It seems that I can't ever keep a promise of when I will write next. I'm sorry family and friends who are reading this. I know it is pretty frustrating when I say that I will post tomorrow and I don't post for another three weeks. I am truely sorry for that. However, if you knew how crazy everything was in the last three weeks then you would know just how little personal time we get to relax and when I do have that time I don't feel much like sitting in front of a computer and typing out an endless list of events and happenings around the house.
But anyway, too much has happened since my last post, so I am not going to go into a lot of detail about New Years. Instead I will list the events in point form and continue on from there.
1. Marathon and Manitouwadge arrive and hang out.
2. We eat a lot of pizza.
3. We dance a hell of a lot and like no one is watching, even though there are a LOT of people watching.
4. We do a count down and a bunch of people kiss each other while everyone else cheers and is generally happy about it being 2009.
5. We watch a scary movie.
6. We go to sleep at 2 am-ish.
7. We wake up at noon-ish (I think) and see that we have been snowed in...again.
8. We celebrate that we get another day with eachother to do with as we please.
9. Cassie and I have a little freak out about what to feed people and how.
10. We some how still get people fed...I don't remember what or how though.
11. We clean the house and kitchen specifically (it REALLY needed it) and I have a small army to do my bidding.
12. We all pile outside to have fun and enjoy the winter weather.
a. We play keep it up with huge exercise balls.
b. We build a hot tub out of snow.
c. People go inside and make hot chocolate for everyone.
d. Other people (me incuded) stay outside and cover two people in snow and give them anatomically correct...appendages.
e. People deliver our hot chocolate to us!
f. We go inside when it gets too cold to pretend we are actually in a hot tub.
13. We set up a spa in our dinning room and give free manicures, pedicures, hand massages and facials.
14. I become a master hand massager and nail polish applier.
15. Cassie and I make dinner and are stressed because of the amount of people versus the amount of food.
16. Dinner works out (amazing!) and everyone is fed and full.
17. Everyone goes to sleep again.
18. Terrace Bay/Schreiber people wake up very early to go to Thunder Bay and let the other groups clean our house for us.
That was my New Years. Now, my Thunder Bay excursion in point form.
1. We arrive in Thunder Bay at 11 am.
2. We are staying at a cottage owned by a friend of Terri and it is absolutely gorgeous and so comfortable.
3. We have a sex workshop that we call Sex at Brex...or Sex at Breakfast with Terri's younger sister.
4. Terri runs away from said workshop.
5. We have fun talking about sex and then go into town.
6. We pick up Mike, Maddie's boyfriend from the airport and he comes to stay with us for during our excursion.
7. We do some touring, but it is REALLy bitterly cold, so we stay in the van most of the time, and only go out for short amounts of time, and do some shopping and watch a movie in the theatre.
8. We visit the Terry Fox monument, some waterfalls, see more deer, see Terri's little niece, go eat at the Hoito, and see beautiful houses and a fantabulous view of Fort William at night.
9. We go back to the house and watch movies.
10. We wake up to a lot of snow.
11. We try to shovel but don't get very far.
12. We play boot hockey on the lake.
13. I do a bit of snow shoeing and then we go back and make dinner and watch a movie called Joyeux Noel.
14. We wake up and shovel more.
15. We try to get the van up the driveway but it isn't happening so we call the owner and he helps us.
16. First we try pushing the van, then we lay down salt and push, then we put down wooden boards and watch the van drive up like it hasn't been having problems the entire time.
17. We drive Mike to the airport, and we do some more of our planned activites.
18. We stay another night because the roads are very dangerous in the direction of home and our PC tells us NOT to try to get back.
19. We wake up early, clean up and drive home.
And so ends our Thunder Bay trip.
From there, we worked for another two weeks, then packed up and got ready to leave Terrace Bay and Schreiber. We did our last one-on-ones. Mine was very late in the evening and we had to end up doing it in the van because everything else around town was closed. We came home pretty late because the talking, and being out of the house was very nice. The next day we had an award ceremony with Terri and also got to get some constructive criticism from her about what we could do better as a group, which was good to hear. Then it was time to say goodbye to Terri. We all gave her long hugs and thank yous and then hopped back on a bus to Thunder Bay with the rest of the cluster.
