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January 6th, 2012
Happy New Year!
Although this last year hasn’t seen anywhere near the amount of water under the keel as you'll have come to expect from previous newsletters, it has been an amazing and busy one with some unexpected twists! I should warn you that it's also been a very political and spiritual year for me – as strange as that might sound – and I hope that you don't mind me expressing some personal feelings regarding that in this letter which I hope won't be offensive to anyone.
After returning from visiting family in Princeton and the Sunshine Coast this time last year, I returned to Camosun College for a busy and fascinating semester of Literature, Art History, Religions of the West, Anthropology of Women, and Ecosystems and Human Activity. When nominations for the Camosun College Student Society and Education Council began I considered seeking nomination, but it wasn't until several friends and class mates urged me to run that I was nominated as a representative of the Student Society on the Education Council, the organization which authorizes curriculum. I was uncontested and acclaimed to the position but campaigned hard none the less for a group of candidates which I was supporting, many of whom were elected. This was only the very beginning of a political semester as it was shortly afterward that the Conservative Party of Canada, our minority government, faced the first Canadian vote of non-confidence in response to their lack of action or reliable information on Canada's economic state, scheduling a federal election in the Spring. I volunteered for our local NDP candidate Randall Garrison's campaign, and at the College to engage students to vote, and when the news started coming in on the evening of election day I was as shocked as much of the country. The Conservatives, under their ultra-right-wing leader Steven Harper, had been re-elected, this time with a majority government. However, the NDP – the progressive party which I have come to support for their concern for equality, the environment, and peace – became the official opposition for the first time in history under the leadership of Jack Layton. When the CBC stopped covering the election for the night, our riding of Esquimalt/Juan de Fuca remained the last undecided riding as the results were so close, and the next day we learned that Randall Garrison was elected over the Conservative candidate by a 500 vote margin. As anticipated, the rest of the year has been filled with cuts to social programs, discriminatory politics, undermining of labour unions, pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, scrapping registration of fire-arms, and similar regressive policies which the Conservatives have been shamelessly passing.
I finished the busy Winter semester on the Dean's Honour Roll and began an archaeological field course on the same day as my last exam was scheduled, leaving no Spring break except for a fascinating new course! The small class took a field trip to Dionesio Point on Galiano Island, the site of a 2000 year old village. We camped at a site where we had potluck meals and practiced tree-ring boring and identification of human and animal skeletal remains, among other things, and from where we hiked to the archaeological site. The hike was through lush bush and along the side of towering and beautifully sculpted limestone cliffs. A pod of orcas came close in to one of the points to greet us as we rounded it. When we reached the site of the Winter village on a protected canoe beach we surveyed the hillside of deep depressions left by the pits of the bighouses which had once inhabited the now-forested shore. Returning to Victoria we began work on our main project of surveying and compiling an inventory of archaeological remains in the site of a 500 year old burial ground, in co-operation with the local First Nations, municipality, and a UVic PhD student who is BC's burial cairn specialist. By the end of the project we had documented a huge number of cairns, some of them unique in the entire record, and we finished with a First Nations ceremony to cleanse ourselves of spirits which may have clung to us during our time at the site. Also in the Spring semester I took an Advanced English Composition course, which included the reading and writing of many inspiring essays.
Finally, after two semesters of straight classes, I took the Summer off to travel around the province with my family, and I met Mom, Dad and Harry as they flew into Vancouver Airport from Ottawa. Mom had recently returned from a work exchange in Abu Dhabi, and it had been a full year since I'd seen them in person when I left Ottawa in August 2010. We rented a car and drove to the stunningly forested hillside property of Dad's former metal-etching boss, Rudy in Deep Cove. The next day we visited with Aunty Henrietta and twenty other family members in Burnaby, and explored the Museum of Anthropology and UBC campus where I am considering studying after I graduate from Camosun. We visited Dad's childhood friend, Jerry, for a Greek lunch en route to Harrison Hot Springs where Uncle Randy and Aunty Sandy were managing an RV Park. We then continued up to Princeton to visit Grumpa and Nana where we flew model biplanes over the beautiful fields of wildflowers with Grumpa and went to the United church to listen to Nana play the organ.
We drove back to Victoria where we stayed with Bill and Maureen, and Mom, Dad and Harry visited their many local friends and family while I taught a week of daily summer archery classes. We continued up the Island to Cowichan Bay where Uncle John was farming, and took a day trip on the family's classic little wooden power boat, the Carlisle. We picked up Dad's art school friend Margie in Fullford Harbour on Saltspring Island and anchored off Russel Island to re-visit the Island which Grumpa and Nana were once caretakers of. Back on the road, we visited Aunty Bobby and her dashounds at their new home and continued on to Qualicum Bay where our long-time friends Pat and Beverly made us a phenomenal dinner and allowed me to salivate over their 19th Century volumes on Gothic architecture, its design and construction. From there we ferried back over to the mainland coast where we met Uncle Rick, five-year-old cousin Alice, Aunty Lisa, and her boss' family in Lund to catch the ferry to Savary Island. We enjoyed biking, swimming, and organizing and volunteering for the Island's Fun Triathlon which Aunty Lisa's boss was the head organizer of and whose lovely cedar cabin we stayed in. Harry and Uncle Rick joined a team to participate in the Triathlon for the biking and running portions on the dirt roads and trails which wound through the forest, and we prepared the track and greeted the runners at the finish line with barbequed pizza and prizes. The days after the race were more leisurely, and we took them to explore the island further, visit local artists – including some of Dad's former colleagues from the Victoria College of Art – and walk the abstract sand of the beaches which appeared to blow to the horizon...
After a timeless stay we were back on the coast where we checked out Uncle Rick and Aunty Lisa's recently completed cottage in Lund and continued down to the property that they are caretaking in Bargain Harbour on the Sunshine Coast. During our time on the Coast we went to visit Edith Iglower, former author and journalist for the New Yorker and long-time friend of Uncle John (who had brought the Carlisle up from Cowichan to her dock). On a sunny day with only a small following swell we powered down to Buccaneer Bay with Alice, Gran and her dog Max on the Carlisle where we rowed ashore and swam on the warm, sandy beach. A few days later we had a brisk sail up to Nelson Island on Uncle Rick's ketch, the Orythia, where we met Uncle John and his friend Champak on the Carlisle and rafted to an abandoned log boom. I stayed my last night on the coast with my family at Gran's place in the Robert's Creek cooperative housing development where we had our ritual dinner at my favorite restaurant in BC, the Gumboot Cafe. The next morning I bid everyone farewell and commuted back to Victoria by ferry, public bus and skytrain to teach another week of archery.
After I left Mom, Dad and Harry took Gran to visit Edith and Aunty Shendra, two of her good friends, but during the visiting Gran – who had been her usual intrepid self as a hostess and through the day long sail that we'd done just days before – was extremely tired and incomprehensible. Shortly after Mom, Dad and Harry had to catch their flight back to Ottawa she dozed at the wheel of her car and had an accident. No one was hurt, but she lost her license and her doctor realized that one of her heart valves was contracted and that she needed to have surgery for a replacement valve. There was new, less invasive method which was suggested, but because it was a technique still in its infancy the surgeons were wary to try it on someone of Gran's age. She stayed over a month in hospital, in and out of emergency, and I went up to visit her. I came straight to her hospital from the ferry and talked and read with her before going to her place for the night. It was past midnight when the sound of the telephone awoke me and Uncle Ian's voice from Vancouver came on the answering machine, urging me to answer, but I couldn't get out of bed and down the steep, dark stairs in time. Fortunately a second call came soon after, from Gran's daughter-in-law, Rosemary in Powell River. She told me that Gran was having an emergency and that I needed to get to the hospital fast. I called a taxi and they said they'd meet me at the corner store in 15 minutes. As soon as I arrived at the store, however, beneath an infinite sky of stars, the last bus of the night, bound strait for the hospital, rounded the corner. With a prayer of apology to the late-night taxi driver, I flagged down the bus and was soon at Gran's bedside in the emergency ward. She was sleeping, breathing unevenly, and the doctor told me they'd nearly had to put her on life support but that she was now stable and recovering. Calls came in, telling of the many prayers and prayer groups who were at work across the province. When Gran awoke a look of sheer joy crossed her face as she saw me and she squeezed my hand. I stayed with her for a long while, exchanging a few words, until the nurse suggested that we both needed rest and that it was safe for me to go. Over the next few days I visited Gran, sometimes with Uncle John and Gran's friend and neighbor Sally, and she ranged from being festive, thoughtful and talkative to tired and confused. Aunty Mary flew up from Victoria and came to visit Gran with Uncle John and I on my last day there. Gran was well and she told us of her first exposure to the Quaker religion, one of the primary spiritualities in her life, and an emotional and previously secret account of her childhood of being discriminated against on her London school grounds due to her family's Jewish faith. After an amazing time of stories, forgiveness, jokes, and spiritual ceremony, Aunty Mary asked Gran – who had lived a life of charity, health, physical activity, and spirituality – how many more years she wanted to live. “Well!” Gran huffed, “that's putting it rather bluntly, isn't it!” But then she stopped and thought for a moment and said calmly, “I have come to complete peace with the idea of death.”
