Home for the Holidays

On the morning of December 20th I left St.Laurent for Congo. The trip began with a boat ride across the Maroni to Suriname in pouring rain, followed by a two hour taxi ride to Paramaribo (the capital) in an overly air-conditioned car. Needless to say I was very wet and cold by the time I got to the airport. Having packed at about 4 o'clock in the morning in a state of semi-consciousness, security had a field day with me when they discovered scissors and a sharp nail file in my toiletries bag. Luckily I don't look like a terrorist so I was allowed to go with only a pat down.
From Paramaribo I flew overnight to Amsterdam then to Paris where I met my brother and my soulmate, Jenna, who had flown in from England to meet us. We checked into a hotel, I changed into warm clothes, and we headed out to explore Paris! First stop was the confusing metro...we made it through alive and reappeared on the busy and beautifully decorated streets of Paris. It was absolutely freezing (or at least it was for me, coming from tropical weather) so we quickly found a lovely Lebanese restaurant, and washed down shawarmas with street-side prepared French crepes, drenched in butter, sugar, and lemon juice...what a marvellous place! We once again navigated our way through the subways and got to the Louvre...it was already quite late so all we could do was admire the architecture and the glass pyramids from the outside, which are in themselves astounding!


We saw the Eiffel Tower light up in the distance but it was just too cold so we looked, took some pictures, and chose instead to navigate our way back to the hotel, where we spent most of the night looking at pictures, eating baklava, inventing card games, and giggling.
The next morning, we woke up early to get back to the airport. After a painfully long check-in process with a trainee, we had our last meal together, after which we said our goodbyes and Dylan and I headed for the gate. Going through security, one of us remarked how weird it was that we had become the kind of family where the kids come home for the holidays....we're kinda grown-up! It's a little weird...
After 8 hours, three movies, 15 cups of orange juice, and one great meal of salmon, we landed in Kinshasa on the night of December 22nd, and were welcomed by the usual chaos at the airport and two beaming parents. Luckily, our bags arrived too, and we arrived home, exhausted but joyful. There was a delicious meal of potatoes and steak waiting for us, followed by one of mom's special chocolate cakes.
The past few days have been a lovely mash of being with family again...


seeing old friends...


and chilling with our new cat....


It sure is good to be home! It's back to St.Laurent on January 6th!

Changes and breakthroughs

This morning's French class was one of the most moving I have had since I got here. We spent a frustrating first hour dealing with possessive adverbs (or something rather) and I decided it was time to move on to something else. So we once again pulled out our alphabet sheets. It had been a while since we had worked on reading and I was worried that we would have to go back over the alphabet. We didn't, and in addition to that, when I began putting together consonant-vowel combinations, most of the women could read them! It was amazing! It wasn't easy....they would first state very harshly that they didn't know, that they couldn't do it, and I would ask them over and over to just try...and then they would get it...and they had this look of incredulity on their faces when they realized they had done it. They didn't want to stop, they just wanted to keep reading word after word. It was a really uplifting atmosphere. I could almost feel them walking taller as they left class. Literacy truly is an powerful tool! The following is a quotation regarding education from a statement by the Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace,from which I have drawn a lot of motivation and strength since arriving here:
"For ignorance is indisputably the principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples and the perpetuation of prejudice. No nation can achieve success unless education is accorded to all its citizens."
It might seem like an obvious statement but to actually carry it out definitely is not, considering UNESCO currently estimates that over 771 million adults in the world are illiterate.
Later on the in the afternoon I had two children's classes. The first one is in a house where the children are repeatedly beaten, but I am beginning to see a change...instead of the mothers coming over to hit one of the children today, they simply came over to "show" their children how to color. It really was beautiful to see the mothers standing by the kids coloring their sheets, the children looking very impatient to get their sheets back but I think thankful that they weren't being hit.
Thanks to the arrival of Dulcie, I was able to split my second children's class into two age groups, making things much more manageable. She took the younger kids and did an absolutely amazing job with them considering she is still learning French, and of course the kids adored her. I took a smaller group of older kids aged 9 to 11 and we worked on memorizing a prayer with a lot of imagery by making a picture book. It was interesting to see how different children interpreted different words and what pictures they used to portray them.
I finished off the day with a junior youth class, in which I got deeply criticized for having not yet tried "awasai", a Ndjuka specialty, and left with promises that I would get to taste it next time. I did not understand much of the explanation of what it actually is, which frightens me a little, but hey...what is a year of service without some disturbing food experience?

