, trampolined, and swung on swings, while we all camped out and enjoyed eachother’s company. Mom, Dad, Bill and I went to Herman’s Jazz Club for Noah Becker’s birthday jam. The music was from a broad range, and was all very, very fine. As we left Noah, who had been Mom and Dad’s best man at their wedding, asked everyone to give a hand to his friend, a great artist, who was returning to Ottawa! The next day the former Silent Sounders and Zeeotters all congregated aboard S/V Greybeard for a meal with Humphrey and his many usual guests.
The time finally came for us to bid farewell to Victoria. We said goodbye to Aunty Mary, Matthew, Carter, Ken, Peggy, Kenny and Will, then drove to Bill and Maureen’s place to pack the last of my stuff into and onto the car. We miraculously succeeded, with my backpack between my feet, and my guitar and violin cases forming a wall in the demilitarized zone between Harry and I in the back seat, then drove to Deep Cove to visit with our friends Fran and Helen. As expected, we didn’t fit on the 5 o’clock sailing to Tsawwassen from Swartz Bay, but we caught the next ferry at 6. As the ferry pulled away from Vancouver Island, I left behind my archery club, spiritual community, SCA branch, and many other family and close friends.
After spending the night at Dad’s very hospitable cousin Shelley’s place in Vancouver, we drove up into the mountains where the slopes were inhabited by pine trees and the clouds were low over us. During our stay at Grumpa and Nana’s in Princeton there was a traditional music festival which we very much enjoyed. The festival kicked off with a Celtic street dance on Friday night which my poor calves (having just recovered from my last fencing practice) protested for days after the tip-toe springing dances, but the fun was, again, worth it. Between dances a man came up and introduced himself to Mom and I, saying that he had been sworn as a Canadian at a citizenship ceremony which Mom had administrated and I had played guitar at! Mom recalled the thank-you card that he had sent. For the following days Mom, Nana and I listened to the back-to-back performances of Celtic, country, ballads, shanties, clog and morris dancing, and other traditional music, dancing and story-telling. Saying goodbye to Grumpa and Nana, we got in our high-piled car and drove through the smooth rolling Okanogan scenery like an Arabian caravan camel en route to Mecca.
Reaching our friend's Jim and Chris' place in Kelowna, we stayed there two nights. Jim drove Dad and I out to the airport to see his beautifully home-constructed little yellow aircraft. After our stay we continued on, and the sharp gray crags that stood sentinel over Kicking Horse Pass looked down from above us as the Rocky Mountains bore us over their backs. As we drove along the highway, passing road workers and century-old railway-tracks, I looked into the valleys far below and wondered at the perseverance that the first pioneers into this region must have had. Stopping at a gas station to fuel up, we found a tanker truck filling the station which had run dry. Apparently many stations had due to a tornado, and the tanker had to come from Vancouver. Once there was gas, it ran very slowly, at less than a letre per minute. We left the sun in British Columbia as we descended down the slope into the Prairies, and we opted to spend the night in a Calgary motel which smelt of cigarette smoke rather than drive till midnight and set up camp in our destination of Drumheller. The car gave us a little scare the next day, when it refused to start after we had stopped for breakfast, but Mom got it going just as Dad was going to phone for help.
Continuing on to Drumheller, we sank below the sedimentary layers of the pre-historic valley and model dinosaurs began appearing on the sidewalks as we entered the town. We drove to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Canada's only museum dedicated to palaeontology, which houses dinosaur finds from Alberta and the world. Having visited the museum during my dinosaur-craze era sixteen years ago, a few of the exhibits were vaguely recognizable. Although my craze was long over, it was still fascinating and Harry loved it too.