I flew back to Nanimo on a floatplane Beaver with Aunty Mary and we drove home from there. Close to the beginning of the semester I received a call from Mom giving the shocking news that Gran had passed away. Uncle John was with her to the end, and he and Champak had seen her off with drumming and ceremony.
As a board member of the Student Society (CCSS) I was a volunteer at the Camfest celebrations, welcoming students to the sunny September campus for the start of classes. I spent the semester studying, among many other things, cross-cultural mis-communication in Linguistic Anthropology, nuclear reactions in Physics, the measurement and identification of hominin skulls in Biological Anthropology, the spacial diffusion of religion in Human Geography, and the mechanics of mega-thrust earthquakes in Lithosphere and Hydrosphere. I averaged at least one protest rally per week for the first month or so, and attended many throughout the semester: the DOTS march from the Royal Jubilee hospital to the Legislature for more comprehensive mental healthcare, a Yard Sale on the lawn of the Legislature to protest cuts to Post Secondary Education and Adult Basic Education, a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery and Cohen Commission to protect wild salmon from open-net fish farms in BC, the Red Umbrella Rally standing up against violence to sex workers, Rock for Reproductive Justice, and many others. I participated in the first day, and many others, at Occupy Victoria, one of the many global protests against inequality this fall, which resulted in the biggest rally in the history of our city and probably the most long-lived. I also attended a Canadian Federation of Students BC skill-building workshop with other members of the CCSS at the UBC Okanogan campus, where I learned a lot, met many key players of BC's Student Movement, and joined the picket line of the Canadian Postal Worker's locked out union; and later the semi-annual general meeting at Vancouver Island University which was even more educational and inspiring.
I traveled back to the Sunshine Coast for Gran's memorial on Thanksgiving Day. Mom and Dad and so many other friends and family from across North America had come, each life profoundly touched by Gran's inextinguishable love and servitude. Uncle John took a leading role in organizing the profound and interactive memorial, and Mom, cousin Allie and I baked a huge amount of desserts for the reception. The hall filled with Gran's friends and family in a deep U shape around a central performing area capped by a display of photographs, paintings, and meaningful belongings from Gran's life. We all watched and listened to the words, songs and prayers of the Sechelt Nation elder who welcomed us, the ministers of various churches and members of other spiritual groups, family, friends, and the united voices of all of the choirs in which Gran had sung. After this moving experience, the family went down to the sea to spread some of the ashes. The dusk was still, bright with the sun's departure, and the pale smooth ripples of the Strait of Georgia blended into the high, feathered clouds of the calm sky without distinction. John and I drummed with the seabird's quiet motet as we each cast flowers and ashes which drifted in peaceful procession to the East. The next day we buried some more ashes at Gran's former home and spiritual retreat of Mountain Song. We enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner of Cornish game hens at the Gumboot Cafe, thankful to Gran for bringing the extended family together once again, from as far-flung places as Los Angeles and Ottawa.
As soon as I returned to school after this reverent Thanksgiving break it was another election time for me. I had decided to run for an executive position on the CCSS after my interesting and engaging time as the EdCo representative, and I was in competition with two experienced and worthy candidates. I had laryngitis and five exams over the three week campaign period, but by campaigning hard and receiving the huge help, support and advice of so many fellow students and friends – especially Bill, Maureen, Dylan, and Alexah – I won the position by a good margin. The other election results were also very favorable. In my position as Lansdowne Campus Executive I have had the pleasure of working on such projects as working with the College Sustainability Council to offer more fair trade products on campus, helping campus clubs to excel, encouraging students to vote in municipal elections, working towards the use of preferential ballots in CCSS elections and decision making, helping to organize a December 6th Vigil in memory of the Montreal Masacre and in reminder of the need to take action against violence against women, and much more. I am currently co-organizing events to welcome students back to campus for the Winter 2012 semester and our local protest against raising tuition fees as part of a nation-wide Day of Action on February 1st. I encourage you, if you live near a Canadian post-secondary institution which is staging a protest, to join us in demanding a more fair, sustainable society.
On December 3rd, Gran's birthday, I went to the Vancouver Friend's meeting for a Quaker memorial of Gran. Uncle John, Sally, Gran's former boss Fran, and many of Gran's Quaker friends were there to contemplate in silence and speak through inspiration. The following weekend I went back to Vancouver with a jubilant group of progressive students for the 50th Anniversary Convention of the BC NDP. It was an inspiring weekend of conversing, listening to speeches, history and poetry, and voting and having our say on our party's platform and policies, all immersed in the hope and vision of a diversity of progressive people. Most exciting was the fact that the Federal leadership candidates were all present and hopeful of winning our votes. I visited many – although not as many as I would have liked – meet and greets, hospitality suites and pub nights with various candidates and had the opportunity to chat with others at the convention. All nine candidates participated in a town hall forum, answering questions and vying for our support. Ultimately – although proud of the performance, background and values of all the candidates – I decided to support Nathan Cullen as my first choice based on his stellar participation in the debate, my engaging personal conversations with him, his outstanding track record of standing up for the environment, his obvious electability, and my research into his policy visions.
After all of my exams were over I ended my first semester off of the Honour Roll due to a C+ in the intensive – and first – Physics course which I had taken which had included a three hour cumulative exam worth 50% of my grade, despite having achieved A+ in all my other courses. I caught an overnight bus to Princeton for Christmas, where a big hug from Grumpa greeted me as I descended out of the bus into the cold and snow-laden pioneer town. We drove to the little house with the string of Christmas lights and a little decorated pine tree from up the hill where Nana greeted us at 5 in the morning and we all went to bed for a few hours. I had, as usual, a lovely and relaxing stay, playing crib with Nana and having long talks over long walks with Grumpa around the airport on the white trails which stretched toward the distant rolling hills and mountains like a brush-stroke through smoke-plumes of long, unburied grass in a Zen winter landscape. On Christmas Eve Nana put the turkey in the oven and I went with her to the snow-enshrined church, leaving Grumpa, grateful of the excuse, home to baste the bird. Nana played the organ for the service of carols which ended with a candle-lit chorus of “Silent Night.” We returned home in Nana's friend's classic old car on a route scenic with lights to a wonderful dinner, and put presents under the tree to exchange the next morning. The day after Boxing Day I caught the bus, train and ferry to the Sunshine Coast through Vancouver, and Uncle John met me as I disembarked from the ferry in Langdale. We drove to his place through the dark and blinding rain and built a fire in the little cabin on the wooded stream bank. We reminisced over photos and documents that he'd found in Gran's house, talked of politics and religion, and visited with Champak, Aunty Shendra, Uncle Rick and Alice. On New Year's Eve we met Aunty Mary and her pilot boyfriend, Kent, who had flown over from Victoria, at Hale's place for a marvelous dinner and visit.
As 2011 passed in the procession of years, I reviewed what I anticipate 2012 to bring. My intention is to continue to work hard at what will be an extremely busy and inspiring semester as I work to serve the students of Camosun and leave a lasting legacy for them during the rest of my term on the Student Society while I study Archeology, Social Systems and the Environment, Cultural Anthropology, Geography of Cities, and Atmosphere and Biosphere. After that I will have graduated from Camosun with an Associate of Arts degree in Anthropology, and will return to Ottawa to prepare for my next adventure. This, I have decided, will be something which I have waited very long to do: the age-old pilgrimage across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. This is a journey which has called to me since I first heard of its existence, an 800 kilometer walk from the French side of the Pyrenees to Santiago where the relic of the Apostle James has been visited for twelve hundred years, then on to Finisterre, “The End of the Earth,” which has been a destination of pilgrims since the religion of the ancient Celts worshiped Europe. To give you some idea of the feelings, more than the expectations, that I have for this trip, I'd recommend this clip which I have watched hundreds of times over the past few years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDOTJHbwRj4. I am hoping to leave my time in Europe as open to exploration as my bank account will allow, then return back to Ottawa to work until I can afford to transfer to UBC or UVic to complete my bachelor’s degree in Anthropology.
On the morning of 2012 we rose and bid Uncle John goodbye, and Hale drove Kent, Mary and I out to the airport. The former pilot and air mechanic observed the Cessna that Kent was borrowing, and soon we were waving goodbye to him as he grew smaller and smaller bellow us, standing next to his 1975 Mercedes Volkswagon. We flew out over the pink and gold Salish Sea, the texture of opaque glass, toward the silk screened Gulf Islands beneath the strong and distant mountains, enrobed in snow. It felt, as we flew into the New Year, that we were half way between the veil of the pink sea and the veil of the silken clouds, each broken by pin-pricks of magnificently blinding gold which told of the sacred mysteries of the profound depth and eternal height between which we were suspended with immaculate balance....
May 2012 bring peace and beauty to you and yours.
