January 15, 2009

Kilema, Tanzania

We are one week into our Tanzanian adventure – the three Victorian muskateers and their 40-something mothers.  The thrill of the safari remains with us as we head north to higher (and cooler) elevation, to the mountain-side village of Kilema not far from the entrance to Kilimanjaro National Park.  We are staying in a spacious three-bedroom house on the compound of the Kilema district hospital, a 100-year medical unit run by the local Catholic diocese.  It is here that Stephanie and family spent nine-months last year, her husband Chris working in the HIV clinic, and Steph on the hospital’s orphan program.

On the dala-dala (mini-bus) ride up from Moshi, Fiona and I begin to cram:  “Habari!”  “ Habari ya asabuhi!”  “ Nzuri!” “Asante Sana!”  “Caribou!”.  There are so many parts and endless combinations to the sing song greeting that all Tanzanians, strangers included, offer up as they cross paths.  Learning them is a joyful struggle, and one wholly worthwhile as a simple “Habari!” is a ticket to acceptance in the hearts of the villagers.  We are tested and retested throughout our stay; doctors, sisters, nurses and shopkeepers grab our hands and squeeze tight, waiting patiently and laughing as we trip over our words.

Within minutes of our arrival, we are in the orphan program office, greeting with surprise and delight, three 20-something Canadian medical students, two Canadian NGO volunteers, and an equally young coordinator of the hospital’s orphan program.  Their presence, and as I learn over the next few weeks, the presence of many Canadian NGOs and volunteers, have become commonplace in the past decade, which explains all the Maple Leafs and Canadiens t-shirts on the backs of villagers we see.

Things run like clock-work here:  the church bells ring out at 6:00 each morning; the sun rises a half-hour later; Kilimanjaro glows red from 6:30 to 7:00 and then disappears in the distant clouds by early afternoon.  The mornings are brisk; the afternoons hot; and the evenings bring a welcome cooling breeze.  Breakfast – bread, peanut butter, pineapple, and all the instant coffee we can manage – is at 7:30; morning prayer and report at eight.  The latter is a gathering of all staff on the compound, from security guards and doctors to janitors and cooks.  They sing out their morning praise song in a harmony that, with Kilimanjaro towering over us, leaves me covered in goosebumps.

Morning report, on the other hand, leaves me shaking my head.  Barely audible mumblings from a couple of nurses (I discover days later that the report I thought was in Swahili was entirely in English), are meant to serve as an update to hospital staff on the various goings on in the hospital – infant deaths, emergency C-sections, liver failures and more; doctors confront a surprising number of challenges in one day in this village hospital. 

As foreigners we are spoiled – the kids are thrilled to discover we get a three-bedroom house to ourselves.  And this only steps away from the Duka that sells biscuits, candies, pop and rotis.  Steph is delighted to see the store is fully stocked with a range of beers. In no time, the Tusker is chilling (okay, that’s a slight embellishment, as it takes us 24 hours to figure out how to get the power turned on), and we settle in. 

For the 10 days we spend on the hospital site, Hailey, Eva and Anjali exalt in their freedom.  They set up a study schedule which they promptly ignore, but find time, nonetheless, to do journal writing, math, and a bit of reading.  Mostly, they run around the compound, helping out where they can, engaging local school children in games of “Keys” and Camoflauge.

On “orphan day” which happens once a month, the kids push up their sleeves and dig deep into bins, sorting black shoes, khaki shorts, blue skirts and white “shirties”, and helping fit them on the 150 kids that show up for their school uniforms.

Stephanie jumps right in where she left off, connecting with parents and relatives and volunteer home-based workers in an effort to get report card results on the 50 children whose school fees she and husband Chris covered last year (see part one).  The fees range from about $100,000 (about $100 CAD) Tanzanian shillings to well over $500,000 per child, and it is obvious that without this support, the children in this region would never go to school. 

Over the next few weeks, she’ll learn that most of the kids have passed their final exams, that all of them have grown and need new school uniforms including shoes, that fees in every school have gone up by at least 10 per cent, and that there is no end to the number of parents desperate for their children to go to school.  She is endlessly grateful both to her Canadian friends (and French strangers!) who have donated so generously over the past two years, making it possible for her to continue covering tuition.  She is also thankful for the committed Tanzanian home-based workers, villagers who have given so much of their time to help identify children in need, and to monitor them for Steph as they move through the school system.

Fiona and I, with our insurmountable language barrier, are not of much value to Stephanie.  I pitch in where I can researching funding proposals for the hospital, but spend most of my time interviewing doctors, students and sisters for stories.  Fiona accompanies hospital staff on rounds, visiting patients suffering from a range of illnesses including diabetes, pneumonia, hypertension and cancer.  She is by turn impressed and dismayed, shocked and concerned by the lack of medical resources, the level of care, and the clear limitations within which rural Tanzanians receive their medical care.  She is particularly moved by a young boy in traction who, she learns, will remain immobilized for eight weeks, his leg in a sling, with no books, t.v. or toys to help pass the time.