We stayed in a beautiful church basement side recreation gym thing and had a mini MassO/Rotation camp thing for two days.
We packed up again and went to the Thunder Bay airport.
We hopped on a plane to Toronto.
I got to see some of my family and friends! My mom, dad, sister, nonna and friend Suneet came to see me for about 40 minutes which was nice for all of us. I got hugs and kisses and cookies and it was really really REALLY nice to see everyon, even if it did pass by really quickly. I wish it could have lasted longer, but we had to then hop on to an airplane to Montreal.
From Montreal we met up with our two new groups that are part of my cluster and we waited around for a bus that would be taking us to Trois-Pistoles, Rimouski and Mont-Joli.
We got in at about 2:30 am and were greated by our new PL (or AP in french) who is named Denise. By the time we all got to bed it was 3:30. We then had to wake up to be ready to leave at 10 am and see work placements.
We had a very long day of touring with very little sleep, so towards the end we weren't as awake as we should be, but we got through it and then had to go home, eat, and print up resumes in French.
The next day at 11 am we had our interviews with five different places. I did two of my five almost entirely in French, with only a little help from Denise towards the end when I needed a question translated, or a specific answer said correctly. I was very impressed with my french abilities..not so much with how my interviews went on a whole (I did much better in Terrace Bay) but I was actually able to make myself understood to people with very little to no english. It is very different talking to people you don't know in french than how it is to talk to people in the house in french. In the house, you know people aren't going to judge you, and if some one laughs or you screw up majorly, you know it isn't serious and someone will always help you to fix what you have said. But out in the real world, if you say something rude or incorrect, people are too polite to correct your mistake and you just feel kinda foolish. So the fact that I had to talk in french with some old ladies and proper Quebecois men was kinda nerve wracking. But having Denise there to translate certain things was very helpful and relaxed me a bit and then also being able to do some of my interviews in english was a nice break.
Today we had a small Mass-O type cluster meeting just to meet everyone and go over all the behavioural standards and stuff. It was a long 5 hours ended by a pot luck dinner and dessert and then we all went home.
I found out tonight that I will be working at the hospital (also known as CSSS, but we add an infinite amount of S's to it because we can never remember just how many there actually are) and I will be working with the very old people there organizing some activities and visiting seniors and basically doing anything that I am comfortable with. I also get two hours in the morning to work on my french and on Monday's I start at 12 and end at 7 pm. I also get a drive every morning from our neighbor Patrice (who was also the person to interview me) and he comes home with me to eat lunch with me, Denise if she is home, and whomever is house manager that week. I'm a bit apprehensive about working with seniors because I don't really know how to interact with someone with Alzheimers, etc. but I am excited to try. Also, Cass did this job in Terrace Bay Hospital, so I'll just have to ask her if I don't know what to do. We all start work on Tuesday, so one more day of freedom and then I am jumping into my new life all over again.
I have a lot to say about the town, the area, the house and our position in the house (it rocks just by the by) but I really need to sleep, so I am going to leave that to my next post, whenever that shall be.
Night,
Sara.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Christmas and Visiting Family.
I realize that it is pretty late to talk about Christmas and New Years etc. , but let's face it, in the past month and a half nearly everything I've written has been late, so really this post is just keeping with the new trend.
Christmas was great in our Katima-house. I was house manager with Rosie and Maddy and I really liked being in control of the food for this. I know some people don't like to have the responsibility of it hanging over their heads and having the knowledge that the screwed up Christmas dinner (if they do screw up that is), but I really like it. At the time I may be a bit cranky and irritated if their are a lot of people in the kitchen unnecesarily, but I have found that I really do like cooking for large numbers of people and I'm good at it too.