Bradley Clements
Victoria, BC
January 6, 2012
March 18, 2011
Lansdowne Education Council Platform
Have you worried about the effect that reduced courses and decreased intake will have on your program at Camosun next year? Or have you ever planned to take a course only to find that it isn't offered when the college website said it would be? I have, and I've heard that many of you have too. I'm an anthropology student finishing my first amazing year at Camosun and, as a student representative on the Lansdowne Education Council, I will help to solve problems such as these. The Education Council is the body which includes faculty members and student representatives who collectively decide which courses are offered when, what they contain, and how they are evaluated: all very important for every one of us students on campus. In the coming year especially, we will need a dedicated and responsible student representative in this position. We'll need someone who doesn't let politics get in the way of cooperation with students and faculty to maintain high-quality courses in the face of provincial funding cuts. I am that student. Vote for Bradley Clements and the Camosun Student Life Collective. Vote to avoid that extra semester of courses that weren't offered when you needed them!
Power on your voice!
February 19, 2011
2010 Newsletter
Happy 2011!
2011 - it seems weird to write that, doesn't it? It's been quite a year, 2010, and I'll try to tell you about my experience of it in the next two hours before it's gone. It is strange to recall that 2010 began for me dancing to bongo-flava music in Lindi, the remote south-eastern corner of Tanzania, with my Canada World Youth / UVIKIUTA volunteer team! In the following months I would be working at the Chamazi Community Library with Deborah near Dar es Salaam, living with my host-family and counterpart, Jackson, in Mgole, and traveling to Moshi, Arusha, and Zanzibar - all of which you have probably heard about.
After bidding a sad farewell to my team-mates of the previous six months, I returned to Ottawa in March to stay with Mom, Dad and Harry. There I worked as a humble house-keeper in the Algonquin College Residences with a very fun group of international students, largely from Africa. I also had the pleasure of volunteering at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival which allowed me to see amazing world-class performances and to work with some renowned musicians and musicologists. The family and I attended Dad's baptism on Father's Day, an event which I had been preparing for over the previous months by calligraphing, illuminating and binding a copy of the Sermon on the Mount to give to him. Mom and I got into gardening and started a plot at the new local community garden, and I did the cooking whenever I wasn't working. I left Mom with a cookbook that I bound - at least 3 inches thick and 10 inches square - of recipes which she had collected over the years and had previously been spilling out of an old binder.
In the Summer we took a road trip to the East Coast for a holiday, camping throughout Nova Scotia, a place that I had always wanted to visit. We visited our friends from S/V Sailfish from BC who we'd met in Tonga. Digger, a carpenter by trade, was employed on the construction of the new S/V Bluenose, Canada's, and Nova Scotia's signature vessel. After an amazing trip around beautiful and historic Nova Scotia - hitting the small towns of copperages and dory-builders and skipping quickly through Halifax and Sydney - we crossed the bridge to PEI for a mini-reunion with a couple of team-mates from CWY, Colin and Edith. Being from Gatineau, Edith and her boyfriend gave me a ride back to Ottawa, stopping in New Brunswick for lunch with Sally, also from our team.
At the end of August I said goodbye to Mom, Dad, Harry and Clouseau (the cat) and flew back to Victoria, BC, for college where Bill, Maureen and Dylan welcomed me warmly to stay with them. With my backpack heavy and my bank-acount lighter with textbooks, I started classes towards an Associate of Arts Degree in Anthropology at Camosun College. Stressful as my five-course-load was - Intro to Anth, Prehistory of Pacific Cultures, Elementary Statistics, English Composition, and World Civilizations pre-1500 - all prooved very interesting and I enjoyed the semester thoroughly. After my last exam on December 20th I emerged with A's across the board, except for an A- in English and an A+ in Prehistory of Pacific Cultures.
Over the course of the semester I stayed with Bill and Maureen, cooking once a week and fencing twice, and house-sat with Allison's younger brother Ben at his place for a week and looked after some dogs and cats at another place for six weeks. Dad had a showing in November of his recent series of paintings of heritage houses back in Ottawa which was very successful: he sold ten of the series and twelve in total, including four which a city-councillor bought to display in the Ottawa City Hall. On the 22nd I bused under the recently-eclipsed misty full moon to Vancouver - meeting a classmate on the ferry - and up to Princeton over the snow-laden Allison Pass to be greeted by my Grumpa at 5 in the morning. I had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas week with Grumpa and Nana: reading, watching musicals, skiing while Grumpa dive-bombed me with model air-planes, going for long walks with Grumpa to feed the native squirrels, looking at old family photos from the South Pacific, and doing archery with Grumpa. On Christmas Eve Nana and I went to her United Church where she played the organ for the service. Nana finally introduced me to my cousin Amanda who I'd never before had the chance to meet - she has started a bookshop/coffee shop/tanning saloon/computer shop in Princeton with her husband and family. After a very enjoyable week in Princeton I took the bus, skytrain, city bus, and ferry here to the Sunshine Coast where Gran picked me up. The day after tomorrow I am planning to visit Uncle John, Uncle Rick, Aunty Lisa, cousin Alice, and Great-Aunt Shendra. And then, in a week or so, I'll be heading back to Victoria for my next semester - Art History pre-1750, Anthropology of Women, World Religions of the West, Ecosystems and Human Activity, and English Literature - woohoo!
Well, it's now an hour before 2011 and I'm having a quiet New Year's Eve with Gran who's tired after a long day which has included a doctor's visit, helping a friend move, a long walk in the woods in a dimming evening, and an assailment of photos of Tanzania. I think that's just about the year in a nut-shell, or at least as much of it as I can remember in this un-edited little letter, written in the late hours of the day and of the year. I hope you've had a wonderful 2010 and I wish you all the best for 2011 - and stay in touch! May the winds and swells of life be following and favourable.
Your friend,
Bradley
2011 - it seems weird to write that, doesn't it? It's been quite a year, 2010, and I'll try to tell you about my experience of it in the next two hours before it's gone. It is strange to recall that 2010 began for me dancing to bongo-flava music in Lindi, the remote south-eastern corner of Tanzania, with my Canada World Youth / UVIKIUTA volunteer team! In the following months I would be working at the Chamazi Community Library with Deborah near Dar es Salaam, living with my host-family and counterpart, Jackson, in Mgole, and traveling to Moshi, Arusha, and Zanzibar - all of which you have probably heard about.
After bidding a sad farewell to my team-mates of the previous six months, I returned to Ottawa in March to stay with Mom, Dad and Harry. There I worked as a humble house-keeper in the Algonquin College Residences with a very fun group of international students, largely from Africa. I also had the pleasure of volunteering at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival which allowed me to see amazing world-class performances and to work with some renowned musicians and musicologists. The family and I attended Dad's baptism on Father's Day, an event which I had been preparing for over the previous months by calligraphing, illuminating and binding a copy of the Sermon on the Mount to give to him. Mom and I got into gardening and started a plot at the new local community garden, and I did the cooking whenever I wasn't working. I left Mom with a cookbook that I bound - at least 3 inches thick and 10 inches square - of recipes which she had collected over the years and had previously been spilling out of an old binder.
In the Summer we took a road trip to the East Coast for a holiday, camping throughout Nova Scotia, a place that I had always wanted to visit. We visited our friends from S/V Sailfish from BC who we'd met in Tonga. Digger, a carpenter by trade, was employed on the construction of the new S/V Bluenose, Canada's, and Nova Scotia's signature vessel. After an amazing trip around beautiful and historic Nova Scotia - hitting the small towns of copperages and dory-builders and skipping quickly through Halifax and Sydney - we crossed the bridge to PEI for a mini-reunion with a couple of team-mates from CWY, Colin and Edith. Being from Gatineau, Edith and her boyfriend gave me a ride back to Ottawa, stopping in New Brunswick for lunch with Sally, also from our team.
At the end of August I said goodbye to Mom, Dad, Harry and Clouseau (the cat) and flew back to Victoria, BC, for college where Bill, Maureen and Dylan welcomed me warmly to stay with them. With my backpack heavy and my bank-acount lighter with textbooks, I started classes towards an Associate of Arts Degree in Anthropology at Camosun College. Stressful as my five-course-load was - Intro to Anth, Prehistory of Pacific Cultures, Elementary Statistics, English Composition, and World Civilizations pre-1500 - all prooved very interesting and I enjoyed the semester thoroughly. After my last exam on December 20th I emerged with A's across the board, except for an A- in English and an A+ in Prehistory of Pacific Cultures.
Over the course of the semester I stayed with Bill and Maureen, cooking once a week and fencing twice, and house-sat with Allison's younger brother Ben at his place for a week and looked after some dogs and cats at another place for six weeks. Dad had a showing in November of his recent series of paintings of heritage houses back in Ottawa which was very successful: he sold ten of the series and twelve in total, including four which a city-councillor bought to display in the Ottawa City Hall. On the 22nd I bused under the recently-eclipsed misty full moon to Vancouver - meeting a classmate on the ferry - and up to Princeton over the snow-laden Allison Pass to be greeted by my Grumpa at 5 in the morning. I had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas week with Grumpa and Nana: reading, watching musicals, skiing while Grumpa dive-bombed me with model air-planes, going for long walks with Grumpa to feed the native squirrels, looking at old family photos from the South Pacific, and doing archery with Grumpa. On Christmas Eve Nana and I went to her United Church where she played the organ for the service. Nana finally introduced me to my cousin Amanda who I'd never before had the chance to meet - she has started a bookshop/coffee shop/tanning saloon/computer shop in Princeton with her husband and family. After a very enjoyable week in Princeton I took the bus, skytrain, city bus, and ferry here to the Sunshine Coast where Gran picked me up. The day after tomorrow I am planning to visit Uncle John, Uncle Rick, Aunty Lisa, cousin Alice, and Great-Aunt Shendra. And then, in a week or so, I'll be heading back to Victoria for my next semester - Art History pre-1750, Anthropology of Women, World Religions of the West, Ecosystems and Human Activity, and English Literature - woohoo!
