Newsletter: October 2005

Marhaba! (arabic greeting used in Lebanon)

A WALK IN EARLY NOVEMBER

I conspicuously hide the volume under a flap of my faithful winter coat. The cold squalls in Quebec City had become harsher lately, and my thin autumn coat did not suffice any longer to keep me safe and warm. Just a few days ago, I had reached in the back of my wardrobe for some heavier arsenal: a leather covering, stuffed with quilt and with a fur-lined hood... When I am completely swaddled in it, I look like an eskimo or a little feminine version of Robert E. Peary (Reputed to be the first explorator to reach the North Pole). I walk with brisk steps, directing myself towards the Laval Hospital to pass some tests.

It is our first snowstorm... Big wet snowflakes cover my braided hair. I clasp closer to me the book which Vaughan lent to me. This reporting (728 pages) by Robert Fisk « Pity the Nation : The abduction of Lebanon » haunts my imagination ever since I started reading it. How could it be different, as I prepare myself, slowly but surely, to spend 8 weeks of my life, doing an internship in this country, next summer !?

LEBANON

During my last meeting with Marie-Hélène Parizeau,my ethics teacher and the lady in charge of the internships in Lebanon (and who would be, according to the student hearsay, the very daughter of Jacques Parizeau!),we have determined some official dates for my stay there: June 27 to August 31 2006... In less than 7 month, Vaughan and I will be deeply plunged in this boiling area of the Middle East!!

It is indeed a hot area of the globe. During the last 50 years, Lebanon has been under the military control of the PLO, Syria, Saoudia Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Israel, the United States, France, Italy, and Great Britain... Ooof! A country located north of Israel, Lebanon shelters a few overcrowded Palestinian refugees camps and holds many religious minorities: Sunnis, Shiis, Druze, Maronites, Catholic Greeks, Orthodox Greeks... an explosive ideological mix!

In spite of it all, in a way, it is its very contrasts that make Lebanon so attractive. People say that Lebanon is the only country were it is possible to go ski in the mountains in the morning and go swim in the Mediteranean during the after noon... It is also the only arabic state said to be "christian"... Therefore, teenagers with mini-skirts can freely walk in the streets of the capital city while their mother, dressed in a tchador visit the market... Even the Lebanese health-care system doesn't escape the tendency to discrepancies: It is a two geared system... Hence the private university hospitals have as much, if not more, technological apparatus than the big american hospital centers. On the other side, it would seem (if I remember well the words of Mrs. Parizeau) that a doctor in the Palestinian refugees camp sees over 100 patients per day, in average... we are allowed to wonder whether such a doctor can afford the time to ask the patient for his name!!

What a blessing it will be for me and Vaughan to adventure, cry, visit, question, learn, in a word, LIVE in this bewitching mosaic-like society!! As a french song would say..."If I had the wings of an angel, I would leave for... [Beirut]!"

OCTOBER: A MONTH FOR VISITING

This semester, I had challenged myself: I wanted to manage to do all my school work during the weekdays in order to have my weekends free... a challenge that I succeeded somewhat to reach... that's a first!

Why such a change? The reason is that I knew that I would need to use wisely these time slots for the great adventures that awaited me in the near future... like, for example, going to Gatineau 3 times in 4 weeks...(It's a change! Considering that during the other years, I would rarely go more than once a semester!)

A WEDDING

First special weekend of the series: there was the wedding of my neighbour and good friend Tania. During my years in Gatineau, Tania has been a companion with whom I could share my heart and we lived together many unforgetful moments. It was an honnor and a pleasure for me to be able to witness, with all the others, one of the biggest and most mysterious decision that a girl can ever make...

QUIZ MEET

The week after, I returned to Gatineau... This time, it was with our whole quizzing team. We were having our very first provincial quiz meet of the year. Like usual, my mom was an exceptional host. She received at her place all the Quebec delegation: more than 10 persons in all... Sometimes, I wonder whether my mom's life motto is: If there's enough for two, there's enough for three!. Me, when I'll be older.... I want to become like my mama...!!

HIS FAMILY...

Then, the following weekend, I went to Toronto...It was the Thanksgiving holidays! It was a long awaited moment! It was an adventure that I felt would be moving...in short, it was the first time that I would meet Vaughan's family!

My boyfriend's folks basically all live out West. Well, it was going to be 10 months since I had started going out with Vaughan (Yeah, yeah...the 12th month will soon be approaching... 1 year... How time flies!!) and I still hadn't gone around meeting a single person from his family!( 50 hours drive, you can't make it in just a weekend...) So, when Thanksgiving came, Vaugan' mom went to Toronto for a sister get-together. They invited us over to the party... How could we not go! It took us around 9 hours to get there from Quebec City. Needless to say that for me and my lover... having to spend all this quality time together wasn't a sad thing!

In Toronto, I went through a wonderful series of new encounters... At last, I could put faces on names! Vaughan's family immediatly greeted me in their circle, kindly raving about my "cute french accent" and flooding me with smiles. I literally felt on familiar ground with them... seeing the 4 Barley sisters running around the kitchen reminded me of my grandma's Boutin sisters, during the family meetings in Abitibi!

Why this association of ideas with my grandma's family rather than my mom's? Well, I have to say that Vaughan's family is basically made up of older people than me. His cousins are mostly all married, his aunts are over 60... Yet, they considered me like one of them! They flooded me with questions and took pleasure in patiently listening to my stories. In any case, they soon discovered that I tended to me loudmouthed...

Before we left, Uncle Clarence let us pick a whole bag of wild apples that grew on his land, behind his house. Those fruits are particularly delicious in salads or with peanut butter...Mmmh!

OUR PARENTS GET TO MEET

As a matter of fact, Vaughan's mom wanted to see where her son is living. Her and her husband, Harold, had planned to go from Toronto to Quebec City the following weekend to pay us a visit.

We decided to meet... in Gatineau... How could they have passed so close to my parents' place without stopping by! Vaughan and I came from Quebec City to Gatineau to join them. Mom was waiting for us with a gorgeous feast, as is her habit... Our visitors will not forget too soon the colorful conversations with my parents and the "innocent" teasing of my sister... They still talk about it...

ARRRRGHHHH MY LETTER IS TOO LONG AGAIN!!!

One last point... I still haven't explained to you why I went for tests at the hospital (see first paragraph) In short... I entered in a research project on asthma. After having went through all sorts of tests (Air flow, blood tests, mucus spitting, allergy tests, etc.), they induced in me an asthma reaction under supervision and they analysed whether I would have a late reaction (an asthma reaction that starts 4-7 hours after the first reaction),which I did. Through this experiemetn, in addition to having the satisfaction of having helped science, I recieved a nice amount of money in compensation for the two complete days that I spent in the research department of the Laval hospital... Some welcome money for future bus travelling for a 50 hours drive to the Canadian West during the next Christmas Holidays...

Thanks for having read my writings...Talk to you next month!