We decided to have fondue for Christmas Eve. We made it without wine or any alcohol of any kind using lemon juice as a subsitute. It tasted pretty good actually, though a little too lemony. Anyway, before we could start our dessert, Leonie, Marco and Niall of the Marathon group came to our place to switch our vans. It was fun to see them on Christmas Eve, but also a little weird I have to admit because they aren't part of my 'family'.
For Christmas morning we woke up at 10 am, even though we had agreed to get up at 9 as a compromise between the two warring factions who disagreed about the proper wake up time on Christmas day. One groups said as early as possible, the other thought as late as possible would be best...I thought 9 am was just fine. Anyway, we had a lot of presents to open. Boxes and boxes of gifts had been mailed to us everyday and it was high time their secrets were revealed! Also we had secret santa gifts and stockings to open up. It was a lot of fun opening secret santa's We had to guess who our person was first before we were allowed to open anything up. It turned out that Alyssanne was my secret santa and she bought me an exfoliating scrubby pad thing, a floating frog soap dish and some shower wash. My person for secret sant was Maddy and I bought her a shirt on a website called Threadless (they sell many cool t-shirts that are designed by users of the website). It was the perfect gift. She literally teared up when she saw it. that made me pretty happy.
After all the gifts were unwrapped, the presents admired and the paper cleaned up we headed to the kitchen to start cooking our Christmas feast. We had a smorgasbord of scones, potatoes and eggs to eat and everything was absolutely delicious.
After the food was eaten, which was about 1:30 pm, we cleaned up from breakfast and then relaxed for a while. Then we started in on Christmas dinner. Oh boy. Christmas Day dinner was funny. We had a mish-mash. Everything was Christmas themed (stuffing...ham...cranberry jelly) but it doesn't usually go into one Christmas dinner. Usually people don't eat ham and stuffing together, but we certainly did! I did a lot of delegating for this meal. I had people chopping here and stirring there. And everything came together at the end in a very odd (but delicious) way.
On Boxing Day we had an unexpected visit from both groups in our cluster. They were both on their way to Thunder Bay for an excursion and had to stop in at our place because they roads were really bad and snowy that day. They hung out until about 2-ish and then continued on their way. We had a schedule that day of hour long 1-on-1 sessions with Terri, but because of the impromptu group get-together we had to push them all back. I was able to have my session at about 3 pm. Terri and I talked for almost 2 hours. It was really nice to be able to get out of the house and talk without the entire group in the general vicinity. The walls in this house aren't all that thick. Even now, I am sitting on my bunkbed listening to music with the door closed and I can still hear Simon, Rosie and Alyssanne's voices murmuring from somewhere downstairs.
When I walked pulled up to the house at 5-ish Maddy was holding the phone and talking to my parents. They were in Marathon, about an hour away! It was so exciting when I heard that. I rushed up stairs to try and tidy up our bedroom as much as possible (unfortunatly it's always in a state of dissaray). Then I sat with Alyssanne on my bed and waited. She decided that she was going to go to the window and try to see if she could see the truck pull in. i had just finished describing the truck to her when she said, "Sara, there's a black truck in the drive way!".
I screamed and ran downstairs. Literally screamed. Then I opened the door and saw the truck for myself. I screamed again. I pulled on my boots and ran outside. Luckily, the weather had warmed up a lot so it was only 0 degrees out instead of the -20 I have become used to, because I didn't bother taking the time to put on a jacket. As I was ran to the truck my mom got out and ran to me. We met in the middle of the drive way and hugged like crazy. She was crying and we were hugging and then Lia and Dad got out of the truck and joined in the hug too. It makes my throat get tight and my eyes a little watery when I think about it. I really do believe that that was the best hug I've ever had.
My family stayed for about 4 days. In that time we opened gifts (thanks Zia Silvana, Nonna and everyone else!), made dinners and breakfasts together, played cards and talked. We also went on tours of Schreiber and Terrace Bay (guided by me of course) and also went out to Rossport , Red Rock (where the rock is really red), Nipigon and Thunder Bay. The day was so clear and beautiful. We had perfect weather for driving and sightseeing. I have to say, the stretch of highway that we drove is some of the most breathtaking in Canada.