The hospital itself is more than 100 years old and is run by the Catholic Diocese of Kilema.  It’s headed up by the formidable Sister Clarissa, a doctor who has trained in n Tanzania, Germany, the Netherlands and England.  Over the years, under her guidance, the hospital has grown, and is now home to a new HIV treatment centre which monitors more than 800 registered out-patients (where Chris spent much of his time last year).  

Also on site is a maternal health centre where women can come early in their ninth month of pregnancy to relax, rest, and escape the burden of daily life – women here are farmers, housewives, breadwinners, childcare workers, who also spend much of their time tending to the sick and elderly, fetching water, washing clothes and cleaning house.  After the government’s policy announcement two years earlier that all births would be conducted for free in all hospitals, the number of natural and caesarian births conducted on site have more than doubled. 

Taking advantage of the Canadian medical students accompanying Tanzanian doctors in the hospital, Fiona and I tag along to what we are told is an emergency C-section.  Damon is in his final year of med school at McMaster University and Ritika is completing her first year of residency at U of T.  Neither is a stranger to Third World medicine: Ritika lived in Tanzania and India, where she did a brief hospital stint, and Damon spent two months in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  And so neither appear too surprised to see the windows of the operating room open to the breeze (and dust!), or by the scrubbing procedures which appear equally non-sterile.

But Fiona and I are definitely surprised to be led right into the operating room where the nurses hand us a stool and guide us to the best spot from which to view and to take pictures (!!).  It is the first birth that I have ever witnessed, and I am both shocked by the coarseness of the procedure, and awed by the beautiful girl who appears suddenly and miraculously before us. 

There is so much to take in during our ten days at the hospital – the Rotarians from eastern Canada who are armed with their best intentions, experience, and arsenal of skills, all of which they’ll need as they encounter the basic challenges of development.  For instance, their sewing project aimed at training girls in the local vocational school suffers from having only one sewing machine which breaks down after the first day.  A garden-creation project meant to provide long-term food sustainability to about 100 children at a local school (schools in Tanzania provide lunch to all students and beans, corn and greens are a basic staple), barely gets off the ground before organizers realize that what was thought to be eight acres was barely one, that no thought has gone into how to supply water to the garden, and that the daily and long-term management of the garden has not been considered.  Still, a lot of determination from Stephanie, and passion from Rotarians and villagers suggests that this project, among others, will somehow, someday succeed.

Just as we were getting used to the ebb and flow of Kilema life, Fiona and I learn of the opportunity to hook up with a Canadian medical caravan that will be stationing itself in Moshi to offer free medical care to those in need.  I’m curious:  21 Canadians, including two teenagers, four nephrologists, a handful of nurses, and two occupational therapists, along with a plane-load of drugs and some high-tech equipment would be descending on the area for a five-day marathon medical session.   What does this kind of development look like?  And what kind of impact would it have? 

Bidding a quick farewell to Steph, we jump on a dala-dala, and head back down the mountain to the big city, to discover for ourselves.

Kilema, Tanzania

(Harling Globetrotters Adventure – Part Two)

Lake Manyara National Park

The Harling Globetrotters adventure — three Victoria mamas and their girls — begins with the compulsory safari, one that is at once modest and spectacular and that Stephanie has painstakingly organized on our behalf.  She’s chosen a safari guide whose knowledge of the wildlife, birds and fauna is humbling (he tells us later that all guides in Tanzania must follow a two-year diploma program to be certified), and we put ourselves in his hands for the next three days.  He takes us through three national parks – Tarangire, Lake Manyara, and the Ngorogoro Crater – each with distinct ecosystems, despite their relative proximity to one another. 

Up first is Tarangeri where the more than 300 elephants we encounter, including the ones that trumpet

angrily as we cross their path, are proof enough that this park boasts more elephant per square kilometer than any other in Africa. We see dik dik, and zebra, an occasional giraffe and ostriches.  The park stretches on and on, through forest and valley, and it takes a full day to cover only a small portion of it.  We stop for a swim and a beer at the (posh) Tarangire Lodge, and then motor to our somewhat more humble but still comfortable Fig Lodge hostel for the night. 

The next morning we are out by 8:00 am for the short drive to Lake Manyara.  Though smaller, the park still holds many elephant and zebra, but it’s the hippos and giraffe that take our breath away. It is also our first real introduction to tsetse flies, large flat brown insects whose bite rivals that of Ontarian horse flies.  We search frantically through our memories for information on sleeping disease and prevalence, especially after Stephanie’s impressive histamine reaction.  But Boniface, our guide, assures us that he has never heard of anyone suffering from sleeping disease in recent years, and we sleep peacefully that night (albeit under mosquito nets!).

Sleeping Hippos in Ngorogoro Crater

After a 5:00 am wake-up call and breakfast of boiled eggs, toast and peanut butter, we hit the road again hoping to be the first to reach the crater.  We reach its rim at sunrise just as the light hits the mist creeping across Ngorogoro.  Formed millions of years ago, the volcano has long since been dormant and is now home to a surprising variety of African wildlife.  It takes us an hour to wind down a deeply rutted road and we begin to trace a path across the caldera.  It is here that we see our first rhinos (at a distance), and our first lions (right up close!). 

