Finally caught up to me...

So... the ridiculous amount of dampness that we have been experiencing here in NB has finally caught up with me, and now I have the Madre of all colds. I'm exaggerating because I'm tired, but there is some serious ickyness going on. Luckily, as the resident herbal medicine chick, I can treat myself with fresh herbs and plants that are growing in front of my cabin! I've spent the past few days harvesting some fun plants to make teas and to infuse some oils.

Yurrrrrrt

I received my not-so-long awaited package from http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/ and now I'm just waiting for my comfrey and my calendula to infuse into my sunflower oil so I can make some magic voodoo healing balm. I discovered a patch of lemon balm growing in the overgrown herb spiral on a day that I was feeling kinda blue. It must have been some kind of sign from mother nature that I needed to cheer up. If you've ever smelled lemon balm, you'll understand. It is known for its uplifting effects, similar to st-john's wort, but less intense. I harvested a yogurt container full of leaves and made tea for everyone.

This past weekend was very quiet. My roomie had to go to the states for a week and I miss her terribly. There's a dance-party sized hole in my life right now.

Friday night was my night to cook with J and D and I decided it was time to make burgers. Veggie burgers. I loosely followed this recipe http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2011/04/homemade-bean-burgers.html but I didn't add oatmeal and used a chickpea and black bean mix of beans. D made buns and they were PERFECT! We finished them up on the barbecue out at the Rec and made sweet potato fries on the fire. My goodness life is wonderful.

The weekend was pretty quiet, we were all very low key and I got a lot of work done on my GIFTS project, which is soon wrapping up.

Portable Pizza Oven

Kite flying in the rain

Sunday was the annual kite festival in the field. Unfortunately, following the trend of the season, it was pouring. Somehow, that didn't stop us from getting soaking wet, running around in the rain, trying to get our kites up in the air. I flew a kite (very briefly) for the first time ever! There's a video, but I won't be posting it. Just imagine me, running at full speed through a field of yellow dandelions, laughing hysterically (which slows down my run), holding a ball of string, followed by a big brightly coloured dragonfly-shaped kite, while 6 people cheer on and tell me to run faster once I slow down due to a laughing fit. Add to that image lots of rain and wet jeans.

It was a good day. I made curried butternut squash soup for dinner and A made an amazing quinoa and feta salad.

This week, we are apparently getting a brand new intern so that should be an interesting addition to our group dynamic. The director of the centre seems to really enjoy stirring things up so that we never get too comfortable.

In spanish news, we have boosted our spanish nights to 3 times per week and full days as well. We are coming along. One of the Ms will be teaching one hour of spanish every week since he has the language teaching background. His style of teaching is wonderful. Very comfortable and interactive.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print for now.
I'll try to keep the updates coming more often, but I must say... It feels wonderful to be slightly disconnected from the world wide web. Even if it is only in my mind.
Ciao for now.

My First Time

Just a few things

Again, quick post

Highlights this week:
Raccoon family moved into one of the outhouses. Mom, Dad and three babies!
Some sun, finally!
More bonfires at the Rec centre
We were given out projects. I'm in charge of the herb garden, which I'll be turning into a medicinal herb garden. Also, I have to rethink and revamp the forest garden. Other than that, I'll be working with kids school groups on environmental education.

St-Andrews

Just a quick post

We spent the weekend in St-Andrews at the director's cottage. It is in a beautiful location, overlooking Bocabec bay, 20 minutes from St-Andrews by the sea.

The weekend was basically lots of eating, drinking, dancing and chatting. A few of us went for a kayak ride in the bay. Sunday was sunny and gorgeous and we all went for a nice long walk along the beach. It was nice to be back around my own stomping grounds from last summer.

It was A's birthday on Sunday so I went to the dollar store and bought a piñata shaped like a bumblebee, in honour of the international day of biodiversity. I also bought some sustainable, local, healthy candy from the dollar store to fill it up. ;)

I got P to help me fill it up Sunday night and we brought it down to the beach where everyone was gathered around a massive firepit for a bonfire. We started singing happy birthday on our way down the staircase that leads to the beach. It was the perfect addition to a quiet Sunday night beach party. The bumblebee was destroyed rather quickly. A did her best, then two of the boys managed to crack it open and we all dove down to gather the candy! There's nothing like candy around a beach bonfire to make a birthday complete.

We drove back to "camp" on Monday and spent the rest of the day hanging out.

DRUMROLL PLEASE!

OH! Did I mention???

CUBA IS OFFICIAL!!!

We had a meeting with J, the FBC director this week and she told us who is going to CUUBBAAA!!!!!!

It turns out that me, E, the philosopher and P are all going! I’m so excited! It’s a wonderful group and we are all passionate about the project there. When she said my name for Cuba, it took all my self-control to not jump out of my skin in excitement. It definitely sounds like the most challenging project, in terms of having to work within a very strict, complicated, convoluted political and economic system. I can’t wait.

This morning, we had a training session with Julia, the Cuba project coordinator. She ran a 3 hour session on asset mapping, which was well organized, well structured and fascinating. She handed out little pieces of paper last night with our roles on it. A large part of the workshop this morning was role playing, pretending we were all part of a small NB community that relies mainly on one mill, which was closing. Each person was given a character who was part of the community and had different values, interests and needs. The point of the exercise was to see how a community meeting could map valuable assets that are present in a community, point out threats to those assets and develop actionable solutions. It was a great exercise and could be an incredible tool to use in latin American communities.

Yesterday afternoon, once again, we finished everything much sooner than expected so we spent the last hour of the day sitting around, speaking Spanish and going over some grammar.

A few people went on a booze run and brought back a bar. Needless to say, last night was a riot. Everyone blew off their steam out at the Rec centre and E and I initiated a great dance party again, DJ-ed by the Portuguese M.

