So there are tales from my trip home for Easter coming but before that I thought I would impart this short story with you today from the airport in Toronto.
Today I was flying back from Toronto to Halifax and arrived at the airport quite early, having gotten a ride up from my friend Claire on her way to work (thanks again :)). So I arrived at my gate and this fellow sat down next to me saying that he recognized me from Halifax. I was somewhat surprised as I didn't recognize him at all but as it would turn out he is an up and coming spoken word artist originally from Bermuda now going to school in Hali.
After quite an extensive conversation I turned to reading my book when said individual asked if I would watch his stuff while he went to the bathroom. I said of course. It was 20 minutes to boarding.
15 minutes pass and they make the first boarding announcement, you know the one for people with young children or for star alliance gold and star alliance members. He still isn't back and I'm a little concerned but I'm convinced he must be just around the corner.
Five minutes pass and they make the second boarding announcement, for people in rows 22 and up. I am in row 24 but I still have this man's things with me (which included a lap top and demo CDs.
5 more minutes pass and they make the final boarding announcement. Not knowing what to do I decide to take the baggage to the woman at the boarding gate and explain the situation. She not only refuses to take the luggage but tells me she is not going to let me board the plane until the guy returns for his things. At this point I am freaking out and a pilot who is waiting for a flight on stand by notices and tells me to go and dump the guy's things around the corner and tell the flight attendant that I found him. I frankly wonder why they won't just do a call out for him. Anyway as the line was dwindling here comes this fellow around the corner. He seems oblivious to the fact that there was any problem with him leaving his things with me for over a half an hour and assures me he wouldn't have missed the flight. We then both get a stern lecture about not leaving items unattended, and me about agreeing to watch his things.
I guess in the Age of Terrorism there is no room left for being a good Samaritan.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
For Your Amusement
So today I had a facebook status conversation and it looked like this.
Kirsten Van Houten saw a wood pecker while she was running today, it flew right up to her. Legs starting to hurt
Marie: Was it looking for your wooden leg? Muahahahah (I couldn't resist I almost got jumped on by a squirrel when I ran this morning.
Kirsten: Hahaha was the squirrel looking for your nuts? It's nice running weather isn't it?
Marie: Beautiful- then I nearly killed a squirrel with my car on the way home, squirrely squirrels.
Kirsten: you might call it treevenge! :)
Kirsten Van Houten saw a wood pecker while she was running today, it flew right up to her. Legs starting to hurt
Marie: Was it looking for your wooden leg? Muahahahah (I couldn't resist I almost got jumped on by a squirrel when I ran this morning.
Kirsten: Hahaha was the squirrel looking for your nuts? It's nice running weather isn't it?
Marie: Beautiful- then I nearly killed a squirrel with my car on the way home, squirrely squirrels.
Kirsten: you might call it treevenge! :)
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Transcriptions
Completed!
39, 484 words. That is 14,484 words longer than my thesis should be.
I am sooooo giddy it took sooo long!
39, 484 words. That is 14,484 words longer than my thesis should be.
I am sooooo giddy it took sooo long!
Monday, March 15, 2010
So a clown walks into a bar.
and sits down.
That's not funny.
And yet, it still involves a clown.
So here I find myself blogging for the second day in a row after something of a sabbatical. I am feeling much more upbeat today, maybe its the weather, maybe its because I finally didn't spend my day sick in bed. I still have bronchitis but I am healing.
Other:
So I bought a scarf in South Africa. A pashmina, red,gold and orange which I haven't gone a day without wearing since I returned from South Africa. Today I spontaneously swapped scarves with a friend for a week today. I plan to photo-document the adventures of said scarf and report back to you.