Despite the 10-hour stretch in our hired safari jeep, even the children are mesmerized by all they see. They watch, fascinated, as a hungry-looking cheetah takes off after a very clever fox (who escapes), and laugh hysterically when they discover that the lioness they’ve named Hailey turns out to be a male.  Lions, hyenas, giraffe, hippopotami, baboons and animals I’ve never heard mention of before – we are thrilled to see them all and snap over a thousand photos between us.

The safari experience is a once-in-a-lifetime affair for us.  The changing landscape, from the tangled baobob and acacia trees to the sepia plains of the Serengeti, is distinctly African and is easily as impressive as the animals themselves. 

Tarangire National Park

You can see what we saw in just a few weeks, just as soon as we sort through our photos!

January 8, 2009

Kilema, Tanzania

Masai Man

The skies were surprisingly cloudless, the sunlight piercingly bright, and the crowds unlike anything I’d ever experienced.  I grasped Anjali’s hand tightly, fearful of losing her in the throng.  One hundred thousand? Two hundred?  Impossible to tell.  No one took any notice of us and there was no time to stop and talk — the “sales” were roaring on Oxford Street, and shoppers were on a mission. 

It had been two days since we bid a tearful Paris farewell to Sage and Peter as they jumped aboard the TGV for the 800-kilometre trek back to Beziers. Over the next four weeks, the boys would be heading off to Junior Astronaut School at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse, making a pilgrimage to Brussels, the birthplace of Tin Tin, Hergé and Schtroumpf  (Smurfs), and immersing themselves wholly in their final few weeks in  France (read: sampling all the pain au chocolat and bouche noels at patisseries they hadn’t yet tried).    

Anjali and I, on the other hand, were heading to warmer climes, and looking forward to a historic reunion with our friends and neighbours from Victoria.  Since Stephanie Malahoff’s return to Victoria six months ago from her family’s nine-month stint in Tanzania, she had regaled us with stories about the beauty, the poverty and the resourcefulness of Tanzanians.  While there with husband, Chris, and three children, she and Eva, Steph’s 11-year old daughter, had worked alongside local volunteers at the Kilema District Hospital’s Orphan and Vulnerable Children Program, gently trying to bring structure and rigour to a program in a state of disarray.    

“Just come and see – there’s so much that you can do,” she kept saying.

Hailey, Eva and Anjali -- happy monkeys

Persuaded by her stories, neighbour and family physician Fiona Manning, and I, decided to grab our own 11-year-old girls (Hailey and Anjali) and tag along for Stephanie and Eva’s return visit, where they would work to distribute the more than $13,000 in donations they’d collected from home.  And so, Anjali and I bid a sad adieu to France, and headed off to Tanzania with a brief stopover in London.  

Londoners seemed oblivious to the fact their country is in its worst economic crisis in decades.  Eight hundred dollar Gucci bags and $5000 dollar designer blouses – people were snapping up anything and everything, and lines snaked around street corners.  Anjali and I, on the other hand, had our sights set on juicier treasures – dinner at  Wakamamas to indulge in a bowl of Ramen, cheddar aged perfectly for two, five and ten years, and all the Marks and Spencers shortbread we could manage . . .

Still, after the crowds and lights of London, we were ready to push on.

Welcome to Tanzania

It was with relief, then, that we drifted down to the relatively tranquil and peaceful plains of northern Tanzania.  Situated in eastern Africa, Tanzania is surrounded by a host of African neighbours including: Kenya, Mozambique, Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.  Unlike its African counterparts, however, Tanzaniais by many measures, resource rich. Red soil rich in iron, vast lakes and winding rivers, sprawling plains whose wildlife attract tourists from all over the world, and thick forests that stretch as far as the eye can see, give this country advantages that few in Africa enjoy.  Tanzania is also among a handful of African nations that has not been at war since it achieved independence from England in 1961.  

Which is why we’re at such a loss to explain the poverty here. 

For despite these advantages, the country fairs poorly on the United Nations Human Development and Poverty Indices.  Together these indices assess a nation’s overall health by examining child and maternal mortality rates, adult literacy and educational levels for girls and boys, life expectancy rates, and an individual’s ability to earn a living wage.  Ranking 159 out of 189 countries, above Uganda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone (which comes in a pitiful last), it is hot on the heals of countries such as Kenya, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Haiti, most of which are in the midst of armed civil conflict. 

The numbers are not good:  whereas almost two per cent of Singaporeans are not expected to survive past age 40, for instance, more than 36 per cent of Tanzanians will not live to see their 40^th birthday.  And whereas only .2 per cent of all Cubans are considered illiterate, 28 per cent of Tanzanians can neither read nor write Swahili.  In this population of almost 40 million, where the gross national income per capita is only $US 980 annually, life expectancy at birth is barely 50 years for men and only a year older for women.  Compare that to Indians in the state of Kerala where life expectancy hovers around 73 years. And out of 1000 children born alive, 120 will die within five years from preventable illnesses like malaria, pneumonia, and dissentry.