Well, it's now an hour before 2011 and I'm having a quiet New Year's Eve with Gran who's tired after a long day which has included a doctor's visit, helping a friend move, a long walk in the woods in a dimming evening, and an assailment of photos of Tanzania. I think that's just about the year in a nut-shell, or at least as much of it as I can remember in this un-edited little letter, written in the late hours of the day and of the year. I hope you've had a wonderful 2010 and I wish you all the best for 2011 - and stay in touch! May the winds and swells of life be following and favourable.
Your friend,
Bradley
July 30, 2010
Still up to stuff!
Just to keep this blog somewhat alive, I should tell you what I'm up to these days. Apart from work, here in Ottawa, I've just finished taking my TESOL certification course to teach English as a second language. The Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (Chamberfest) is in full swing here, and I've been volunteering at and attending many concerts, including Trio Alla Grande, Les Voix Baroque, Constantinople Ensemble, Fredrica von Stade, Ensemble Caprice, Ludis Modalis, the Tokyo String Quartet, and lectures by musicologist Harry Halbriech, among others. It's amazing to have such an intimate festival with so many huge names of classical music, especially as a volunteer - I find myself having casual conversations with Stewart Goodyear, Roman Borys, Jessie Parker and more! Once the festival ends and Harry gets back from England (oh yeah, did I mention my brother Harry is in England with scouts right now?) on August 8th we'll be hitting the road to the East Coast to see the Atlantic Ocean and our friends there. Mom and Dad'll be leaving me there, on PEI, for a CWY reunion with as many of the participants from our exchange as we can rally, then I'll be coming back to Ottawa with Edith and Andrea. A day or two later, on September 1st, I'll be hoping on a plane to Victoria, BC, to get ready for college at Camosun the following week! Phew!
April 6, 2010
Missive #10: Safari njema!
April 4th, 2010
Mambo!
Having finished our last EAD, we worked through our last full week in Chamazi. Poor Deborah, sick with typhoid, stayed at home and I worked mostly alone, or with Edith who had finished her work in the office. We actually completed all of the goals set for us: we computerized all of the work camp volunteer evaluation forms, catalogued and shelved all of the library books, edited all of the documents, and spent the last few days doing miscellaneous jobs such as sorting extra books, cleaning, and helping the tree-planters dig holes. At the end of the week, we had our de-briefing which involved reflecting on our experiences, discerning what we had learned and how we had advanced, considering ways in which to continue to make a difference to issues that concern us, evaluating the program and organizations, and preparing to bid farewell to the people with whom we had become so connected.
Sunday was Colin's birthday, and we went to the beach with the Tanzanian participants from the Chamazi/Cranbrook exchange which had been held at the same time as our program only in opposite countries. On the beach, we presented Colin with his cake and we went through the ceremony of feeding each person a piece. Then we hit the water and swam for the last time in the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean.
The next day was our last in Tanzania. We spent the day preparing for our huge farewell party which was held under the trees and stars with music and a huge delicious feast prepared by Dina and her army of cooks who had toiled all day long. All of our host families, the Cranbrook CWY team, another work camp that happened to be in residence consisting of Japanese, Greek and Tanzanian volunteers, and our entire team attended. Our team, following up on an idea proposed by Sarah, all had clothes tailored in a matching kitenge pattern, which surprised everyone. “We're like zebras!” Colin and I said together and doubled over laughing. It is said that zebras, when in a herd with their identical coats, are safe from predators because they cannot be singled out. After the delicious dinner, MJ and Sarah said a few (sometimes embarassing) things about each member of the group, then Julie, Hoyce and Joel called us up individually to present us with certificates for having completed the six-month volunteer exchange. Finally we Canadians, the ones who would be leaving the next morning, were called up in a row and all of our UVIKIUTA friends came and gave us a last hug and handshake. By the time our own counterparts arrived at the end of the line many of us, and many of them, had torrents of tears flowing down our faces. We took our final group pictures, then set to work cleaning up. By the time the Everest of dishes had been washed, we'd caught a ride back to Magole, I'd finished my last-minute packing, exchanged parting gifts and farewells with Jacob, Mary and Anna, and got to bed, it was after midnight.
Jackson and I slept for about two hours before getting up again in the pre-dawn darkness to carry my things over to Sean and Suzan's place to wait for our bus. It soon arrived and we picked up the whole team to go to the Julius Nyerere International Airport. We lined up together, but we were on our way through security and had to bid our final goodbyes - “safari njema, karibuni tenaa” (bon voyage, welcome again) - all too soon. After we Canadians had checked our baggage, we gathered together and were touched to see that our counterparts were still clustered outside of one of the big windows to wave goodbye to us as we headed up to our flight. As we waited at our gate, feeling slightly empty inside, a rain storm passed overhead unleashing a downpour which set the roof leaking in a couple of places. Our flight arrived on time, we boarded, and Africa was soon becoming smaller far below us. Despite the brief rains, it was a cloudless day across most of the continent, and we flew over Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, then Kilimanjaro, then forest which blended into farmland into barren oasis-dotted desert into the unblemished sea of sand that stretched to the indiscernable horizons, the Sahara. After a long time of marvelling at the endless desert and wondering how a human could survive a passage across the surface of it, I read for awhile and watched “Angels and Demons” so that I missed my view of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, but excitedly watched the shores of Africa fall below and behind us as we flew out over the Mediterranean, over what had once been Carthage. To my disappointment, Italy was shrouded with clouds, but they broke just after the Alps and I had a fairly clear view of Austria and France. We flew over Calais and the English Channel, of which I had heard stories of being crowded with shipping, but had never realized to what extent until I saw it then, even from the air. England was blanketed with cloud which we penetrated, and I saw the land below in full detail, including an undeniable castle, before we landed in Heathrow.
We hurried through Heathrow to our next flight to Toronto, and soon we were on our way home. Having felt wide awake for the duration of the first flight, the fatigue suddenly hit when I sat down on the next. Despite that, I couldn't sleep. We landed and set off to customs and baggage claim, fooling around on the conveyor belts along the way. Our baggage arrived safely, to our relief, although Sally's was torn. A lady from CWY greeted us and booked us taxis to our hotel. After having become used to riding daladalas about the same size as our mini-van taxi with the entire group in one for the equivelent of less than 25c each, I was kind of sickened that we could only have three people in one van for which it cost over $70 to get downtown. One of the first things that struck Scott, Edith and I, who were riding together, was how bright the streets were: all of the streetlights, screens, headlights, signs, and storefronts, even those which were not open. Having become used to the brilliant moon of Tanzania which makes street-lights obsolete, to markets such as Mbagala which are lit by candles and lamps at night, and to thinking of electricity as a valuable and exhaustable resource, it seemed very strange. The next thing we noticed were the advertisements. I suppose Toronto is Toronto and I may have been shocked almost as much had I arrived from Victoria as from Tanzania, but the scale and the quantity of the ads and the seemingly omnipresent feeling of commercialism made my belly squirm. When we evaluated this observation later in our de-briefing, we agreed that there is probably just as much commercialism in Dar es Salaam as in Toronto. However, we discerned, in Dar, it is a person or at least a hand-painted sign that is trying to sell you something, so your first impression is of the people being commercial, whereas here it is walls of flashing bill-boards, store-front displays, spotlights roaming the skies, and huge digital signs and screens on the sides of buildings, which makes it feel as though the place is commercial by nature.
When we entered the lobby of our fancy Marriott hotel, I asked Scott if I deserved recognition as the scruffiest guy ever to pass through its doors. Unshaven, long-haired, wearing sandals over British Airways socks, and my mis-match of light coats all worn in layers, I didn't necessarily blend in with the suited businessmen who seemed to frequent the place. The lady from CWY gave us our keys, some money for food and gave us the low-down on the rules and schedule for our last days of de-briefing. We took the elevator up to the 5th floor where we put our stuff in our rooms, marvelled at our huge pillow-laden white blanketed beds (despite the fact that we were sleeping two of us to a bed), then headed of to pander to our first priority: a pizza parlour. Only some very small patches of snow remained outside and the weather was far warmer than we had expected. It did feel very cold, nonetheless, coming back from a tropical summer. Most of the team were disappointed to have missed the snow and cast me dark looks as I scoffed “I'm from BC, I expect daffodils!” As we sat and ate our long-awaited pizza, we stared out the window with our eyebrows aloft at the parade of oddities that walked past: people in fashionable cloathes, people walking dogs, and girls in mini-skirts and leather boots. “Whaaat?!?” MJ would say, eloquently wording what I, at least, was thinking.