Over two days we got to see a lot. Nipigon River which is the largest feeder into Lake Superior. And since Lake Superior drains into the rest of the great lakes, we really got to see the water that flows through all of the freat lakes. We also saw a small 'confectionary' that sold very little candy, but a lot of yarn, comics and fishing gear. It was a pretty crazy place actually. We also saw a lot of frozen, rushing water. It just looks so cool when water freezes in the middle of moving.
We drove out to the Silver Islets on our way to Thunder Bay. That was a really neat place. There were a bunch of dear out on the road eating the salt and being generally cute. When you get to the end of the road however, you have an unobstructed view of The Sleeping Giant which is a mountain range that looks like a man lying down. you can see the contours of his face really well which is really neat. I don't have any good pictures of it though which is unfortunate. Also at the end of the islets there is a colourful old mining town. The houses are now private cottages, but you can tell that most of them are the original houses the miners and their families would have lived in. It actually looks like one of those Nova Scotian fishing villages you see pictures of. They are all so tightly packed, brightly painted and sitting right beside the water. In the snow, nearly through the entire town we saw drunken, swaying boot prints. This person was VERY drunk. They were swaying all over the place and generally having a lot of trouble walking straight. It became a bit of a game for us to see just where the prints went though we lost track of them on the plowed road.
We saw ice climbers right off the highway, and right next to them was the famous Terry Fox monument. It is very impressive. It looks out off a rock face right next to the highway and it's just so powerful. We drove up the road and went to take pictures and sign the guest book.
When we were in Thunder Bay itself we didn't get to do much stuff. It was late when we pulled in so we decided to go and eat at the famous Hoito. The Hoito is a Finnish restaurant that is famous for it's good food and cheap prices. It was first opened for the Finnish mione workers in town who were able to find affordable housing, but not affordable food. The prices are amazing and the food is delicious. I've never had Finnish food before now, but I have to say, I would have it again, and many times over.
My parents and Lia left on the morning of the 30th and that day we spent cleaning to get ready for New Years, which we were hosting with the other two groups. I'm going to leave the story of New Years and afterward for tomorrow or the next day though because that retelling will be another long post and I just don't have it in me to describe it all over again.
x o
Sara
Christmas was great in our Katima-house. I was house manager with Rosie and Maddy and I really liked being in control of the food for this. I know some people don't like to have the responsibility of it hanging over their heads and having the knowledge that the screwed up Christmas dinner (if they do screw up that is), but I really like it. At the time I may be a bit cranky and irritated if their are a lot of people in the kitchen unnecesarily, but I have found that I really do like cooking for large numbers of people and I'm good at it too.
We decided to have fondue for Christmas Eve. We made it without wine or any alcohol of any kind using lemon juice as a subsitute. It tasted pretty good actually, though a little too lemony. Anyway, before we could start our dessert, Leonie, Marco and Niall of the Marathon group came to our place to switch our vans. It was fun to see them on Christmas Eve, but also a little weird I have to admit because they aren't part of my 'family'.
For Christmas morning we woke up at 10 am, even though we had agreed to get up at 9 as a compromise between the two warring factions who disagreed about the proper wake up time on Christmas day. One groups said as early as possible, the other thought as late as possible would be best...I thought 9 am was just fine. Anyway, we had a lot of presents to open. Boxes and boxes of gifts had been mailed to us everyday and it was high time their secrets were revealed! Also we had secret santa gifts and stockings to open up. It was a lot of fun opening secret santa's We had to guess who our person was first before we were allowed to open anything up. It turned out that Alyssanne was my secret santa and she bought me an exfoliating scrubby pad thing, a floating frog soap dish and some shower wash. My person for secret sant was Maddy and I bought her a shirt on a website called Threadless (they sell many cool t-shirts that are designed by users of the website). It was the perfect gift. She literally teared up when she saw it. that made me pretty happy.