On the flip side, though, HIV prevalence has declined perceptibly in the past five years.  And the thousands of tables and charts flowing from the World Health Organization and other United Nations bodies tend to paint a fairly positive picture of development overall.  They show that 98 per cent of all children receive a primary-level education; that Tanzanians expect to, and participate in elections free of coercion and violence; that more than 70 per cent live off a land that is nutrient rich and well-irrigated; and that many can access one of the thousands of healthcare clinics that have sprung up across the land. 

So why is it that most villagers live in one or two bedroom shacks?  Why is it that few can afford tuition to send their children to secondary school?  Why is it that so many mothers and babies continue to die in childbirth, and that reliable access to electricity and running water remain out of reach for the majority? 

As the weeks pass, it becomes clear that a resource-starved education system that is accessible only to the rich, corruption that runs rampant throughout the public and private sector, and multinational exploitation of most of Tanzania’s finest agricultural and mineral resources, have left this country in a state of impoverishment.  

But these answers aren’t immediately obvious when we arrive at the Kilimanjaro airport on New Year’s Eve.  The road from the airport east to Moshi is paved and pothole free, and there’s virtually no traffic, as far as I can tell. “Where is everybody?” I keep wondering to myself, a question I will ask over and over in days to come – I see no cyclists, no motorcycles, and only a handful of minibuses.  Safari jeeps and SUVs travel politely up and down the highway, and it is days before I hear a single horn honking.  An occasional ‘duka’, or store, vending ‘slicer’, or sliced bread, a young boy herding goats in the sparsely populated distance, women dressed in vibrant kanga laughing and slapping hands – one gets a sense of open promise, of untapped potential, of endless possibility. 

To me, anyway, Tanzania seems like a country where its people stand half a chance.   

“She is shy today,” our driver says as we try to catch a glimpse of Kilimanjaro. “She will surely reveal herself tomorrow.”

Sunrise on Kili

And it is true – Kilimanjaro, with its modest snow-capped crater is the first thing we see from our hostel window at the Y.  Moshi’s YMCA is an enormous, sprawling hostel that boasts the only 25-metre swimming pool in all of Moshi.  Moshi itself is a perplexing town – few buildings reach higher than a handful of stories; the market doesn’t teem with women and children bargaining and bartering; restaurants (which serve excellent Indian food, we are delighted to discover) and houses are clustered along only a small stretch of road – it is hard to believe that this quiet city houses 150,000 Tanzanians. 

Just eight hours later, we are back at the airport, jumping up and down, literally, to catch a glimpse of our friends: Stephanie and Fiona, Hailey and Eva.  Anjali keeps grabbing at her face, and turning round and round in circles.  “Mom, you don’t know how excited I am.  If you could feel my brain, it would be exploding,” she says.

In minutes they are at the luggage carrousel, hauling their enormous duffles onto carts — “No Customs today,” they laugh and shrug, tucking their passports away.  Two hours and one-lost duffle bag later, we make our way back to the Y – the girls’ laughter and shouts can be heard through the wee hours of the morning. 

Harling Globetrotters

And the Harling Globetrotters, Mother/Daughter adventure has begun.

We took the T.G.V.  to Paris for our Christmas holiday. We had ten days of catacombs, cemeteries, Christmas and carousels…

Part # 1
Carousels

Here I am, ready for the destiny of Nine Rings

In Paris there were single and double decker carousels. There is even one where we had to catch rings with batons. (I caught nine and Anjali caught fifteen!)
One day, we stopped dead in our tracks. For there, on the Champs Elysees, was a carousel FOR FREE, but of course, on the sign it said, “Manege gratuit”. So after that, we all went on them a bajillion times.

Manege gratuit pour toute la famille

Part # 2
Cemeteries

Chopin: the decomposing composer

We went to two cemeteries in Paris. Montparnasse cemetery and Pere Lachaise cemetery. There were a lot of famous people’s graves there.  At Pere Lachaise we saw the graves of Jim Morrison, the famous singer, Fredric Chopin, the famous composer and Oscar Wilde, the famous writer.  For some reason there were lipstick marks all over Oscar Wilde’s grave.’

Oscar Wilde: the kissed grave

P.S. If you’ve ever heard the song Mr. Mojo Risin’ you’d better know that if you rearrange the letters of the song, you get Jim Morrison.

Jim Morrison: Mr. Mojo Risin

Part #3
Catacombs

Mysterious Roadsigns

Near the apartment where we were staying, there was an old building . We walked in and started going down, down, down a spiral staircase of more than one hundred steps. We had a long walk through a dark, damp, deep and dirty tunnel. All along the tunnel there were mysterious engravings like: 15.G.1782, 75.G.1780 and 83G.1878. We guessed that they were to mark the way. Finally got to a sign…

ARRETE!
C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT

Ghosts?

We walked through the gate and stopped, gaping. There were the bones of six million people! They were arm bones and leg bones and skulls too. They were stacked really neatly along the sides of the tunnels. The place was giving me the creeps. Then, finally, we stepped out onto another spiral staircase, climbed it and found ourselves blinking in the sunlight.