Back at the hotel Sean, Colin and I, in one room, utilised the rotational bed system we'd innovated in Moshi: each night everyone would rotate clockwise one space over so that everyone had the luxury of sleeping alone in a bed once. Once we and our stuff were consolidated into one room we realized just how bad we smelt... The next morning we went down to the breakfast buffet, and I went bug-eyed. I don't know how, but I fit three plate-fuls of food – eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, granola, yogurt, chocolate milk, juice, grapefruit, hash browns, a huge waffle with whipping cream, maple syrup, icing sugar, cinnamon and nuts on top – into my one skinny little body which is used to a piece of toast for breakfast. Lunch and dinner that day consisted of little snacks. Then we began our two days of de-briefing. We began by identifying and analyzing our reverse culture-shock, then continued to analyze our experiences and the conclusions that we had formed through them. We went for dinner at a Swiss Chalet across the road from a strip club called “Zanzibar”, which we had a laugh at. After another obnoxiously large breakfast the next morning, we continued our re-entry debriefing, this time looking at our future hopes and plans and discussing how we could integrate our experiences from the program and the values and ideas that we had built therein. Although there was to be another evaluatory session the following day, Edith and I had booked our train, I to Barrhaven and she to Gatineau, before we had known the schedule and unfortunately had to leave before the session began. We were thus very reluctant to leave the session, knowing that it would be our last official Canada World Youth session. We all went out for Korean BBQ that night to celebrate the past six months together, toasting ourselves, our counterparts, and our accomplishments.
The dreaded moment arrived the following morning when we were packed and in the lobby of the hotel hugging and saying goodbye to our friends. “It hasn't really registered yet, I don't think,” I said, “I'm not going to realize what's happening until a day or two from now when I'm going to want to say something to one of you and you won't be there...” After six months of working so closely and overcoming so many challenges together we had become more close than most friends that I have ever had. On top of that, they are the few people who will understand the best what I have experienced and what has changed in me. Eventually we had to part, Sean reminding us that it would be very anti-climatic for us to miss our train and have to come back again.
We caught a taxi to the huge, neo-classical train station within sight of the CN Tower in perfect timing to get our tickets and board our train. Edith and I sat with a cheerful couple and talked and reminised. She took out her Kiswahili book and we were surprised that we could open it at random near the middle and end of the book and understand most of the paragraphs listed. The train sped past the outskirts of Toronto and eventually into beautiful snowy countryside with Vs of geese returning overhead. Eventually we entered a familiar neighbourhood and I knew my stop was coming up. Edith and I said “Tutaonana kidogo” and I disembarked to find Dad waiting for me on the platform. We embraced and loaded my luggage into the car. We arrived at the house which had been beautifully renovated since I had last seen it. The green carpeting, dark wood and vinyl flooring, and all of Dad's artwork on the white walls looked great. My room was decorated with artifacts from Vanuatu, Fiji and the Kiribati, as well as one of Dad's murals. Clouseau, the cat and the only one I had around to speak Kiswahili to, was waiting for me at the top of the steps for a cuddle. Harry arrived home from the last day of school before Spring Break and we wrestled, making me realize how much he'd grown since I last fought him. Mom got back from work a little later while I was in my room and Dad pretended that I hadn't arrived.
During the first week back we went bowling with staff from Mom's office, went for daily walks around the neighbourhood, I helped Dad with projects around the house, prepared a dinner of Tanzanian food (a pale imitation though it was) and another of beef stew for St. Patrick's Day, and occupied all of the rest of my time working on the computer on my resume, applying for jobs, looking for volunteer opportunities, researching college, university and scholarships, arranging my many pictures from the trip, and reading my 150 emails that had piled up over three months of prioritizing my internet time.
On Sunday we had a large party to welcoming me back and as a belated house-warming which had been waiting until the renovations were mostly complete. Many of Mom's, Dad's and Harry's neighbors, friends and colleagues came over so I got to meet some of the community members. One had been to Kenya and Tanzania previously, and a few knew of CWY, but most of the others were fairly ignorant, saying things like “Not many people go there and survive to come back, do they?”
The most lasting impression that I have of Canada from my reverse culture-shock is the excessiveness of our way of life. I am trying to look at this analytically, not as an overly positive or negative thing. After having come to see such a thing as cold water as a luxury and juice as something reserved for special occasions, it is somewhat overwealming to have cold (or hot) water right out of the tap and a fridge never short of juice, to mention nothing of a fridge, freezer and cupboards full of whatever one's heart could desire to eat, plus a computer, bathtub, electricity, temperature control, comfortable seats... I have come to see some things which I had once thought of as necessities as luxuries, and things which I had once thought of as treats as extravagances. One might think that I would be in heaven, and I do enjoy it at times, but most often I feel overwhelmed, superficial, guilty, unappreciative, or that others are unappreciative. I sometimes find myself enjoying a bit of honest work more than any indulgency.
In terms of the situation in Africa, though, do not let anything that I have said (or anything that you have heard elsewhere, for that matter) affect your thinking. Going there with an open mind is the only way that you can know anything, and even then you will only know of the specific place, specific time, specific cirumstances, and specific people that you see through your own undeniably specifically biased lens. I thank God that when I went to Tanzania I was utterly ignorant about Africa, and any delicate preconceived notions that I may have had were quickly shattered. When I was copying volunteer evaluations from UVIKIUTA's work camps I was astounded by the self-righteous notions and pre-conceived prejudices of so many foreign volunteers (who were there for two weeks and were living apart from any actual community). They commonly criticized the projects chosen for them by the community that they were working for, saying that they wanted to address Africa's “real” problems: HIV/AIDS, orphans, poverty, hunger, etc. From the little that I have seen, I have realized that “Africa” is not universally identical, it is a continent of many unique nations and situations and is far more complex and dynamic than modern North America. The “pet problems” the Western donors have labeled the continent with are very serious and real, but to say that they are the only problems and that everyone faces them is like saying that homelessness is the only problem that developed nations have. When our counterparts were presented with this mentality, they were understandably disgusted. I will try not to put too much weight in my own experiences, as far as my view of Africa and Tanzania goes, because I have a very limited and restricted view into one isolated community myself. Please don't form any concrete notions around what I have told you, or manipulate them to serve any notions that you may previously have put your trust in.
MJ and her boyfriend, Mo came to Gatineau from Montreal for a week, and we got together with Edith and her boyfriend, Fred, for a Tanzanian dinner, enjoying each other's company again and swapping jokes that no one else would understand. A week later Scott and one of his Quebecois friends from Katimavik were on a road trip through Ottawa into Quebec where they would visit JP among other things, and they stayed the night at our place. I've been fortunate – others in the group are jealous of those of us who've been able to get together – but we're thinking of getting a bunch of the Canadian participants on a trip to the Maritimes to visit Colin and Sally this summer. Norbert and Frank of the Tanzanian team have been accepted for Seneca College in Toronto, where they applied while in Peterborough, so we may be seeing them in the country next school season.
As for me, my current, but yet malluable plan for the coming year is to find work here in Ottawa, and perhaps do some vending in a local market to help fund my post-secondary in September. As for that, I am yet deciding whether to study anthropology in Camosun College in Victoria, or the University of Ottawa, and am looking for any scholarships, bursuries or any other funds to that end. On top of that I am also seeking a place to stay in Victoria if I do return this August, so if you or someone you know there happens to have a corner with a roof over it that they would be willing to fit me into in return for some compensation, please let me know. In the meantime, I am also trying to keep up serving the world and my current community. I am looking to continue volunteering, and am registered to do so at the Ottawa Chamber Music Society's Festival this summer, among other things.
Thank you all so much for the support that you have given me, and I pray that I will someday be able to repay you for all that you have helped me to experience. Thank you also for your patience in reading through all of these Missives of mine and for keeping in touch over the past months (they are all archived on my blog, along with photos, videos, essays and other letters: bradleyclements.blogspot.com). I may not (or may, I don't know) be doing things so exciting in the next little while, but I hope that we can continue to stay in contact.
May life be amazing! Safari njema!
Bradley Clements
Ottawa, Ontario
Mambo!
Having finished our last EAD, we worked through our last full week in Chamazi. Poor Deborah, sick with typhoid, stayed at home and I worked mostly alone, or with Edith who had finished her work in the office. We actually completed all of the goals set for us: we computerized all of the work camp volunteer evaluation forms, catalogued and shelved all of the library books, edited all of the documents, and spent the last few days doing miscellaneous jobs such as sorting extra books, cleaning, and helping the tree-planters dig holes. At the end of the week, we had our de-briefing which involved reflecting on our experiences, discerning what we had learned and how we had advanced, considering ways in which to continue to make a difference to issues that concern us, evaluating the program and organizations, and preparing to bid farewell to the people with whom we had become so connected.
Sunday was Colin's birthday, and we went to the beach with the Tanzanian participants from the Chamazi/Cranbrook exchange which had been held at the same time as our program only in opposite countries. On the beach, we presented Colin with his cake and we went through the ceremony of feeding each person a piece. Then we hit the water and swam for the last time in the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean.