We set up tent at a campsite, apparently next to a river although there was a fence and dike between us and it. Mom, Dad and I went for a short hike up into the Badlands, the mystical desert of hard, rolling hills. The next morning we set off across the province, driving through vast fields of wheat and canola and past the emotionless mechanical arms of oil-well pumps. We stopped at a lookout over Horse-Thief Valley, and Harry fell in love with the local gopher community who scampered up to eat nuts and raisins out of his hand. As he broke pieces off of a cookie to feed one, it grabbed the whole cookie and ran off to sit next to it's burrow, holding it between its two paws and taking bites out of it in a hilariously human-like fashion. We made it to our cousin Ken's place in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and he put us up in his beautiful cabin on Jackfish Lake where we roasted marshmallows, swam in the lake, and visited. Finding avid golfers in one another, Harry and Ken hit it off and went golfing together the following morning. We went to the Fort Battleford National Park, where the Northwest Mounted Police had a fort during the 1800's. We witnessed a re-enactment of a rifle drill in the stockade, and went on a guided tour of the surviving fort buildings. We then returned to Ken's place where a minor Holliday family reunion was underway. Ken's son, Rob, daughter, Joanna and her family, and brother, Lenn, were there and I much enjoyed meeting everyone. Having always been very interested in history and genealogy, I loved meeting Lenn who had done extensive research of the Holliday family going back to the late 1700's.
After a wonderful stay in Battleford, we continued across Saskatchewan, camping the night in Manitoba. The roads on the prairies are so flat and straight that people joke that if you fall asleep on the highway you won't crash, you'll just run out of gas! When we entered Ontario the scenery became much more interesting, with low hills, young forests, and many beautiful little lakes and rivers. We sited a wolf, a coyote, a porcupine, two moose, some snakes and many birds of prey. One campsite that we stayed at had an ominous statue at its gate of a giant mosquito bearing away a camper for dinner. In actuality the mozzies were of an average size, but they made up in numbers for what they lacked in individual size. As Mom had only learned after booking her holidays that Harry's school began a full week before Labour Day, we were in a bit more of a rush to get back than we would have been. For that reason we drove long and hard the next two days and stayed at a hotel to avoid camp set-up and take-down time, and he only missed the first day of school.
Arriving at the house in Ottawa, we found the front lawn well maintained and the garden growing well, as our neighbour, Greg, had been looking after Clouseau and the house. Going through the front door, I whistled for Clouseau and a loud meow was heard from up the stairs. He came down and seemed very happy to see us.
So the next week or so I'll be working on college preparation stuff for next year, and doing last minute shopping, packing and preparation for my Canada World Youth exchange. I'll be off to Toronto on the 9th for the CWY orientation camp, so I am on the brink of yet another brand new experience! Crossing 6000 kilometers of Canada with my family was the perfect re-connective and self-discovering experience, and I finally feel that I have a sufficient connection to my country to be an ambassador to it. Mom, Dad, Harry and I need to thank all of our amazing family and friends across Canada who have hosted us and made us welcome in their homes and communities – I am honoured to know so many wonderful people!
For those of you who have long been wondering, I have been told where in Tanzania I will be going in December: a rural community called Chamazi located 25 km south of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam. I have also been informed that I am the recipient of a $1000 entrance award to Camosun College when I return to study there in 2010. As I said, the Ontario half of my CWY exchange begins on September 9th, and you will receive all the news of that in my next Missive. This letter grows too long: it must go to the barber's with my beard!
Your Friend,