Skulls and Bones Galore

Part #4
Christmas

Hello, it's Christmas time

Confession time. I woke up at about 4:00 in the morning to go to the bathroom, but I took a little detour to see the presents under the tree. There were a lot because Santa had been there since I went to bed. So I went back to my bunk. I was on the top rung when I heard the sound of feet approaching. I climbed back down, went into the hallway and saw Dad and he forced me back to bed. But before I went, I said, “Look under the tree, Dad.” Then I went back to sleep.
Later that morning, Anjali and I crept to Mom and Dad’s room, pushed open the door and yelled, “Merry Christmas!”
We had a very special Christmas dinner. It was a smorgasbord. We had Italian pizza, Vietnamese springrolls, French potatoes dauphinois, and Thai salad.

YUM!

Stay tuned for Sage and Dad’s “Boytime in Brussels”

Stuart McLean

The Vinyl Café

C/O CBC Radio

Toronto ON

Dear Stuart,

I’ve been listening to your program for many years and it seems to me that the Vinyl Café is nothing if it’s not about community.  About celebrating the countless generosities, the special gifts, the selfless acts, the gentle kindnesses, that, in their unexpectedness and simplicity, bring us closer to one another. 

And though I’m writing to you today from the ancient French city of Béziers, the first stop on my family’s year-long, round-the-world journey, it’s not the good people of southern France that I’m writing to tell you about.  Instead I’d like to share a story about a very special place called Harling Point and about the very special people who live there, and who’ve made it possible for us to be here.

 Harling Point is a small coastal neighbourhood tucked onto a tiny peninsula, about an hour’s walk from downtown Victoria if you take the meandering seaside route.  The neighbourhood is picture-perfect by just about any measure, bounded on three sides by water, and by a golden, broom-swept bluff on the fourth.  Victoria’s historic Chinese Cemetery, which served as the main burial site for the island’s Chinese citizens at the turn of the last century, anchors one end of the point, and its grassy fields sweep gracefully unchecked to the sea.  The cemetery, in turn, is fronted by Penzance, a short street with sweeping views and bungalow-sized cottages that Victorians once flocked to when escaping the city for the summer.

The whole neighbourhood is made up of only about seven blocks, and the street we live on boasts apple, cherry and plum trees, and also the neighbourhood park.  That’s where most of the people in this story can be found just about every Tuesday evening, all summer long.  It’s our community potluck night, a night when everyone’s welcome, and, when the sun is blazing and the wind’s not gusting, you might find up to 100 of us sharing a meal and a game of soccer.

Harling Point was named after Dr. Frederick Harling who lost his life just off the point while trying to save two children from drowning.  It’s a community in which we’ve lived for just about eight years, and one that’s aptly named, given the spirit of selflessness and generosity we’ve come to know. 

My story begins about a year ago, when we announced to our friends and neighbours that we were leaving our jobs, pulling our two kids out of school, putting the house up for rent, and taking off for a year.   It was a decision that was a long time in the making.  With both of us working full-time – my partner as a high school teacher and me as a manager of a non-profit – and with two active children enrolled in all kinds of activities, we’d been feeling for a while that our lives were spinning out of control.  Spending a year overseas, we felt, would allow us to indulge both in our passion for travel and in our need to reconnect as a family. 

It was early days when I made the announcement, and I was feeling pretty organized.  Though Peter would be working for a few more months, I’d be free from the end of March, and would have plenty of time to get ready.  I had my lists, my laptop, my coffee, and time.  How hard could it be?

And yet.  

Who knew that there’d be so much to do? Shots! Visas! Passports! Flights!  That was just the beginning of it. 

Pruning the trees, fixing the dishwasher, patching the roof, painting the house – and that wasn’t all.  We had to find a house in France, a school for the kids, an NGO in India that would allow us to volunteer for a few months . . . The days turned to weeks and the weeks flowed to months.  As time marched on, at first at a snail’s pace, and then at light speed, I found myself adding more things to my TO DO list than I was taking off. 

But then, just as I was beginning to experience my first anxious, sleepless nights, help gradually and subtly began to materialize.  Out of kindness, out of friendship, and probably out of pity, the neighbourhood rallied around us with one, then another, and then countless offers to help out.

Fiona and Fraser

Here were our close friends Fiona and Stephanie, each with three kids of their own, grabbing our children from school, taking them swimming, feeding them dinner.  There was my sister Margie who lives just four houses away, hacking ivy off our fence while Liz, our next-door neighbour hauled it to the dump.  There was my brother-in-law Lonn, scraping the paint off our windowsills and running round the house painting over five-year-old crayon scratches.   There were our neighbours Brent and Mia lending us their home when we realized we’d have to vacate our own a month early to make way for our tenants.  And here was Stephanie again clearing out her garage, just so we’d have a place to store our car for the year. 