The next day was our last in Tanzania. We spent the day preparing for our huge farewell party which was held under the trees and stars with music and a huge delicious feast prepared by Dina and her army of cooks who had toiled all day long. All of our host families, the Cranbrook CWY team, another work camp that happened to be in residence consisting of Japanese, Greek and Tanzanian volunteers, and our entire team attended. Our team, following up on an idea proposed by Sarah, all had clothes tailored in a matching kitenge pattern, which surprised everyone. “We're like zebras!” Colin and I said together and doubled over laughing. It is said that zebras, when in a herd with their identical coats, are safe from predators because they cannot be singled out. After the delicious dinner, MJ and Sarah said a few (sometimes embarassing) things about each member of the group, then Julie, Hoyce and Joel called us up individually to present us with certificates for having completed the six-month volunteer exchange. Finally we Canadians, the ones who would be leaving the next morning, were called up in a row and all of our UVIKIUTA friends came and gave us a last hug and handshake. By the time our own counterparts arrived at the end of the line many of us, and many of them, had torrents of tears flowing down our faces. We took our final group pictures, then set to work cleaning up. By the time the Everest of dishes had been washed, we'd caught a ride back to Magole, I'd finished my last-minute packing, exchanged parting gifts and farewells with Jacob, Mary and Anna, and got to bed, it was after midnight.
Jackson and I slept for about two hours before getting up again in the pre-dawn darkness to carry my things over to Sean and Suzan's place to wait for our bus. It soon arrived and we picked up the whole team to go to the Julius Nyerere International Airport. We lined up together, but we were on our way through security and had to bid our final goodbyes - “safari njema, karibuni tenaa” (bon voyage, welcome again) - all too soon. After we Canadians had checked our baggage, we gathered together and were touched to see that our counterparts were still clustered outside of one of the big windows to wave goodbye to us as we headed up to our flight. As we waited at our gate, feeling slightly empty inside, a rain storm passed overhead unleashing a downpour which set the roof leaking in a couple of places. Our flight arrived on time, we boarded, and Africa was soon becoming smaller far below us. Despite the brief rains, it was a cloudless day across most of the continent, and we flew over Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, then Kilimanjaro, then forest which blended into farmland into barren oasis-dotted desert into the unblemished sea of sand that stretched to the indiscernable horizons, the Sahara. After a long time of marvelling at the endless desert and wondering how a human could survive a passage across the surface of it, I read for awhile and watched “Angels and Demons” so that I missed my view of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, but excitedly watched the shores of Africa fall below and behind us as we flew out over the Mediterranean, over what had once been Carthage. To my disappointment, Italy was shrouded with clouds, but they broke just after the Alps and I had a fairly clear view of Austria and France. We flew over Calais and the English Channel, of which I had heard stories of being crowded with shipping, but had never realized to what extent until I saw it then, even from the air. England was blanketed with cloud which we penetrated, and I saw the land below in full detail, including an undeniable castle, before we landed in Heathrow.
We hurried through Heathrow to our next flight to Toronto, and soon we were on our way home. Having felt wide awake for the duration of the first flight, the fatigue suddenly hit when I sat down on the next. Despite that, I couldn't sleep. We landed and set off to customs and baggage claim, fooling around on the conveyor belts along the way. Our baggage arrived safely, to our relief, although Sally's was torn. A lady from CWY greeted us and booked us taxis to our hotel. After having become used to riding daladalas about the same size as our mini-van taxi with the entire group in one for the equivelent of less than 25c each, I was kind of sickened that we could only have three people in one van for which it cost over $70 to get downtown. One of the first things that struck Scott, Edith and I, who were riding together, was how bright the streets were: all of the streetlights, screens, headlights, signs, and storefronts, even those which were not open. Having become used to the brilliant moon of Tanzania which makes street-lights obsolete, to markets such as Mbagala which are lit by candles and lamps at night, and to thinking of electricity as a valuable and exhaustable resource, it seemed very strange. The next thing we noticed were the advertisements. I suppose Toronto is Toronto and I may have been shocked almost as much had I arrived from Victoria as from Tanzania, but the scale and the quantity of the ads and the seemingly omnipresent feeling of commercialism made my belly squirm. When we evaluated this observation later in our de-briefing, we agreed that there is probably just as much commercialism in Dar es Salaam as in Toronto. However, we discerned, in Dar, it is a person or at least a hand-painted sign that is trying to sell you something, so your first impression is of the people being commercial, whereas here it is walls of flashing bill-boards, store-front displays, spotlights roaming the skies, and huge digital signs and screens on the sides of buildings, which makes it feel as though the place is commercial by nature.
When we entered the lobby of our fancy Marriott hotel, I asked Scott if I deserved recognition as the scruffiest guy ever to pass through its doors. Unshaven, long-haired, wearing sandals over British Airways socks, and my mis-match of light coats all worn in layers, I didn't necessarily blend in with the suited businessmen who seemed to frequent the place. The lady from CWY gave us our keys, some money for food and gave us the low-down on the rules and schedule for our last days of de-briefing. We took the elevator up to the 5th floor where we put our stuff in our rooms, marvelled at our huge pillow-laden white blanketed beds (despite the fact that we were sleeping two of us to a bed), then headed of to pander to our first priority: a pizza parlour. Only some very small patches of snow remained outside and the weather was far warmer than we had expected. It did feel very cold, nonetheless, coming back from a tropical summer. Most of the team were disappointed to have missed the snow and cast me dark looks as I scoffed “I'm from BC, I expect daffodils!” As we sat and ate our long-awaited pizza, we stared out the window with our eyebrows aloft at the parade of oddities that walked past: people in fashionable cloathes, people walking dogs, and girls in mini-skirts and leather boots. “Whaaat?!?” MJ would say, eloquently wording what I, at least, was thinking.
Back at the hotel Sean, Colin and I, in one room, utilised the rotational bed system we'd innovated in Moshi: each night everyone would rotate clockwise one space over so that everyone had the luxury of sleeping alone in a bed once. Once we and our stuff were consolidated into one room we realized just how bad we smelt... The next morning we went down to the breakfast buffet, and I went bug-eyed. I don't know how, but I fit three plate-fuls of food – eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, granola, yogurt, chocolate milk, juice, grapefruit, hash browns, a huge waffle with whipping cream, maple syrup, icing sugar, cinnamon and nuts on top – into my one skinny little body which is used to a piece of toast for breakfast. Lunch and dinner that day consisted of little snacks. Then we began our two days of de-briefing. We began by identifying and analyzing our reverse culture-shock, then continued to analyze our experiences and the conclusions that we had formed through them. We went for dinner at a Swiss Chalet across the road from a strip club called “Zanzibar”, which we had a laugh at. After another obnoxiously large breakfast the next morning, we continued our re-entry debriefing, this time looking at our future hopes and plans and discussing how we could integrate our experiences from the program and the values and ideas that we had built therein. Although there was to be another evaluatory session the following day, Edith and I had booked our train, I to Barrhaven and she to Gatineau, before we had known the schedule and unfortunately had to leave before the session began. We were thus very reluctant to leave the session, knowing that it would be our last official Canada World Youth session. We all went out for Korean BBQ that night to celebrate the past six months together, toasting ourselves, our counterparts, and our accomplishments.
The dreaded moment arrived the following morning when we were packed and in the lobby of the hotel hugging and saying goodbye to our friends. “It hasn't really registered yet, I don't think,” I said, “I'm not going to realize what's happening until a day or two from now when I'm going to want to say something to one of you and you won't be there...” After six months of working so closely and overcoming so many challenges together we had become more close than most friends that I have ever had. On top of that, they are the few people who will understand the best what I have experienced and what has changed in me. Eventually we had to part, Sean reminding us that it would be very anti-climatic for us to miss our train and have to come back again.
We caught a taxi to the huge, neo-classical train station within sight of the CN Tower in perfect timing to get our tickets and board our train. Edith and I sat with a cheerful couple and talked and reminised. She took out her Kiswahili book and we were surprised that we could open it at random near the middle and end of the book and understand most of the paragraphs listed. The train sped past the outskirts of Toronto and eventually into beautiful snowy countryside with Vs of geese returning overhead. Eventually we entered a familiar neighbourhood and I knew my stop was coming up. Edith and I said “Tutaonana kidogo” and I disembarked to find Dad waiting for me on the platform. We embraced and loaded my luggage into the car. We arrived at the house which had been beautifully renovated since I had last seen it. The green carpeting, dark wood and vinyl flooring, and all of Dad's artwork on the white walls looked great. My room was decorated with artifacts from Vanuatu, Fiji and the Kiribati, as well as one of Dad's murals. Clouseau, the cat and the only one I had around to speak Kiswahili to, was waiting for me at the top of the steps for a cuddle. Harry arrived home from the last day of school before Spring Break and we wrestled, making me realize how much he'd grown since I last fought him. Mom got back from work a little later while I was in my room and Dad pretended that I hadn't arrived.
During the first week back we went bowling with staff from Mom's office, went for daily walks around the neighbourhood, I helped Dad with projects around the house, prepared a dinner of Tanzanian food (a pale imitation though it was) and another of beef stew for St. Patrick's Day, and occupied all of the rest of my time working on the computer on my resume, applying for jobs, looking for volunteer opportunities, researching college, university and scholarships, arranging my many pictures from the trip, and reading my 150 emails that had piled up over three months of prioritizing my internet time.
On Sunday we had a large party to welcoming me back and as a belated house-warming which had been waiting until the renovations were mostly complete. Many of Mom's, Dad's and Harry's neighbors, friends and colleagues came over so I got to meet some of the community members. One had been to Kenya and Tanzania previously, and a few knew of CWY, but most of the others were fairly ignorant, saying things like “Not many people go there and survive to come back, do they?”