Bradley A. Clements
Ottawa, Ontario

BC Pictures

Pictures from our trip through BC

John Ingraham's whale carving outside Dorothy's house in Alert Bay

Fencing at my final practice in Seagirt

Banquo Folk Ensemble at the Princeton Traditional Music Festival

Missive #2: Bachlorship 101

July 30, 2009

Hello everyone!
Bill and Maureen having left for China, I have been looking after the house alone for the past month. This has been my first experience of living alone for any period of time and, school being done and all, it hasn’t been as difficult as anticipated. Thanks to the experience that Maureen gave me earlier, cooking has become an enjoyable necessity. I spent the first week of July coaching archery to a summer camp of handicapped children with Helena at the range. One day consisted of three classes between 10 am and 3 pm, totaling to about sixty kids! Despite the many hours spent searching for arrows lost in the shoulder-high jungle of thistles which have sprung up on the berm, I can’t complain: I’m helping the archery club, the kids and their organizations, and Helena who - having been an archery coach for around 30 years with world champions and universities - has given me a great deal of education. I’m also gaining important teaching experience myself doing something I love to do out in beautiful weather…. oh yeah, and getting paid!
On Canada Day I decided that I needed a bit of exercise, so I walked from Bill and Maureen’s place in Esquimalt around the harbour to Fisherman’s Wharf to visit some friends, then continued down Dallas Road to Beacon Hill Park where I listened to a jazz band performing. After the major concerts in front of the Legislature (including the World music group Pacifica), I watched the show of fireworks over the harbour. Walking back along Government Street, I ran into the ever-popular marimba busking-band and joined the throng of dancers who had made the street impassable. Eventually prying myself away from the joyful music and enthusiastic revelers, I walked back to Esquimalt and crashed into bed at half past midnight.
I must admit, however, that there are times when anyone can feel down, especially when there are several planets in retrograde. I was feeling somewhat touchy and resentful for a period, fed up by the greed and corruption of modern Western society and the lack of good Classical music on the CBC. When I begin to feel this way, there is but one fool-proof therapy: to submerge myself in history. To this end I went to the Royal BC Museum where an exhibit of some of the world’s most amazing artifacts from the British Museum was being displayed. I spent a total of about eight and a half hours over three days in the exhibit, marveling over the sarcophagi of Egyptian pharaohs, an ancient Corinthian helm, a collection of the Lewis chessmen, a fully articulated steel model of a Japanese dragon, and many hundreds of equally breath-taking artifacts from around the world and throughout history. Staring into the eyes of a bust of Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, I recalled one of his sayings: “Very little is needed to have a happy life.” How true, Marcus!
I organized a fun-shoot at the Victoria Bowmen to help raise funds for Canada World Youth. Thanks to a great turn out of friends, including club members, SCA friends, and a teacher from SIDES, we had a great time shooting balloons, model animals and targets, and raised $130 in the process! The Friday music get-togethers were less well-attended, but Barry on guitar and keyboard and I on the violin and guitar had a great time fooling around with Celtic fiddle tunes, Gospel improvisations, pop songs, and a continuing list of unpredictable music. Between these events, many book sales (which raised about $1300), and kind donations from friends, family, my archery club, and the Lion’s Club of Esquimalt, I have reached my fundraising goal of $2500! Unfortunately I must close the Carlisle Avenue Bindery, so I can’t take any more book orders until after my exchange.
I’ve had many trips to the doctor’s, dentist’s, pharmacist’s, and optometrist’s offices for pre-trip check-ups, booster vaccinations, prescriptions, and my first filling in one of my adult teeth. I also finally got around to applying for my learner’s driver’s license, which I passed easily save the eye exam. As anticipated, my distance vision was not sufficient to drive, so I’ll have to get a new pair of glasses.
Mimi ninasoma Kiswahili! Yes, I am studying Swahili, Tanzania’s national language. I may not yet be able to string together a very impressive sentence, but I’m attempting to build a basic foundation which I can work up from once I get into the program. I should also set about oiling my very rusty French, as I will be expected to use it during the Canadian half of my exchange. Peter, our very kind, charitable, and community-oriented neighbor, got me into volunteering with the Rainbow Kitchen and Garden at St. Savior’s Anglican Church, a place where hundreds of homeless and low-income people can come to eat. I provided live music and helped with clean-up – it is quite enjoyable, and it is worth it for the thanks and the quantities of food that I am sent home with! In the free time that I have, I’ve been reading “The Expedition of Cyrus”, a thrilling 2400 year-old eye-witness account of the most amazing adventure story ever written. It is by Xenophon of Athens, an orator, philosopher, student of Socrates, and general of an army of Greek mercenaries that had to literally fight its way out of the center of the vast and hostile Persian Empire. A must-read if you are a fan of real-life adventure stories, or are just a history geek like me! I have also just finished listened to an audio-book of Virgil’s “Aenied” and Homer’s “Iliad”, and started listening to “Medea” by Euripides, reading parts of the Gnostic Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls, “North of South: An African Journey” by Shiva Niapaul, and a book of the complete works of Michel de Montaigne, the first essayist, who wrote during the French Renaissance. I enjoyed a performance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, set in the 1920’s, on the grounds of Camosun College. On July 25th my fencing instructor and his girlfriend and I drove to an SCA event at Camp Bernard for the testing of a gallant candidate. The candidate was tested in many of the things that make up the Society for Creative Anachronism, of which we saw dancing, armor inspection, fencing, archery, and battle commanding. It was especially fun to have a rapier-oriented event, rather than heavy fighting, to give us fencers a chance to try some really fun and creative battle scenarios. Following that I went to the Luminara lantern festival, in which the element’s light-show far out-shone our feeble lantern art: the sunset dyed the overcast sky a luminous peach while lightening flashed behind a vertical rainbow, sending incredibly long peals of thunder rolling across the heavens.
That’s the news for this month! Bill and Maureen return today. Next week I will be catching the ferry to Pender Harbour and to meet and travel across Canada by road with Mom, Dad and Harry: a trip which I shall tell you of in my next Missive! Remember that if you’ve lost or missed any of my Missives, you can find them – along with many other letters, stories, and essays – archived on my blog, bradleyclements.blogspot.com.
Hope you’re all having a great summer, and I hope to continue to hear from you!
Your friend,