A Rant:
So. I was listening to one of my interviews today, the first one I have made an attempt toward transcribing in a while. I thought it was a relatively straight forward interview without an exceptional amount of sorrow. A good way to ease back into things. Unfortunately it was not quite so straightforward. The respondent, a young woman who is now 19 told me about when war reached her city, Kisangani, in 2000. She was 10. When the Rwandans and Ugandans started fighting in her city they cut off the power and water supply to the entire population. They went for an entire week without bathing or clean drinking water and survived off of the food her mother was able to collect at the beginning of the week. A day into the fighting her neighbour's house was struck by a bomb, killing to people. Their bodies lay exposed in the rubble for days until the stench became unbarable and her family had to seek shelter elsewhere. That, she told me, is when they became "displaced". She also told me about how a number of children in her class died when a bomb was dropped on the school and how she was unable to attend classes for 5 months after the week long conflict.She also explained unwaveringly that the exiting armies lay land mines around the border of her city which killed many children who picked them up, thinking they were toys.
For the first time today, I succumbed to tears today after listening to one of my interviews. We almost all know that such things occur but its hard to imagine until someone sits in front of you and tells you about it or worse yet it happens to you.
My distress has now subsided into ambivalence. How do we, as Canadians, as citizens of a peaceful developed countries, as youth, and most of all as people, how do we continue to allow these tragedies to continue to occur? Is it that we have become cynical and believe that in certain countries, in the heart of darkness, there is no hope? Is it because the media only reports on certain conflicts and when they do its largely inaccurate? Is it because its happening too far away and you don't know what you could do anyway?
No child should ever have to smell the rotting corpses of their neighbour.
The reason that we should care, and perhaps must care is that such events are in no one's interest in the long run. They only serve to divide us further, to breed hatred against the people who stood by and did nothing. Even if you are an ardent capitalist, it removes access to markets, reduces the amount of consumers for your capital. It could just as easily be your town or city which is bombed to pieces or left riddled with bullets. How would you feel if the world looked on and did nothing. Sighed when they heard that more than 5 million people have died after a decade long war.
If we are ever interested in seeing long lasting, sustainable peace in the world we have to start acting. We have to abandon the us versus them mentality that sees people living these realities as others, glad we're not them. We have to start looking out for one another. Its not that hard. Get informed. Write a letter. Stop supporting companies which contribute to arms proliferation or the continuation of war. Better yet, demand that our governments also stop. Donate to a charity that is doing something if you must. Spread the word.
I have a friend with whom I debate such matters. Recently we were talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that there were more civilian casualties caused by insurgents and the Taliban than by coalition forces. When he forwarded me a report showing this and asserting that the insurgents and Taliban were intentionally targeting civilians while those who died as a result of coalition activities were unfortunate but unavoidable collateral damage, I asked him whether he really thought it mattered to the family and friends of the people who died whether they were killed intentionally by militants or accidentally by soldiers. It doesn't. Loved ones are still lost. Bodies still rot in the streets.
Stop war.
That's not funny.
And yet, it still involves a clown.
So here I find myself blogging for the second day in a row after something of a sabbatical. I am feeling much more upbeat today, maybe its the weather, maybe its because I finally didn't spend my day sick in bed. I still have bronchitis but I am healing.
Other:
So I bought a scarf in South Africa. A pashmina, red,gold and orange which I haven't gone a day without wearing since I returned from South Africa. Today I spontaneously swapped scarves with a friend for a week today. I plan to photo-document the adventures of said scarf and report back to you.
A Rant:
So. I was listening to one of my interviews today, the first one I have made an attempt toward transcribing in a while. I thought it was a relatively straight forward interview without an exceptional amount of sorrow. A good way to ease back into things. Unfortunately it was not quite so straightforward. The respondent, a young woman who is now 19 told me about when war reached her city, Kisangani, in 2000. She was 10. When the Rwandans and Ugandans started fighting in her city they cut off the power and water supply to the entire population. They went for an entire week without bathing or clean drinking water and survived off of the food her mother was able to collect at the beginning of the week. A day into the fighting her neighbour's house was struck by a bomb, killing to people. Their bodies lay exposed in the rubble for days until the stench became unbarable and her family had to seek shelter elsewhere. That, she told me, is when they became "displaced". She also told me about how a number of children in her class died when a bomb was dropped on the school and how she was unable to attend classes for 5 months after the week long conflict.She also explained unwaveringly that the exiting armies lay land mines around the border of her city which killed many children who picked them up, thinking they were toys.