The most lasting impression that I have of Canada from my reverse culture-shock is the excessiveness of our way of life. I am trying to look at this analytically, not as an overly positive or negative thing. After having come to see such a thing as cold water as a luxury and juice as something reserved for special occasions, it is somewhat overwealming to have cold (or hot) water right out of the tap and a fridge never short of juice, to mention nothing of a fridge, freezer and cupboards full of whatever one's heart could desire to eat, plus a computer, bathtub, electricity, temperature control, comfortable seats... I have come to see some things which I had once thought of as necessities as luxuries, and things which I had once thought of as treats as extravagances. One might think that I would be in heaven, and I do enjoy it at times, but most often I feel overwhelmed, superficial, guilty, unappreciative, or that others are unappreciative. I sometimes find myself enjoying a bit of honest work more than any indulgency.
In terms of the situation in Africa, though, do not let anything that I have said (or anything that you have heard elsewhere, for that matter) affect your thinking. Going there with an open mind is the only way that you can know anything, and even then you will only know of the specific place, specific time, specific cirumstances, and specific people that you see through your own undeniably specifically biased lens. I thank God that when I went to Tanzania I was utterly ignorant about Africa, and any delicate preconceived notions that I may have had were quickly shattered. When I was copying volunteer evaluations from UVIKIUTA's work camps I was astounded by the self-righteous notions and pre-conceived prejudices of so many foreign volunteers (who were there for two weeks and were living apart from any actual community). They commonly criticized the projects chosen for them by the community that they were working for, saying that they wanted to address Africa's “real” problems: HIV/AIDS, orphans, poverty, hunger, etc. From the little that I have seen, I have realized that “Africa” is not universally identical, it is a continent of many unique nations and situations and is far more complex and dynamic than modern North America. The “pet problems” the Western donors have labeled the continent with are very serious and real, but to say that they are the only problems and that everyone faces them is like saying that homelessness is the only problem that developed nations have. When our counterparts were presented with this mentality, they were understandably disgusted. I will try not to put too much weight in my own experiences, as far as my view of Africa and Tanzania goes, because I have a very limited and restricted view into one isolated community myself. Please don't form any concrete notions around what I have told you, or manipulate them to serve any notions that you may previously have put your trust in.
MJ and her boyfriend, Mo came to Gatineau from Montreal for a week, and we got together with Edith and her boyfriend, Fred, for a Tanzanian dinner, enjoying each other's company again and swapping jokes that no one else would understand. A week later Scott and one of his Quebecois friends from Katimavik were on a road trip through Ottawa into Quebec where they would visit JP among other things, and they stayed the night at our place. I've been fortunate – others in the group are jealous of those of us who've been able to get together – but we're thinking of getting a bunch of the Canadian participants on a trip to the Maritimes to visit Colin and Sally this summer. Norbert and Frank of the Tanzanian team have been accepted for Seneca College in Toronto, where they applied while in Peterborough, so we may be seeing them in the country next school season.
As for me, my current, but yet malluable plan for the coming year is to find work here in Ottawa, and perhaps do some vending in a local market to help fund my post-secondary in September. As for that, I am yet deciding whether to study anthropology in Camosun College in Victoria, or the University of Ottawa, and am looking for any scholarships, bursuries or any other funds to that end. On top of that I am also seeking a place to stay in Victoria if I do return this August, so if you or someone you know there happens to have a corner with a roof over it that they would be willing to fit me into in return for some compensation, please let me know. In the meantime, I am also trying to keep up serving the world and my current community. I am looking to continue volunteering, and am registered to do so at the Ottawa Chamber Music Society's Festival this summer, among other things.
Thank you all so much for the support that you have given me, and I pray that I will someday be able to repay you for all that you have helped me to experience. Thank you also for your patience in reading through all of these Missives of mine and for keeping in touch over the past months (they are all archived on my blog, along with photos, videos, essays and other letters: bradleyclements.blogspot.com). I may not (or may, I don't know) be doing things so exciting in the next little while, but I hope that we can continue to stay in contact.
May life be amazing! Safari njema!
Bradley Clements
Ottawa, Ontario
March 24, 2010
Brad's Recent Readings...
Here is a selection of the books that I have been reading over the past eight months or so, and some comments on them. I'm not much of a critic I'm afraid, but I've given each my own personal star-rating based on the quality of the story and/or the translation/edition/medium:
- "The Iliad" by Homer: I listened to this translation as an audio book. I apologise because I have forgotten the publisher, the translator and the narrator's names! The narration was riveting, but the translation was not nearly so good as that of Robert Fagels, who I would recommend. ***
- "The Aeneid" by Virgil: This translation was by Robert Fagels and published as an audio book by Penguin, narrated by Ian McKellen. A very fine translation with a very engaging narrator. Listening to epic poems such as these completes the experience, as they were always narrated in their time and never or seldom read. *****
- "The Expedition of Cyrus" by Xenophon: What an adventure! If you were under the impression that the ancient classics were boring, read this and have that mind-set smashed. Published by Penguin, I can not recall the translator on the spot. *****
- "Saboteur": I was reading this non-fiction book about an Albertan eco-terrorist when I left Victoria and unfortunately had to leave it at the library only half-read. It was very well written and incredibly thought-provoking, presenting every side of a very complex and present-day problem. I'll have to find it and finish it when I get the chance. ****
- "The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne" by Michel de Montaign: This volume contains translations by Donald M. Frame of all of the essays, letters and travelogues by this philosopher of the French Renaissance. I have only been reading the essays individually as my interest calls and have not completed the book, but they are though-provoking, amusing, insightful, interesting and conversational. It is often as though a personality from the Renaissance had time travelled here to have a conversation with me! Published by Everyman's Library. ***
- "Italian Rapier Combat" by Capo Ferro: This book, a translation of Capo Ferro's "Gran Simulacro" edited by Jared Kirby and published by Greenhill Books, I have only been referencing for bits and pieces. The technical writing and illustrations, faithfully copied from the original manual, are interesting not only to learn about Renaissance rapier techniques and the evolution of fencing, but also to understand the mentality of a swordsman of the age and his presentation of a book and an education to his ruler. **
- "The Dream of Eagles Series" by Jack Whyte: This novel series, published by Penguin Canada, dramatises the legends of King Arthur seeking to portray them as they may have unfolded in reality. He traces the roots of the legend back to ancient Roman times and up to Arthur's coronation. ****
- "The Skystone": This first instalment is told from the perspective of Publius Varrus, a veteran primus pilus of the Roman army, a weapons smith, and a friend of the Legate Caius Brittanicus. In it Brittanicus founds a colony, foreseeing the fall of Rome, and Publius Varrus searches for a skystone, a metal that will make the world's finest sword, all while living in fear of the Seneca family, rival of the Brittanici.
- "The Singing Sword": The best book of the series, in my opinion. Through a rich tapestry of history, philosophy, warfare, kingly politics, innovation, corruption and revenge emerges Excalibre, the singing sword, and the colony of Camulod.
- "The Eagles Brood": The first book from the point of view of Caius Merlyn Brittanicus, grandson of Caius Brittanicus, after the withdraw of Rome's legions from Britain. Beginning with Merlyn's childhood and growth with his cousin, Uther Pendragon. This leads into their coming of age and of command, Merlyn of Camulod and Uther of his Cambrian Celtic peoples, and their wars with the upstart king of Cornwall, Guthrys Lot.
- "The Saxon Shore": Probably the slowest book of the series, although worth reading. Merlyn adopts Arthur, the orphaned son of Uther and his mistress, the queen of Cornwall and princess of Eire. He makes connections with the Mac Athol ruling clan of Eire and puts down the potential rebellion of Peter Ironhair within Camulod's council of the round table.
- "The Sorcerer: The Fort at Rivers Bend" and "Metamorphosis": The two final books of the series are presented as the two volumes of "The Sorcerer". After an assassination attempt on the child Arthur, Merlyn flees with him and a group of trusted friends to inhabit an abandoned Roman garrison in Cumbria until Arthur is ready to take his command in Camulod. After completing Arthur's education and repulsing an attack from the Son's of Codran upon their allies in Ravenglass, they return to Camulod where Merlyn's half-brother has been on command. After a period of peace Merlyn's army is ambushed by allies of the re-risen Peter Ironhair, killing several of Merlyn's closest friends. Driven by revenge, he adopts a new style of warfare: poison, trickery, wit, and the assassins arts, earning him a reputation as a fearful sorcerer. With his help Peter Ironhair and his monstrous ally the demented nephew of Uther Pendragon, who are fighting for the kingship of Arthur's rightful lands in Cambria, are slowly weakened and eventually destroyed, leading to Arthur's coronation as the champion of Christian Britain.
- "Clothar the Frank": The first of a two-book mini-series following "The Dream of Eagles". It looks at the life and legend of Sir Lancelot. I have not yet finished this book.