Bradley Clements
CWY Volunteer
Victoria, BC

Sponsored by the Lion’s Club of Esquimalt, the Victoria Bowmen Association, and his many beloved friends and family!

Missive #1: Graduation and beyond!

Monday, June 28th, 2009

Hello everyone!

As you have probably heard, I have recently been accepted for a Canada World Youth (CWY) exchange between Ontario and Tanzania. The program will consist of full-time environmental volunteer work with a group of 18 youth and two adult supervisors - half from Tanzania, half from all across Canada. I will be paired with a Tanzanian counterpart with whom I’ll be living, and together we’ll be staying with a host family in a community in both Peterborough, Ontario, and in a village in Tanzania. My preparations are already underway, including sorting out travel documents, studying Swahili (the primary language of my exchange country), and engaging in an intensive campaign to raise $2500 for CWY. So far I have been blown away by the friendship, generosity and enthusiasm that so many of my friends and family have offered, and with their much appreciated help I have already come to about 70% of my goal within less than one month! I have raised a great deal of funds selling hand-made books, so Bill and Maureen’s suite where I am staying has been converted into a bindery of sorts. Many tireless hours have been spent stooped over stacks of paper to be cut, folded, pierced, sewn, covered, wrapped, and pressed. What I had been expecting to be the hard part, though – selling the books – hasn’t actually been so bad. Already this has been and immensely educational experience which will be especially valuable if I ever end up doing anything like this as a business.
So, many of you have been wondering how and why I came to be involved in Canada World Youth. I’ve been wondering that a bit myself, but I’ll explain to the best of my discernment. My interest in international volunteer aid organizations was first sparked in the South Pacific where I saw volunteers with such organizations as the Peace Corps working, especially in Vanuatu. Having been disgusted by many of the examples of - often pointless, sometimes harmful - “aid”, I was pleased to see that there were organizations which actually intermingled with the local society and worked for them and in accordance with them. Upon returning to Canada I went looking for a similar Canadian organization in which I might be able to participate, and I didn’t have to look far! My family’s one-time acquaintances, now good friends, Bill and Maureen have a son named Dylan who was away in Kenya on a CWY exchange when we returned from our trip. His experience seemed a good one, and he introduced CWY to me. After my family moved to Ottawa for Mom’s work, I began staying with Bill and Maureen. Last Fall we acted as host family to a pair of CWY participants, Melissa and Yulia, in a Victoria/Ukraine volunteer exchange, so I gained some experience of life in the CWY. Finding what I had seen to be important and meaningful, I applied for the program. However, it didn’t remain at the fore of my plans and was washed away by school and prospects of college/university. Thus I was surprised one morning to check my e-mail and find that I had been accepted. I hummed and hawed over it for a couple of days, then decided to accept and haven’t looked back since!
Apart from my preparation work for Canada World Youth, I am also just finishing my grade 12 schooling through SIDES (the South Island Distance Education School) with whom I have been studying since we returned from our trip in 2005. I’ve also been playing in the last of the school year’s Strings program, which I attend at Esquimalt High School. At the Strings Finale concert I was given a commemorative music folder. Grumpa and Nana attended our “Bach to the Beach” picnic/concert at Willows Beach, and I had the opportunity to visit with them and George Wood while they were in town. Allison (my girlfriend) invited me to the Esq. High grad dinner and dance at the Empress Hotel, so I got the experience of a genuine graduation celebration despite being home-schooled! We sat at a table with two of Allison’s friends and their boyfriends, one of whom had been my best friend in grade 3 and who I had not seen in ten years, or had contact with for at least seven… Weird synchronicities are everywhere!