For the first time today, I succumbed to tears today after listening to one of my interviews. We almost all know that such things occur but its hard to imagine until someone sits in front of you and tells you about it or worse yet it happens to you.
My distress has now subsided into ambivalence. How do we, as Canadians, as citizens of a peaceful developed countries, as youth, and most of all as people, how do we continue to allow these tragedies to continue to occur? Is it that we have become cynical and believe that in certain countries, in the heart of darkness, there is no hope? Is it because the media only reports on certain conflicts and when they do its largely inaccurate? Is it because its happening too far away and you don't know what you could do anyway?
No child should ever have to smell the rotting corpses of their neighbour.
The reason that we should care, and perhaps must care is that such events are in no one's interest in the long run. They only serve to divide us further, to breed hatred against the people who stood by and did nothing. Even if you are an ardent capitalist, it removes access to markets, reduces the amount of consumers for your capital. It could just as easily be your town or city which is bombed to pieces or left riddled with bullets. How would you feel if the world looked on and did nothing. Sighed when they heard that more than 5 million people have died after a decade long war.
If we are ever interested in seeing long lasting, sustainable peace in the world we have to start acting. We have to abandon the us versus them mentality that sees people living these realities as others, glad we're not them. We have to start looking out for one another. Its not that hard. Get informed. Write a letter. Stop supporting companies which contribute to arms proliferation or the continuation of war. Better yet, demand that our governments also stop. Donate to a charity that is doing something if you must. Spread the word.
I have a friend with whom I debate such matters. Recently we were talking about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He insisted that there were more civilian casualties caused by insurgents and the Taliban than by coalition forces. When he forwarded me a report showing this and asserting that the insurgents and Taliban were intentionally targeting civilians while those who died as a result of coalition activities were unfortunate but unavoidable collateral damage, I asked him whether he really thought it mattered to the family and friends of the people who died whether they were killed intentionally by militants or accidentally by soldiers. It doesn't. Loved ones are still lost. Bodies still rot in the streets.
Stop war.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
A Comedy of Errors
For as long as I can remember I have hated making mistakes. The earliest example I can think of this was when I was 8 and was at a Birthday party where I was given pop. Pop was something of a luxury for me and reveled in being able to blow bubbles in it. Unfortunately blowing bubbles in my pop had the foreseeable result of the pop bubbling out of the can and ending up all over my good clothing. I was so upset that I cried for about an hour because I was sure my parents would be disappointed in me. They weren't.
In high school and at the beginning of university I would often hold back from raising my hand to answer questions or if I did raise my hand by the time it was my turn to respond my heart would be raising and my face would be a lovely shade of red as I spat out my response to the question. This fear of making mistakes continues to persist in my life in the strangest of ways. For example I sometimes struggle with speaking french because I am very concerned with making a grammatical error. Francophones for the most part of course don't mind if you make mistakes, they are just glad that someone is trying to speak their languages.
Recently I have been making a ridiculous number of mistakes. It probably started when I returned from South Africa regretting that I had not told a certain individual how I felt about him. I found myself sitting up at night thinking about him and eventually sent him a letter telling him how I felt. This was not a mistake. It didn't change my feelings for the person one bit, but they were out there and known and sharing that load made things just a bit easier.
When I arrived back in Halifax I almost immediately started spending time with a new fellow who I had known before but not very well. I discovered that we shared a number of similar interests and dove head first into having the most ridiculous crush on him than perhaps I have ever experienced.