- "Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance": An extraordinary revolutionary philosophical classic! This book will make you think and contemplate things you may never have before. I listened to this on audio book - I've forgotten the publisher - and the narration was down-to-earth, conversational, and thoughtful. *****
- "The Histories" by Tacticus: A wise and interesting account by an elderly man in an increasingly chaotic empire who, after a lifetime of employment by its rulers, has chosen to compose a final critical analysis of his own. I listened to this on audio book with a narrator who had a very academic-sounding stern british accent which may have matched the mood but was not necessarily exciting. **
- "In Flight Swahili": A quick and easy way to learn some Swahili, but many of the words and phrases suggested were overly formal, overly touristy, or said in a way that a native speaker (according to my native speaking friends) would never have said them. *
- "Modern Swahili Grammar" by Mohammed A. Mohammed: Reading this will give you a solid foundation of grammar on which to build vocabulary, but the academic linguistic lingo is either baffling or boring. *
- "Heaven's Mirror" by Graham Hancock: A very interesting and shockingly well-grounded alternative view of history. Monumental ancient sites from around the world are looked at in connection to one another and the constellations, revealing stirring evidence for a much more scientifically aware distant past than conventional history ever suspected possible. ****
- "Collapse" by Jared Diamond: Of all of the books on this list, this is the one that I would recommend the most. I have been reading it slowly because every time I read a chapter I lend it to someone because I think that this is one of the most books for people to read in the world today. Diamond methodically documents civilizations of the world, past and present, who have fallen or show susceptibility to fall due to primarily environmental causes. He makes clear the complexity and intimacy of the problems facing societies such as ancient Polynesia, Greenland, and North and Central America, and modern China, Haiti, Rwanda, and United States. He uses history in its most important function: to learn from the past to avoid the repetition of mistakes. Although easy to read for non-fiction, this book is mostly facts which allows you to look at it analytically before you reach the end of the chapter and start to piece the facts together into the horrifying reality that they suggest. A more sober, contemplative, fact-oriented, sympathetic, and intelligent look at the broad and long- and short-term effects of climate change I have never yet found. *****
- "Me to We: Turning Self-Help on its Head" by Craig and Marc Kielburger: Exactly the opposite of the books that made me sick of the idea of self-help. The founders of Save the Children - alongside the likes of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Lewis - offer an inspirational look at how selflessness, community, and helping others can be the most communally and individually gratifying experiences of all. *****
- "The Iliad" by Homer: I listened to this translation as an audio book. I apologise because I have forgotten the publisher, the translator and the narrator's names! The narration was riveting, but the translation was not nearly so good as that of Robert Fagels, who I would recommend. ***
- "The Aeneid" by Virgil: This translation was by Robert Fagels and published as an audio book by Penguin, narrated by Ian McKellen. A very fine translation with a very engaging narrator. Listening to epic poems such as these completes the experience, as they were always narrated in their time and never or seldom read. *****
- "The Expedition of Cyrus" by Xenophon: What an adventure! If you were under the impression that the ancient classics were boring, read this and have that mind-set smashed. Published by Penguin, I can not recall the translator on the spot. *****
- "Saboteur": I was reading this non-fiction book about an Albertan eco-terrorist when I left Victoria and unfortunately had to leave it at the library only half-read. It was very well written and incredibly thought-provoking, presenting every side of a very complex and present-day problem. I'll have to find it and finish it when I get the chance. ****
- "The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne" by Michel de Montaign: This volume contains translations by Donald M. Frame of all of the essays, letters and travelogues by this philosopher of the French Renaissance. I have only been reading the essays individually as my interest calls and have not completed the book, but they are though-provoking, amusing, insightful, interesting and conversational. It is often as though a personality from the Renaissance had time travelled here to have a conversation with me! Published by Everyman's Library. ***
- "Italian Rapier Combat" by Capo Ferro: This book, a translation of Capo Ferro's "Gran Simulacro" edited by Jared Kirby and published by Greenhill Books, I have only been referencing for bits and pieces. The technical writing and illustrations, faithfully copied from the original manual, are interesting not only to learn about Renaissance rapier techniques and the evolution of fencing, but also to understand the mentality of a swordsman of the age and his presentation of a book and an education to his ruler. **
- "The Dream of Eagles Series" by Jack Whyte: This novel series, published by Penguin Canada, dramatises the legends of King Arthur seeking to portray them as they may have unfolded in reality. He traces the roots of the legend back to ancient Roman times and up to Arthur's coronation. ****
- "The Skystone": This first instalment is told from the perspective of Publius Varrus, a veteran primus pilus of the Roman army, a weapons smith, and a friend of the Legate Caius Brittanicus. In it Brittanicus founds a colony, foreseeing the fall of Rome, and Publius Varrus searches for a skystone, a metal that will make the world's finest sword, all while living in fear of the Seneca family, rival of the Brittanici.
- "The Singing Sword": The best book of the series, in my opinion. Through a rich tapestry of history, philosophy, warfare, kingly politics, innovation, corruption and revenge emerges Excalibre, the singing sword, and the colony of Camulod.
- "The Eagles Brood": The first book from the point of view of Caius Merlyn Brittanicus, grandson of Caius Brittanicus, after the withdraw of Rome's legions from Britain. Beginning with Merlyn's childhood and growth with his cousin, Uther Pendragon. This leads into their coming of age and of command, Merlyn of Camulod and Uther of his Cambrian Celtic peoples, and their wars with the upstart king of Cornwall, Guthrys Lot.
- "The Saxon Shore": Probably the slowest book of the series, although worth reading. Merlyn adopts Arthur, the orphaned son of Uther and his mistress, the queen of Cornwall and princess of Eire. He makes connections with the Mac Athol ruling clan of Eire and puts down the potential rebellion of Peter Ironhair within Camulod's council of the round table.
- "The Sorcerer: The Fort at Rivers Bend" and "Metamorphosis": The two final books of the series are presented as the two volumes of "The Sorcerer". After an assassination attempt on the child Arthur, Merlyn flees with him and a group of trusted friends to inhabit an abandoned Roman garrison in Cumbria until Arthur is ready to take his command in Camulod. After completing Arthur's education and repulsing an attack from the Son's of Codran upon their allies in Ravenglass, they return to Camulod where Merlyn's half-brother has been on command. After a period of peace Merlyn's army is ambushed by allies of the re-risen Peter Ironhair, killing several of Merlyn's closest friends. Driven by revenge, he adopts a new style of warfare: poison, trickery, wit, and the assassins arts, earning him a reputation as a fearful sorcerer. With his help Peter Ironhair and his monstrous ally the demented nephew of Uther Pendragon, who are fighting for the kingship of Arthur's rightful lands in Cambria, are slowly weakened and eventually destroyed, leading to Arthur's coronation as the champion of Christian Britain.
- "Clothar the Frank": The first of a two-book mini-series following "The Dream of Eagles". It looks at the life and legend of Sir Lancelot. I have not yet finished this book.
- "Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance": An extraordinary revolutionary philosophical classic! This book will make you think and contemplate things you may never have before. I listened to this on audio book - I've forgotten the publisher - and the narration was down-to-earth, conversational, and thoughtful. *****
- "The Histories" by Tacticus: A wise and interesting account by an elderly man in an increasingly chaotic empire who, after a lifetime of employment by its rulers, has chosen to compose a final critical analysis of his own. I listened to this on audio book with a narrator who had a very academic-sounding stern british accent which may have matched the mood but was not necessarily exciting. **
- "In Flight Swahili": A quick and easy way to learn some Swahili, but many of the words and phrases suggested were overly formal, overly touristy, or said in a way that a native speaker (according to my native speaking friends) would never have said them. *
- "Modern Swahili Grammar" by Mohammed A. Mohammed: Reading this will give you a solid foundation of grammar on which to build vocabulary, but the academic linguistic lingo is either baffling or boring. *
- "Heaven's Mirror" by Graham Hancock: A very interesting and shockingly well-grounded alternative view of history. Monumental ancient sites from around the world are looked at in connection to one another and the constellations, revealing stirring evidence for a much more scientifically aware distant past than conventional history ever suspected possible. ****
- "Collapse" by Jared Diamond: Of all of the books on this list, this is the one that I would recommend the most. I have been reading it slowly because every time I read a chapter I lend it to someone because I think that this is one of the most books for people to read in the world today. Diamond methodically documents civilizations of the world, past and present, who have fallen or show susceptibility to fall due to primarily environmental causes. He makes clear the complexity and intimacy of the problems facing societies such as ancient Polynesia, Greenland, and North and Central America, and modern China, Haiti, Rwanda, and United States. He uses history in its most important function: to learn from the past to avoid the repetition of mistakes. Although easy to read for non-fiction, this book is mostly facts which allows you to look at it analytically before you reach the end of the chapter and start to piece the facts together into the horrifying reality that they suggest. A more sober, contemplative, fact-oriented, sympathetic, and intelligent look at the broad and long- and short-term effects of climate change I have never yet found. *****
- "Me to We: Turning Self-Help on its Head" by Craig and Marc Kielburger: Exactly the opposite of the books that made me sick of the idea of self-help. The founders of Save the Children - alongside the likes of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Lewis - offer an inspirational look at how selflessness, community, and helping others can be the most communally and individually gratifying experiences of all. *****
March 15, 2010
Monkey vs. Bradley
It is said that the monkeys are not afraid of women or wazungu (white people). This may testify...
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