My own graduation ceremony was on the 24th, and although my parents could not make it I was by no means alone: my Gran, Uncle John, Aunty Mary, Carter, Allison, Bill and Maureen all came, some of my closest family and friends. Despite a bit of adventure getting to the ceremony, involving my mixing up of the names of Cadboro and Cordova Bay, it was a great experience to see some of the amazing, diverse students who were graduating through SIDES. The teachers and everyone at SIDES deserve my deepest thanks for guiding me cheerfully, thoughtfully, and wisely through the quagmires of high school, for allowing me the ability to catch up for much lost school time during my travels, and for giving me an option outside of the physical school system. You are all amazing!
As for the rest of the family, they’re doing well in Ottawa. Harry’s enjoying scouts and baseball, and has a website called http://kiwibirds.webs.com/. Dad has his studio in working order and is creating art once again, which can be seen on his new blog http://clementsgallery.blogspot.com/. Mom is working in Citizenship Case Management in Ottawa, and has been on a work exchange to Trinidad. She has been offered another to Siri Lanka, but she has had to turn it down because the three of them will be traveling here to BC in August. Uncle John was in Vancouver General Hospital for surgery on his fractured neck, which went much better than anticipated. He is recovering rapidly and we are thankful for the many prayers that he has received! Silent Sound (yes, I still regard her as part of the family, even though she now has a new owner) is off for a new media-covered adventure over the Northwest Passage this summer, captained by her new owner Cameron Dueck. Their voyage can be traced on Cameron’s website, http://www.openpassageexpedition.com/index.html, where you can find information, live tracking, pictures, the latest up-dates of the expedition, and more.
So that’s the news up to now! Bill and Maureen left for China this morning where they will be traveling and visiting with Dylan who is there studying Mandarin at Shanghai University. I’ll be staying here in Victoria looking after the house and continuing with my fundraising and other preparations for my trip. There will be a funshoot at the Victoria Bowmen archery range on July 11th from 10:30 am till noon, by donation ($5 - $15 suggested) in support of CWY and my exchange. Everyone is welcome regardless of age, membership, and skill. There will be coaches to introduce you to the sport if you are new to it. Also, on each Friday in July, from 2 – 3:30 pm, I will be hosting a fun music session at Bill and Maureen’s place for the young and young at heart. All are welcome, regardless of age and experience (young children should be supervised) with a donation of $5 or more which shall go towards CWY. If you’re in the Victoria area and are interested in either of these events, just let me know and I’ll get you the details.
I will be trying to keep you in the loop with Missives such as this one roughly every month. I will also be posting these Missives, as well as photos and other updates on my blog, http://bradleyclements.blogspot.com/. My e-mail address is svsilentsound[at]gmail[dot]com, and my mailing address (until the end of August) is 1225, Carlisle Ave., Victoria, B.C., V9A 5C7. I’d love to hear from you! Also, I am still working to raise the $750 remaining before the end of July, so please let me know if you would care to contribute to CWY. I am gratefully accepting donations: a tax-receipt and a personal postcard from Tanzania will be sent to everyone who contributes $20 or more. The books are still on sale, between $10 and $35 – they make great gifts, journals, sketch-books, note-books, etc. Thanks for your support!
Your friend,


Bradley Clements

CWY Ontario/Tanzania Volunteer
Victoria, Canada