More surprising still were Steph’s brother and sister-in-law Jeremy and Janet who

Jenn and Janet

were visiting the neighbourhood from Calgary with their six-month old daughter, Jenn.  From these strangers came the astonishing offer to collect us from the airport in Calgary (where we would have a 24-hour layover en route to London), and to bring us, at 1:00 in the morning, to their bungalow-style home, where warm beds, a hearty breakfast, and a car for touring the city the next day awaited. 

Then the day arrived.

And there they were, our good, good neighbours, children and adults alike, pulling weeds from the garden and hauling them to the curb, clearing our pathways of wayward branches even as our renters pulled up the driveway.  And there was Karli at the door with her gift of home-made almond roca, hoisting garbage, grabbing a sponge, helping me clean out the fridge.  There was our newest neighbour James bounding through the door with a bottle of his home-made travel-size shampoo and conditioner for us to slip into our packs; and there were Stephanie and Fiona cooking up our pre-boarding dinner while we ran around the city finishing last-minute errands. 

I can’t tell you, in the end, how many people fed us over the summer.  How many sleepovers our children had that stretched well past noon the next day. I can’t count how many hands were extended in friendship, nor fully describe the gratitude we felt as those hands carried us gently to the airport. 

I can tell you that we wonder still today, four months into our journey, whether we’d have made it out the door without the help of our community.  And though we’re thousands of miles away, the ties of friendship hold us close. 

In the week before we left, the neighbourhood threw us a party.  There were banners and cakes and children streaking through the house.   There were the obligatory farewell toasts, and hugs and kisses of well wishes.  But then the spotlight turned, and a cheer went up, for Megan was getting married – and we toasted this young woman who was a child of Harling Point.  And then we turned to Tracy and to Chris who’d moved in just the week before, and welcomes were offered, and jokes were cracked, and there was laughter all around.  

It seems there’s always something to celebrate in this community, whether a family’s round-the-world odyssey, or indeed, their return.  But it’s also a community that is itself worth celebrating.  I realize that it’s too late to nominate Harling Pointers for an Arthur Award this year, and that your Christmas concert will have come and gone by the time you read this letter.  But perhaps you and some of your listeners might like to drop by on a Tuesday night, to meet some of these remarkable people, to share a story and a meal.  They might not be able to cut your grass, or to watch your Toronto home while you’re on tour, but rest assured that in this celebration of community, they’ll make you feel right at home. 

So long for now Stuart.

Rita Parikh

  In France they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Instead, they have a 15 day holiday when the whole family comes together from wherever they are living to have some “family time”. This holiday is called Toussaint, or in English, All Saints. We chose this holiday to visit our friends in Paris. To get to Paris we took a train.
  The train that we took was called the TGV. That stands for Train à Grand Vitesse. Roughly translated, that means Super Fast Train. It only took us five hours to get to Paris. It seems like a long time but seeing how far we were away from Paris it was a really short ride. On the way, we passed lots of vineyards with all the grapes and everything. It was really cool. When we left Beziers it was super sunny. As we neared Paris it got super rainy. That was upsetting but our spirits soon lifted when we saw our friends waiting for us at the station.
  Our friends are our neighbours back in Victoria. They are living in Paris for the year. They have two kids aged 7 and 11. Since they are in Paris for only one year they didn’t buy a car. The only way (and probably the easiest) to get around is the metro.
  The metro, as we soon found out, was not so great. It smelled TERRIBLE! It smelled like pee and sweat and gross stuff. It was also very crowded. We got separated many times. When we all got regrouped again, we would all get on the crowded metro and SPEEEEED away. Despite the horrible smell, we took the metro to most of our destinations.

The Louvre is a palace.

  Our many destinations included the Louvre. It’s the most famous museum in the world. I found it not at all what I’d expected. I’d imagined it as a museum with a red carpet and just paintings lining the walls. In fact, it was so different. There were paintings all right, but with the paintings were really cool artifacts like old weapons, jewelry, statues and stuff like that. I also found interesting a hand that someone had found 100 years after the HUGE statue that the hand belonged to had been found. The statue is called Winged Victory and it is of a winged lady.

The Winged Victory

The other thing I found interesting was the way Picasso took a painting by Delacroix and imitated it but changed it completely by making it abstract. There was so much to see and too little time. Luckily I had the chance to see the Mona Lisa.

Crowding around the Mona Lisa

I thought that it was at the end of a long hallway but I was so wrong. It was in a very large, very open room. It was really hard to see it because of the HUGE crowd that was simply a blur of flashes and shoves to me. The museum was really cool, of what I saw of it, which was less than a 50th, and I really enjoyed it. But nothing will quite compare to the stained glass windows of the Notre Dame cathedral.

The detailed stained glass

Notre Dame

 Notre Dame is a huge cathedral on an island in Paris.  They started building it in 1163 and finished it in 1345.  It was partially destroyed over the next few centuries and again during the French revolution.  So this young guy named Violet Leduc, an architect, rebuilt it in 1790.  When we went there, the first thing we noticed was the organ music,which sounded to me like screeching.  Our moods changed when we saw the beautiful, detailed stained glass and the millions of candles lighting up the church.  The other things that I found cool were the very skillfully-made models showing the exact interior and the exact exterior of Notre Dame. 