After about a month of this, I felt uncertain as to where I stood with him so I started to try to find ways to tell, asking friends advice, trying to engage in additional physical contact, but I couldn't tell how he felt, although it had become more clear that I was not the only woman after his affections.
With the added bit of stress I decided to step it up a notch and tried to find ways or opportunities to tell him how I felt. Some of these were missed others never materialized. So in a move of exasperation I prepared a straightforward hand written note which I handed to him last Sunday. The following week unfolded for me and involved a theatrical performance which was attended by said person and additional encounters in group settings. I also mistakenly sent a text message to him which was intended for a friend which read "He came to my performance last night and he was beaming at me the entire time. Still no word on the note" It took me 3 hours to realize this text had not gone to the right person and I was totally mortified.
As the week went on my nerves became more frayed and I began to try to push for an answer. Eventually I asked him over facebook whether he had read the note and he said he had and that we'd talk but all subsequent attempts to make plans have failed. (In fairness to him he has been really busy with school work and I may not be being sensitive enough to this).
So obviously I have made a number of errors throughout this saga, ranging from my almost hilarious text message to the more serious mistake of diving into a new crush to try to forget about something across the ocean.
Of course we all make mistakes. To me this feels like a pretty massive one.
This particular string of mistakes seems to point to the sentiment that if you ever expect to find true love, you have to put up with a lot of heart ache along the way.
More importantly it raises the question: how can one learn if they never make mistakes?
In high school and at the beginning of university I would often hold back from raising my hand to answer questions or if I did raise my hand by the time it was my turn to respond my heart would be raising and my face would be a lovely shade of red as I spat out my response to the question. This fear of making mistakes continues to persist in my life in the strangest of ways. For example I sometimes struggle with speaking french because I am very concerned with making a grammatical error. Francophones for the most part of course don't mind if you make mistakes, they are just glad that someone is trying to speak their languages.
Recently I have been making a ridiculous number of mistakes. It probably started when I returned from South Africa regretting that I had not told a certain individual how I felt about him. I found myself sitting up at night thinking about him and eventually sent him a letter telling him how I felt. This was not a mistake. It didn't change my feelings for the person one bit, but they were out there and known and sharing that load made things just a bit easier.
When I arrived back in Halifax I almost immediately started spending time with a new fellow who I had known before but not very well. I discovered that we shared a number of similar interests and dove head first into having the most ridiculous crush on him than perhaps I have ever experienced.
After about a month of this, I felt uncertain as to where I stood with him so I started to try to find ways to tell, asking friends advice, trying to engage in additional physical contact, but I couldn't tell how he felt, although it had become more clear that I was not the only woman after his affections.
With the added bit of stress I decided to step it up a notch and tried to find ways or opportunities to tell him how I felt. Some of these were missed others never materialized. So in a move of exasperation I prepared a straightforward hand written note which I handed to him last Sunday. The following week unfolded for me and involved a theatrical performance which was attended by said person and additional encounters in group settings. I also mistakenly sent a text message to him which was intended for a friend which read "He came to my performance last night and he was beaming at me the entire time. Still no word on the note" It took me 3 hours to realize this text had not gone to the right person and I was totally mortified.
As the week went on my nerves became more frayed and I began to try to push for an answer. Eventually I asked him over facebook whether he had read the note and he said he had and that we'd talk but all subsequent attempts to make plans have failed. (In fairness to him he has been really busy with school work and I may not be being sensitive enough to this).
So obviously I have made a number of errors throughout this saga, ranging from my almost hilarious text message to the more serious mistake of diving into a new crush to try to forget about something across the ocean.
Of course we all make mistakes. To me this feels like a pretty massive one.
This particular string of mistakes seems to point to the sentiment that if you ever expect to find true love, you have to put up with a lot of heart ache along the way.