After all the gifts were unwrapped, the presents admired and the paper cleaned up we headed to the kitchen to start cooking our Christmas feast. We had a smorgasbord of scones, potatoes and eggs to eat and everything was absolutely delicious.
After the food was eaten, which was about 1:30 pm, we cleaned up from breakfast and then relaxed for a while. Then we started in on Christmas dinner. Oh boy. Christmas Day dinner was funny. We had a mish-mash. Everything was Christmas themed (stuffing...ham...cranberry jelly) but it doesn't usually go into one Christmas dinner. Usually people don't eat ham and stuffing together, but we certainly did! I did a lot of delegating for this meal. I had people chopping here and stirring there. And everything came together at the end in a very odd (but delicious) way.
On Boxing Day we had an unexpected visit from both groups in our cluster. They were both on their way to Thunder Bay for an excursion and had to stop in at our place because they roads were really bad and snowy that day. They hung out until about 2-ish and then continued on their way. We had a schedule that day of hour long 1-on-1 sessions with Terri, but because of the impromptu group get-together we had to push them all back. I was able to have my session at about 3 pm. Terri and I talked for almost 2 hours. It was really nice to be able to get out of the house and talk without the entire group in the general vicinity. The walls in this house aren't all that thick. Even now, I am sitting on my bunkbed listening to music with the door closed and I can still hear Simon, Rosie and Alyssanne's voices murmuring from somewhere downstairs.
When I walked pulled up to the house at 5-ish Maddy was holding the phone and talking to my parents. They were in Marathon, about an hour away! It was so exciting when I heard that. I rushed up stairs to try and tidy up our bedroom as much as possible (unfortunatly it's always in a state of dissaray). Then I sat with Alyssanne on my bed and waited. She decided that she was going to go to the window and try to see if she could see the truck pull in. i had just finished describing the truck to her when she said, "Sara, there's a black truck in the drive way!".
I screamed and ran downstairs. Literally screamed. Then I opened the door and saw the truck for myself. I screamed again. I pulled on my boots and ran outside. Luckily, the weather had warmed up a lot so it was only 0 degrees out instead of the -20 I have become used to, because I didn't bother taking the time to put on a jacket. As I was ran to the truck my mom got out and ran to me. We met in the middle of the drive way and hugged like crazy. She was crying and we were hugging and then Lia and Dad got out of the truck and joined in the hug too. It makes my throat get tight and my eyes a little watery when I think about it. I really do believe that that was the best hug I've ever had.
My family stayed for about 4 days. In that time we opened gifts (thanks Zia Silvana, Nonna and everyone else!), made dinners and breakfasts together, played cards and talked. We also went on tours of Schreiber and Terrace Bay (guided by me of course) and also went out to Rossport , Red Rock (where the rock is really red), Nipigon and Thunder Bay. The day was so clear and beautiful. We had perfect weather for driving and sightseeing. I have to say, the stretch of highway that we drove is some of the most breathtaking in Canada.
Over two days we got to see a lot. Nipigon River which is the largest feeder into Lake Superior. And since Lake Superior drains into the rest of the great lakes, we really got to see the water that flows through all of the freat lakes. We also saw a small 'confectionary' that sold very little candy, but a lot of yarn, comics and fishing gear. It was a pretty crazy place actually. We also saw a lot of frozen, rushing water. It just looks so cool when water freezes in the middle of moving.
We drove out to the Silver Islets on our way to Thunder Bay. That was a really neat place. There were a bunch of dear out on the road eating the salt and being generally cute. When you get to the end of the road however, you have an unobstructed view of The Sleeping Giant which is a mountain range that looks like a man lying down. you can see the contours of his face really well which is really neat. I don't have any good pictures of it though which is unfortunate. Also at the end of the islets there is a colourful old mining town. The houses are now private cottages, but you can tell that most of them are the original houses the miners and their families would have lived in. It actually looks like one of those Nova Scotian fishing villages you see pictures of. They are all so tightly packed, brightly painted and sitting right beside the water. In the snow, nearly through the entire town we saw drunken, swaying boot prints. This person was VERY drunk. They were swaying all over the place and generally having a lot of trouble walking straight. It became a bit of a game for us to see just where the prints went though we lost track of them on the plowed road.
