3 years ago I fell in love... with a winter coat from Zara. It had was just above the knee in length, had a high collar, chest pockets and was on sale for $99. It was exactly what I wanted and how often does anyone go shopping and find exactly what they are looking for. Anyhow, I had that magnificent coat until I let it go this past spring. I was clearing out my winter wardrobe and noticed that it was showing its wear and tear. I realized that the best thing for me to do was move on. (I won't lie, every time I go into Zara, I see if that same coat has made it back to the rack. I am one of those people that believes that if it works, stick with it.) So this year I needed a new winter coat. I decided I would do it right and I splurged and bought myself a nice one -- a duck down-filled Canada Goose. If you live in Toronto your probably familiar with the brand. A lot of people wear them because they've become quite trendy. But, I didn't buy it because it was trendy, I bought it because it's practical. Although I do feel like a bit of a sissy because this type of winter coat would have been a lot more practical while I was living in Montreal where winters are colder and longer.
I watched a documentary on bears this afternoon. It seems to be a recurring thing that when I watch documentaries about nature, I get nostalgic and frustrated. I can't help but think about how much nature has been affected by our (human) presence and feel guilty and angry about it. And what I find the most interesting and disturbing is that we have found ways of demonizing certain animals in order to validate our fears which stem from our lack of knowledge and understanding of them. This is especially true for predators like bears which we have painted many different lights and have persecuted for centuries. The documentary opened with this quote from Chief Dan George of the Burrard Indian Reserve No. 3 in North Vancouver: "If you talk to the animals, they will talk to you, and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears, one destroys." It took a chance encounter between a bear cub and the president of the United States of America to spark a change in the public's perception of bears. In 1902, Theodore (aka Teddy) Roosevelt, while on a hunting expedition, came muzzle to muzzle with a cub and in a moment of compassion, he chose not to shoot the defenseless animal. The Washington Post ran a editorial cartoon created by the political cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman that illustrated the event. The story spread and lead to the creation of a new toy in his name, the Teddy Bear.
About a year ago I watched an episode of CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki called The Bear Man of Kamchatka. It chronicles a bear expert by the name of Charlie Russell as he rescues two orphaned cubs destined for death in a squalid Russian zoo. He either buys them or takes them away to his home in the remote wilds of the South Kamchatka peninsula, in the former Soviet Union. He keeps them in an enclosure at night, a sort of coop, but during the day, he takes them on adventures in the wild to teach them. These two little cubs know nothing about how to be a bear so Charlie becomes their surrogate mother and shows them the lay of the land in their new home territory, what plants to eat, how to catch fish and how to escape from predatory male bears.
Charlie loves the bears, but ultimately must let them go so they can be free. He has done all he can to help them survive in the wild. But bears are like humans – they need their mothers. At one point in the documentary, trouble arises when two strange bears come back to Charlie's cabin. Upon closer investigation, he realizes that they're two of the cubs Charlie thought had died – they've returned to the only home and the only mother they know. Charlie sees that they're too thin and appear to be malnourished so he grabs his walking stick and with familiar sounds and calls to the bears, leads them to the shoreline where weaker or sick fish are a quick dinner. After an afternoon of feeding, Charlie says goodbye again.
In a world where “might makes right” and aggression becomes the only way to deal with conflicts, Charlie Russell is proving that it is possible to live peacefully with one of the world's most feared and misunderstood creatures. At many points, Charlie's compassion, patience, bravery and dedication brought me to tears. If only there were more people out there in the world to help educate the uneducated, to help paint a different picture of these animals so that we understood they aren't unpredictable, savage beasts, but powerful wild animals that should be treated with respect.
"… you have to have a basic understanding to know where you cannot go. This is the edge. You cannot step over this edge. The edge was a way back there behind me somewhere, I thought. But I've been going ahead and finding, no, the edge is a way out here somewhere… So I'm exploring out there… in the unknown…" Charlie Russell
Canadian politics are dull, dull, dull. The leaders of the parties are all a bit creepy-looking. And, I would argue, they're all phony, with the exception of Elizabeth May who's pretty real-deal. It seems that Harper and Ignatieff can't help but spend the majority of their time making the other look bad and don't even get me started on Jack Layton. He's the least sincere of the bunch. He lacks charisma and eloquence. Last week on CBC's The Current, I heard him use the words "by golly" to reinforce his point on the topic. I just can't take him seriously. Canada needs at least one exciting political leader. We've dealt with mediocrity for too long. What happened to the Pierre Trudeau types that brought some personality, confrontation and diplomacy to the table? It seems that in our current political landscape strategizing has been replaced with smear campaigns and policy analysis and development with personal opinions. America had to suffer for 8 years before smart and interesting candidates came along and spiced up politics, but will we ever get the chance to re-engage in politics like Americans did during the '08 presidential elections?