Lesson Learned: One of the greatest gifts we have been given is our free will and our ability to choose. We choose what to believe, how to act, and how to treat others. We must never for a moment think that these things are beyond our control. We have a choice in whether or not to believe in God, whether or not to steal, and whether or not to gossip. It is first consciousness of this that enables us take control and begin living life in accordance with Divine Teachings. (hmmm...that may have been a little obscure...once again, open to individual interpretation)

3 months

I definitely do not get the prize for most oftenly updated blog! Possibly if I chose to write something every night I would come up with more than trying to look back on the month in which I wrote nothing, however, that has not been the case and I am now forced to sit down and figure out something exciting/inspiring to write for all the people who I know avidly read this blog!
As the title of this blog shows, today marks the three month anniversary of our arrival in St. Laurent. It definitely does not feel like it has been that long. I guess time flies when you keep busy.
Our classes have been going long enough that we have established strong friendships with the youth, are feeling comfortable with the adults in our French classes, and are beginning to see changes in the children. There are still times when I feel like our work here is for nothing, days when it feels like chaos is reigning in all classes and the women have placed a special mental block to prevent them from remembering any French, but it is in those times that saying a little prayer goes a long way. It inevitably leads to a little moment in which I realize why I am here: a woman spills out an entire well-constructed sentence in French, a child recognizes a moment of service or willingly shares a marker...these are the moments I live for. That is not to say that the rest of the time I'm depressed, but those special moments are the ones I will keep in my heart forever.
The most comforting thought that has kept me company over the past three months is that God never tests us beyond our capacities. There are certainly moments when I feel like I will never make it through the year, but to close my eyes and realize that God is testing me and He knows I can get through it gives the strength needed to do just that...get through it. And it is by overcoming tests that we grow spiritually, and grow closer to God.
An event that needs mentioning in this update is the arrival of a fourth youth, a young lady named Dulcie Cardinal from BC, who will be joining the "St.Laurent team" until June. It was quite complicated to actually get her here: Jackie went to Suriname (it's just across the river) to pick her up but called saying Dulcie was nowhere to be found. A few minutes later the phone rang again and it was Dulcie saying she was in St.Laurent. Unfortunately we didn't have Jackie's cell number to be able to inform her that she was in the wrong country. After phoning every person in our address book we finally found the number, by which time I had already returned with Dulcie. We called Jackie and she made it back to St.Laurent, only to be stranded at the port because a young lady (yours truly) went to the wrong port to pick her up. A very long and complicated afternoon, but totally worth it since Dulcie is an absolute gem and we are all getting along marvelously!


(Dulcie, Anthony, and me)

Another event worth mentioning is last night's fireside. We had 19 youth crammed into the living room, and after a very rowdy name game, we had a very enlightening discussion about heroes. We talked about the different types of heroes, why people are admired, and everyone got a chance to share who their hero was. I gave a brief presentation on Wangari Maathai, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. I admire her incredibly for being the first woman in central and eastern Africa to earn a doctorate, as well as her dedication to the establishment of peace and to the empowering of women. However what I admire her most for is that despite going to the US for her Bachelors and Masters, she returned to Kenya. Unfortunately many African youth who go oversees for an education never return, and they could be contributing a tremendous amount to Africa's spiritual and material development. Although my true heroes are my parents, whom I admire for all their work, love and dedication, by presenting Prof. Maathai, I hoped to show the youth the potential for greatness that exists within them, and show the girls the possibilities that lie in front of them.


Lesson Learned: Prayer and song exert such a powerful influence on the soul! I recommend for anyone the best remedy in moments of sadness or hopelessness, sit down and say a little prayer or sing a song. It really helps.