We saw ice climbers right off the highway, and right next to them was the famous Terry Fox monument. It is very impressive. It looks out off a rock face right next to the highway and it's just so powerful. We drove up the road and went to take pictures and sign the guest book.
A cool moment was when I saw that some people from the Marathon group had also been to the monument and signed the book as well.
When we were in Thunder Bay itself we didn't get to do much stuff. It was late when we pulled in so we decided to go and eat at the famous Hoito. The Hoito is a Finnish restaurant that is famous for it's good food and cheap prices. It was first opened for the Finnish mione workers in town who were able to find affordable housing, but not affordable food. The prices are amazing and the food is delicious. I've never had Finnish food before now, but I have to say, I would have it again, and many times over.
My parents and Lia left on the morning of the 30th and that day we spent cleaning to get ready for New Years, which we were hosting with the other two groups. I'm going to leave the story of New Years and afterward for tomorrow or the next day though because that retelling will be another long post and I just don't have it in me to describe it all over again.
x o
Sara
Neighbors
Christmas has come and gone and we are now well into the new year. 2009, welcome. I'm glad you are here. It's a new year and (in two short weeks) a new place to live with a new language to speak. New beginnings all around. Exciting and scary, I must admit. I'm sad to say goodbye to all the people I've met and the places I've been. I've become very comfortable with this place. Even with the constant snow and cold, and the fact that there is very little to see and do, I can still see why people live in this small small town. The view alone is amazing and not something I am happy to be leaving. I have gotten used to seeing Terrace Bay spread out below me on my drive to and from work. I have become used to the rock face with it's frozen rivults of water. And I've especially become used to the people.
When we first came here and had our scavanger hunt to become acquainted with our town and neighbors, every single person we asked said that the people were their favourite part of Terrace Bay and Schreiber. I understand now why they said that. Without the people in these towns it would be unbearable to live here. Because we are so isolated and far removed from big cities and mindless entertainment, we do rely on ourselves, but also on our coworkers and neighbors to entertain ourselves and give us a source of interaction and human contact. The people here are so amazing and generous. Not everyone is well off here. Infact, compared to home, most people are much less well off than even my neighbors, friends and family. But everyone helps eachother here. We have had to ask on numberous occasions to borrow rakes, shovels, forks and casserole dishes, and people have always supplied them without questions or even due dates. Even the thrift store in Schreiber has supplied us with anything we NEED for free. Any kitchen things, lamps or even sweaters. If we need them, we can have them. How awesome is that?
This past two weeks, the belt in our clothes washer broke. When we go to our neighbors to ask if we can use their washer for our clothes, they never give us odd or suspicious looks like I'm sure would happen at home. They give us a laugh and welcome us inside. I was at my neighbors' house, Ron and Marie, this past Thursday with Sarah, my laundry and the laundry of two other people and Marie asked us if we wanted to watch TV while we waited for our clothes to wash. We weren't able to since there was a lot of cleaning to be done at our own house, but when we got our clothes two hours later everything had been dried and folded. for us. Everything. Now, just who in a big city would do that for anyone else. Who in a big city would come to your house with old lamps, couches or a mattress because they heard you needed one? Who would lend you 12 forks or two casserole dishes and not ask when they would be back, but trust that they would? Who would give us a bunch of cookies and chips because they know we can't buy them with the government money we are given. Not a lot of people, that's who. But here, everyone would. Everything that I have listed up there has been a seperate person. Not just one person here has been taking care of us, but everyone has. In fact, almost everything in our house, from all the chairs and tables in the living room and dining room and the cutlery and cups in the kitchen are all donated. It's amazing the kind of generousity that we can expect from absolutely everyone here.