More importantly it raises the question: how can one learn if they never make mistakes?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Adventures
So if you are reading this post you may have noticed a change in the title of my blog from "Adventures in the travels and life of Kirsten" to "Adventures in the Life of Kirsten". As most of you know this blog was initially intended to keep friends and family abreast of my experiences in South Africa and Switzerland, and you also know that I have now been back in Canada for more than 2 months and while I miss South Africa terribly my adventures there have meant that I have even more friends all over the world who I need to keep in touch with. Also it would seem that my adventures are not travel dependent. In fact after some thought about it Adventures seem to be a major theme in my life. My love for adventure even goes as far as to explain a lot of the random things that I have experienced that previously seemed inexplicable. One example of this is the delightfully random people who I meet and tell me their stories, since meeting new people is often part of my adventures. So right now my adventures happen to be occurring in Halifax, and they will be for a little bit longer than I thought since my contract with the Halifax Refugee Clinic has been extended. And while the location of my adventures may be shifting well into the future, you can count on one thing, that I will keep writing about them in this blog.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
In memorial
Its been a while since I updated my blog.
I wish it was in happier circumstances that I wrote this.
I have been working at the Halifax Refugee Clinic now for 4 weeks. Today when I got into work I was informed that one of the refugees had disappeared after leaving a suicide note, that all of his things in his room and that they were continuing to search for him.
This refugee was from Eritrea where where he had been part of the army, which is known for having committed serious human rights abuses. After having tried to desert the army and being recaptured and forced into retraining, this man left the country leaving his life and his family behind. He was found inadmissible for refugee status in Canada as a result of his involvement in the army, despite the fact that there is documented evidence that if he returned to Eritrea he would be tortured and killed.
The law making people who are suspected of being involved of major human rights abuses makes a lot of sense on its surface, Canada probably doesn't want people to seek asylum here from legal repercussions resulting from actions which they perpetrated in their home countries. However, this line of logic assumes that the countries where these people are coming from have just non corrupt legal systems that don't inflict torture and death on their prisoners and returned refugees. Sending someone accused of human rights abuses to a country where they almost certainly will face torture and death seems to follow the same logic as the death penalty, which is flawed at best. In such cases arguably it would be better for Canada to exercise universal jurisdiction and detain and hear the case of the individual hear and in the case of a guilty verdict also detain them here to avoid such unthinkable situations.
The day that this refugee disappeared was the same day that he was supposed to have a meeting with Canadian Border Services Agency to begin the process of deportation (a flight risk assessment).
At 1:30 this afternoon the clinic got a call informing us that the refugee had hung himself in Clayton Park.
I wish it was in happier circumstances that I wrote this.
I have been working at the Halifax Refugee Clinic now for 4 weeks. Today when I got into work I was informed that one of the refugees had disappeared after leaving a suicide note, that all of his things in his room and that they were continuing to search for him.
This refugee was from Eritrea where where he had been part of the army, which is known for having committed serious human rights abuses. After having tried to desert the army and being recaptured and forced into retraining, this man left the country leaving his life and his family behind. He was found inadmissible for refugee status in Canada as a result of his involvement in the army, despite the fact that there is documented evidence that if he returned to Eritrea he would be tortured and killed.
The law making people who are suspected of being involved of major human rights abuses makes a lot of sense on its surface, Canada probably doesn't want people to seek asylum here from legal repercussions resulting from actions which they perpetrated in their home countries. However, this line of logic assumes that the countries where these people are coming from have just non corrupt legal systems that don't inflict torture and death on their prisoners and returned refugees. Sending someone accused of human rights abuses to a country where they almost certainly will face torture and death seems to follow the same logic as the death penalty, which is flawed at best. In such cases arguably it would be better for Canada to exercise universal jurisdiction and detain and hear the case of the individual hear and in the case of a guilty verdict also detain them here to avoid such unthinkable situations.
The day that this refugee disappeared was the same day that he was supposed to have a meeting with Canadian Border Services Agency to begin the process of deportation (a flight risk assessment).
At 1:30 this afternoon the clinic got a call informing us that the refugee had hung himself in Clayton Park.
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