When you wish upon a candle

When we left, I turned back one more time and looked at the huge church.  It was really huge, but nothing is huge compared to the Eiffel Tower.
  The first things I noticed when we walked up to the Eiffel Tower were the abnormally long line-ups emerging from all directions. The people were in line to pay to go up the Eiffel in the elevator or on the

stairs.  We joined one of the lines and had enough time to eat a full lunch without being rushed.  I was also surprised by how tall it was – it rose at least 270 metres in the air.  When we got to the front of the line, we had two choices – the stairs, or the elevator.  We chose the stairs, and saved 24 Euros, which is about $35.  There are three floors; you can only walk to the second floor, and then you have to take the elevator, which we decided not to use.

La Tour Eiffel!

  We started to walk up.  My friend was getting nauseous but I was running like a marathon runner.  When we got to the first floor, we looked out over the city.  We could see the Louvre and Notre Dame, and also the many people walking along the streets.  On the first floor, there was also a gage showing how much the tower was swaying in the wind.  At one point, it went 3.7 cm off its centre.  It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for a huge metal structure . . .
  There was also an exhibit explaining who, what, when, where and why.  The Eiffel was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1887 as a temporary structure for the International Exhibition in 1889.  Many people protested its construction when they saw the plans.  They thought it was hideous.  But it eventually got constructed and here it stands today.
  When we finally climbed back down, my legs were aching.  Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience.  If I had the chance, I would love to go to the very, very top and parachute off it someday.
  I really liked my trip to Paris. It would have been a lot sweeter if there was more sun, and if we had had more time.  It was pretty fun, though, with our friends and everything and I’m saying this right now – I think that Paris is definitely on the list of Places To Go Before You Die!! 

To see more photos of my trip to Paris, just click here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/30487738@N06/sets/72157609260419119/

Entering the Walled City of Carcassonne

Part 1

I took the day off school to go to Carcassonne on Friday. It is a chateau fort. It is 1000 years old. It is a city surrounded by a wall of stone.

The Chateau Fort

Part 2

We entered the city by a drawbridge across a wide moat and through a huge stone gate. Some walls are four metrers thick. In the city the winding cobblestone streets were very narrow and the shops were very old and low.

The Drawbridge to the Castle

Part 3

Walking on the Battlements

We walked down ten winding cobblestone streets and then there was: the castle. In the castle is a museum, in the museum is a gift shop. In the gift shop are weapons and shields. We walked on the battlements of the castle. It was so much fun. I think everyone should get the chance to go there. I really enjoyed it and I hope that everyone else does too.

Sir Sage!

Want to see my pictures of Carcassonne? Well, just click here for a really cool slideshow!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30487738@N06/sets/72157608784593471/

THE END

Ecole Lucie Aubrac

My school in Béziers is so good. It is bigger than your average middle school. Or collège I should say. There are 700 kids, aged 11-15, in grades 6-9 or, in France, 6ième, 5ième, 4ième and 3ième. My school is called Collège Lucie Aubrac. Lucie Aubrac was a woman who did a great deal of things in the French resistance movement and died in 2006. The school was built two years before she died; therefore the school is fairly new.

The courtyard is not like the courtyards in Canada though, because there are no playgrounds or fields. All there is is a small space where all the kids retreat to at recess. It is so small that it is amazing that I can actually breathe. And the worst part is that they lock us in there with all the older kids. The older kids basically ignore us though; all they want to do is start fights, smoke cigarettes and talk on their cell phones.

Everyone has cell phones. EVERYONE! Some of the kids got their cell phones when they were in grade two. If their cell phones go off in class they get a detention! So far only two people in my class have got detentions. I hate to think what has happened in the older grades. But most of them don’t have internet. So they don’t have email either. I think that it’s a good thing that they aren’t allowed to use their cell phones in the hallways though, because if you don’t watch where you’re going…

The View From My School

The hallways are always packed. They aren’t very big and at each end of the hallway there are HUGE swinging doors. You can’t even imagine how much it hurts when one of the doors “accidentally” swings into your face when you’re running at top speed to get to one of your many classes.

I have lots of teachers and classes. Too many teachers maybe. I have eight in total, but more than eight classes. I have two teachers for gym, one for art, music, French, math, SVT (science), English and technology. Then I have one teacher for history, geography and civics (social studies). Her name is Mme. Lesage and she is really nice. In gym we are doing swimming and… rugby. I never really cared about rugby and now I hate it!

My favourite class is French because the teacher is really funny. In French we are learning about Molière who is the equivalent of Shakespeare. We are also doing miming. It is a lot of fun. But nothing can compare to English.

“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ” sing all the little kiddies. I am trying my hardest not to laugh. But it is impossible. At least I don’t have to sing along. I just do my home school English work and try to be silent. I find it amazing, though, that for 75 percent of the kids, it is their first time ever doing English. On my first day, my friend asked me to say something in English. I said the first thing that came to my brain. “What is your favourite colour?” She had no idea what I was talking about. The first time that I got my English textbook I started to read it. It was uber easy.