Even though we are asked where we are from and what we are doing here, we have never been made to feel like outsiders, and for that I am thankful. We are full contributing members of this community, more involved than most of the teenagers that have lived here their whole lives. And maybe it's because we are new to this place and the newness hasn't come off yet that it is easy to be thrilled by every new thing we do and every new place we visit, where as for the kids who live here, everything is very much the same as it has always been. There is very little change for them, as is the nature of a small isolated town. But for me, the novelty of knowing all of your neighbors, their extended families and their friends hasn't rubbed off yet.
That is the biggest reason I am sad to leave here. I will never be a part of this small community again in the same way that I am now. I will never again be recognised on the street as 'one of the Katimavik kids'. I won't have the same sort of celebrity status we seem to have here. It's not really the fact that we are celebrities of a sort that I like, but the fact that we can walk down the street and be known and welcome. The towns are only getting bigger from here and more impersonal. It will be nice to be in a bigger town with more things and places available to us, but I will miss being known by everyone around me as a part of this group.
When we first came here and had our scavanger hunt to become acquainted with our town and neighbors, every single person we asked said that the people were their favourite part of Terrace Bay and Schreiber. I understand now why they said that. Without the people in these towns it would be unbearable to live here. Because we are so isolated and far removed from big cities and mindless entertainment, we do rely on ourselves, but also on our coworkers and neighbors to entertain ourselves and give us a source of interaction and human contact. The people here are so amazing and generous. Not everyone is well off here. Infact, compared to home, most people are much less well off than even my neighbors, friends and family. But everyone helps eachother here. We have had to ask on numberous occasions to borrow rakes, shovels, forks and casserole dishes, and people have always supplied them without questions or even due dates. Even the thrift store in Schreiber has supplied us with anything we NEED for free. Any kitchen things, lamps or even sweaters. If we need them, we can have them. How awesome is that?
This past two weeks, the belt in our clothes washer broke. When we go to our neighbors to ask if we can use their washer for our clothes, they never give us odd or suspicious looks like I'm sure would happen at home. They give us a laugh and welcome us inside. I was at my neighbors' house, Ron and Marie, this past Thursday with Sarah, my laundry and the laundry of two other people and Marie asked us if we wanted to watch TV while we waited for our clothes to wash. We weren't able to since there was a lot of cleaning to be done at our own house, but when we got our clothes two hours later everything had been dried and folded. for us. Everything. Now, just who in a big city would do that for anyone else. Who in a big city would come to your house with old lamps, couches or a mattress because they heard you needed one? Who would lend you 12 forks or two casserole dishes and not ask when they would be back, but trust that they would? Who would give us a bunch of cookies and chips because they know we can't buy them with the government money we are given. Not a lot of people, that's who. But here, everyone would. Everything that I have listed up there has been a seperate person. Not just one person here has been taking care of us, but everyone has. In fact, almost everything in our house, from all the chairs and tables in the living room and dining room and the cutlery and cups in the kitchen are all donated. It's amazing the kind of generousity that we can expect from absolutely everyone here.
Even though we are asked where we are from and what we are doing here, we have never been made to feel like outsiders, and for that I am thankful. We are full contributing members of this community, more involved than most of the teenagers that have lived here their whole lives. And maybe it's because we are new to this place and the newness hasn't come off yet that it is easy to be thrilled by every new thing we do and every new place we visit, where as for the kids who live here, everything is very much the same as it has always been. There is very little change for them, as is the nature of a small isolated town. But for me, the novelty of knowing all of your neighbors, their extended families and their friends hasn't rubbed off yet.
That is the biggest reason I am sad to leave here. I will never be a part of this small community again in the same way that I am now. I will never again be recognised on the street as 'one of the Katimavik kids'. I won't have the same sort of celebrity status we seem to have here. It's not really the fact that we are celebrities of a sort that I like, but the fact that we can walk down the street and be known and welcome. The towns are only getting bigger from here and more impersonal. It will be nice to be in a bigger town with more things and places available to us, but I will miss being known by everyone around me as a part of this group.
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