In the past month, my sister and her boyfriend of ten-ish years eloped, a friend of mine from back in my Pharmaprix days got married to her high school sweetheart and close friends of ours got engaged. Facebook is a treasure trove of photo albums of my friends' weddings, baby showers, new families, first houses, etc. Isn't that special? On the flip side of all that good news, I also recently found out that someone just a couple of years older than me has cancer, non-hodgkin's lymphoma to be specific, the sister of a girl I know passed away unexpectedly last week and my mother tells me my grandmother is showing the signs of old age. It's like there's no neutral news. I'm at the age when I have to be an adult and face the realities of life and growing up, but on the other hand it doesn't seem like that long ago that I was doing a lot of growing up.
Sigh... we're back to the real world and I am sad to say that this is our last album of photos from the far away world of Vietnam. We had a wonderful summer and are happy to be back healthy and with lots of good memories from a summer packed with adventure, learning and fun. It is nice to see familiar faces and be back into our routines and I really am enjoying the comforts of home.
You can view the second to last album of pictures from our summer of traveling here. Stay tuned for more from our 3 week stint in Vietnam, which was incredible!
Just 3 more days and we will be in Vietnam with Val, Adam and (bonus) Sheila (Val's sister whose visit we're overlapping by 2 days)! The past week has been unbeliveable... we've been hanging out in the Himilayas which are breath-taking and awesome. Part of me really wishes we had alloted more time for the North because it is just so peaceful and beautiful up here and I could spend days just looking at the mountains and thinking to myself. The other part is super excited for Vietnam, a change of scenery and some relaxation with friends. Plus, the weather the past 2 days hasn't been all that great either so we're kind of happy not to be traveling those windy, rudamentary Himalayan roads during monsoon when there are daily landslides and mud puddles the size of backyard pools.
I realize that many of my more recent posts have been or could be taken to be negative which might give you the wrong, or at least a very one-sided view of my experience in India. Of course we've had our ups and downs along the way, but it's time to tell you about more of the ups. Here's one of my favourite stories:
It dates back to the first 10 or so days in India. We were in Goa with Anil's uncle (aka "Baba") and well, let's just say that after a few days our patience was wearing thin. It must have been our fourth day there and we were planning on leaving in one or two more days so we needed to use the internet plan the next leg of our trip and book train tickets, etc. So, we're in Panjim (capital of Goa) one day and Anil and I have studied the map of the city in our Lonely Planet which indicated where all the internet cafes in the city were so that we could take the lead instead of being lead around like sheep. We had our eyes peeled for street names, but of course there weren't any so we wound up wandering a bit looking for landmarks. Finally we see a sign for an internet cafe and we head towards it. We tell Baba that we could be there a while so he makes himself comfortable on a chair near the entrance while Anil and I head to the back to where the computers are. Anil and I are sitting back to back in this tiny and hot internet cafe, but we were so eager to be online -- connected once again! We're busy doing research into the next part of our trip and two guys dressed in plain clothes walk into the shop with extension cords and a few tools in their hands. One of them climbs up onto a chair and starts tinkering around in the electrical box at the front where Baba is sitting, asleep. All of a sudden the power on the side of the shop that my computer is on goes out. I look up from the screen to see what's going on, but none of the staff are even acknowledging the power outage. I turn around and see that Anil's computer is still on. Then the power is restored and my computer comes back on and thankfully the email I was writing appears as it was before the power went out. I continue typing. The power goes out again. Still no acknowledgement or explanation about what is happening with the power. The two "electricians" are busy with their heads in the electrical box and the lady running the shop is playing solitaire at the front desk. I look around expecting someone to appologize or at least explain, but nothing. Baba, now awake, catches me looking around and makes some hand gesture signaling his irritation. The power comes back on and then goes off again. And then comes on again. I continue writing my email. It goes off. I turn to Anil to tell him I think it's a lost cause and then that's when his uncle looses it. He's out of his chair at the front desk waving his hands in the air yelling in Hindi at the lady in charge. The woman gets up from her chair too and starts talking back to Baba. Anil and I are sitting with our heads down praying that this is not happening. That's when we hear it... the only part of the "conversation" we understand because it's in English:
Lady: "Please sir, lower your voice. This is a place of business." Baba: "How can you call this a business when the power keeps going off and your customers can't get their work done? You call this a business?!"
Lady: "I don't call it a business... I call it an inernet cafe!"
Afterwards, we said to Baba that he must have been really mad to loose it that bad on her. He said that he was just giving her a hard time... just for jokes.
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