Winding Streets on the Way to School

All the books are really heavy though and I have to walk to school every day with all my textbooks. All the textbooks + all the notebooks = super heavy bag. Ugh.

When I walk to school it takes me 12 minutes. I walk alone down little winding streets. It isn’t too hard or too long. The only problem though is the poo. But that is another story!

Bicycles, baguettes and bottles of Sauvignon blanc – it doesn’t get any more French than this. It’s 11 am and I’m flying over tree roots and fallen pomegranates, feeling light-headed and carefree in the gentle Mediterranean sun. We’re participating, along with 500 other outdoor enthusiasts, in the region’s first vineyard and epicurean tour à la bicyclette, an event that twins the French passion for wine with their appétit for fine foods, and blends it all together with their obsession with cycling.

As part of the Fête des Vins Nouveaux or New Wine Festival, an annual week-long celebration marking the release of the year’s new vintages, the tour has us cycling through some of southern France’s most spectacular countryside. Autumn has painted the fields with a breathtaking palette – row on row of grape vines, long since released from the burden of Syrah, Grenache and Chardonnay, among other varieties, arrest us with their red, yellow and orange brilliance. Pomegranates dangle tantalizingly over rust-coloured dirt paths that give way gracefully to vineyard laneways lined with towering Plane trees.

A church steeple, a crumbling farmhouse, baked red-tiled roofs on village houses – it is no less a painter’s paradise than a cyclist’s tour de force.

Stretching from the Pyrenees in the west, along the Mediterranean east to Provence and south to Spain, Languedoc-Roussillon is the largest wine producing region in the world, with over 2,800 square kilometres devoted lovingly to grape cultivation. Its more than 2000 vineyards produce more wine than Australia, South Africa, Bordeaux and Chile combined, with an average production surpassing two billion bottles annually.

The region also boasts some of France’s oldest vineyards, their lineage tracing back to the 5th century BC when the Greeks travelling from Asia Minor made their first settlements here. Winemaking flourished under the Romans particularly along the Via Domitia, the ancient road that led from Rome through this sun-drenched region down to Spain and which even 1,500 years ago, transported millions of litres every year.

Which makes it all the more surprising that it’s taken them so long to pull together the Randonnée Vélo Tout Terrain, a mountain biking tour featuring six of the region’s cooperatives each representing a handful of local vineyards. Organized collectively by the Communauté d’agglomeration Béziers Mediterranée, the Foyer Rural de Bassan, and the Fédération Française de Cyclotourisme, the event has drawn all kinds, from mothers with infants strapped on baby seats to seriously-decked out racers pedaling in teams.

Like us, Guy Tannou of Servian and Marie Sibrac of neighbouring Béziers, have chosen the 27-kilometre route, leaving the 51 km option for the more ambitious athletes (and connoisseurs). And like us, they are in it as much for the food and amitié as for the wine. “It’s festive and convivial, and great exercise. Frankly, the wine is nothing exceptional,” they say, with a laugh. “But the food! Now that is something. And it’s free!”

In fact, each of us has paid 12 Euros for the privilege of sampling a wide range of reds, whites and rosés, and an assortment of epicurean delights. We enjoy robust Syrahs, citrusy Clairettes, buttery Chardonnays and lively Grenaches, mature 2005 and ‘06s, along with those born of grapes harvested just this year.

Peter and his snacks

But it’s in the artisanal foods that we truly indulge – in the crisp green olives and tapenades spread generously over warm baguette, the mountains of freshly-shucked oysters barely kissed with a tarragon vinaigrette, the plates of herbed sausage, chorizo and wafer-thin slices of dry ham, and, from the Chocolaterie Doucers d’Oc in the sunny seaside village of Marseillan, the exquisite fig compote delicately sandwiched between layers of gingerbread and chocolate mousse, topped with a white chocolate crisp encrusted with nuts.

That there are few wine connoisseurs among this crowd is hardly a secret. Didier Bouscari is a board member for the Vignerons de l’Occitane, a cooperative whose members collectively produce more than 33 million bottles each year. He banters easily with the crowd as he serves what is perhaps his 1000th glass of wine.

“Most people won’t come back. They buy locally, close to home, for the convenience,” he says. “But it’s a great way for people to discover les vins primeurs (the 2008 vintages),” he shrugs. “We showcase our wines and maybe a few locals will come back.”

Our tour began at city hall in the sleepy village of Bassan, where we registered and received directions to the first fueling point around the corner. Few cyclists sampled any of the wines set out, opting instead for an espresso in which to dip freshly-baked croissants. Six hours later, music greets us as we pull up to our final stop. Roasting chestnuts, soft chèvre, and oozing chocolate fondants accompany the various wines the Cave de Bassan invites us to sample.

Someone hands us each a bottle of Parfum D’Octobre, a primeur 2008 bottled only days earlier. Exalted but weary we heft our reward for our hard work and, climbing back on our bicycles, steel ourselves for the 10 km ride back to our rented Béziers farmhouse. There, we will soon discover that this wine is as robust and full-bodied as was our day – dappled with sun, deep in flavor, and altogether delightful.