E and I walked back to the Greenhouse with the DJ at the end of the night, said goodnight and then got hungry. She made popcorn and I made cake. We were missing an egg, so I sneaked into Cheerio super stealthily and stole an egg from one of the boys. It took all of my skills to not giggle hysterically as I snuck in. The best part was that the boys were in the kitchen talking, while I stealth stole an egg from the fridge, which is just in the other room, separated by a window. As I opened the fridge, I heard “Hey dude, was that you?”. I froze, tried not to giggle and heard “Yeah, man! Just getting some water.” I opened the creaky doors as quietly as I could, a raw egg in my sweater pocket, and BOLTED the 10m back to the Greenhouse. We didn’t have muffin trays, so I made the muffins into a cake. We sat eating popcorn, drinking water, eating yummy cake and watching Sex and the City as we sobered up.

We also made a sign that said: “Get out, go to Cheerio, WE ARE SLEEPING!” and put it on the door. I got to sleep in this morning! I woke up around 10:30 and heard E in the living room, just outside my door so I asked her to come snuggle. Then tall J showed up and got into bed with us. Lots of giggling and hysterical laughing ensued. He has gotten into the bad habit of imitating my giggle anytime I laugh, which just makes me laugh harder, which makes E laugh, which he then imitates, which makes her laugh harder, which makes me laugh harder… you get the idea. My abs hurt.

Now, we’re all running around, trying to get ready to go to St-Andrews for the weekend. An early car left at 10am with those who wanted to go check out the farmer’s market in Fredericton. Having worked on a farm for the past two weeks and knowing that NOTHING is growing yet, I decided I’d rather sleep in and get to St-Andrews a little later and skip the market.

TGIF

 The week went by very quickly. Lots of manual labour and workshops. We had a full day with the tree guy and planted 750 trees as part of the centre’s restoration project. I’ll never understand how anyone does that for a full summer. We obviously had a different take on the whole “tree planting” thing than the industrial planting that happens across Canada. Each treeling received special attention and spots were chosen with careful consideration of what they need. 

The tree guy is hilariously polite and cares so much for each little tree, it’s amazing to experience. He’ll make a suggestion on where to plant the tree and then say “Sorry” “Thank you so much” “I appreciate it”. I don’t know if I’ve described him yet, but he’s probably between 40 and 50 (difficult to tell), is a self professed romantic, stopped working for 12 years to raise his two kids by himself and has an interesting history. He grew up all over the world as a diplobrat and has mentioned Burma, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The way he tells it, he told his parents very early on that he wanted to work with trees and then just made it happen by teaching himself everything he knows. The tree guy has no formal training as an arborist but has learned from doing it for 30 years and treats the trees as important members of society.

As we’ve been learning, as a group, we get tasks done much more quickly than any of the staff expect. The trees that were supposed to take us two days to plant were in the ground in a single morning. One of the permanent staff said that we had already done more this season than any other intern group has done throughout their entire internship. 

We work like army ants; each person knows their place, their job and gets it done. Once one person’s task is done, we move on to help people who haven’t finished theirs yet. We rock. Basically. That afternoon we spent some time getting some willow cuttings to root them for replanting. That took all of 45 minutes and then the tree guy took us for a hike up in the woods and talked about the different indigenous trees and the imported diseases that are wiping them out. After the hike, we came back and sat around in a circle and talked about creating a sort of constitution for trees. His idea is to come up with “rights of trees”. I explained that there are a few interesting articles out there, accessible on the world wide web (that means the internet) that talk about this subject. He decided to look into them before we meet again. In the meantime, we talked about the ethics of clear cutting and how economy drives massive deforestation. Again, nothing new.

Another morning this week consisted of an organic agriculture lecture where we mainly talked about accreditation, certification and the different governing bodies that deal with organic products. I didn’t realize how stringent it is. Unfortunately, it is very costly and difficult to get organic certified and for people with small farms, surrounded by big “conventional” farms, it becomes problematic to get certified. The onus for planting the necessary 8m border to protect a farm from non-organic practices (spraying, GMOs and all –cides) is on the organic farmer. This means that a small farmer loses an 8m border of planting area that spans the entire farm, whereas the conventional farmer who pollutes air, water, soil and his crop can plant all the way up to the property line. Fair?

We had interesting discussions about the sustainability of conventional farming versus organic farming. This soon turned into a discussion about the difficulty in gaining accreditation and the compromises that have been made to make it more accessible for farmers. It’s a very interesting discussion to have in the presence of someone who is an actual organic farmer, as opposed to having the discussion in a classroom with a professor who has read studies on organic farming.

Our afternoons are mainly spent outdoors, working the land. It was raining most of the past few days, but by some stroke of luck, the afternoons seemed to clear up for us, just in time to go plant the gardens. We managed to get the CSA garden all planted, as well as the potatoes finished out at Simm’s house. I spent yesterday afternoon wheel-barrowing load after load of compost onto the berry bushes. I must admit, I am quite enjoying the manual labour. My back has been holding up well and I am feeling healthy and stronger by the day. It’s a great feeling to be able to move a wheelbarrow full of soil. Not something I ever thought I’d say. There’s something so incredible cathartic about weeding a garden. It’s nice to see the progress that we make. The effort and energy that I’ve been putting into the work here translates into something visible and tangible. It’s a nice change from the university life of writing papers and doing research that turn into 1s and 0s.

The best example was the CSA garden. We got it done in an afternoon. By done, I mean that we put compost on the field, tilled it, hoed it into rows and mounds and then planted each row and then placed chicken wire on the pea mounds so that they grow up the wire and have some support. The only unfortunate part about all of this, is that we won’t be here to see all of our babies come alive and produce yummy food. We’ll be gone.

By the way...

Soooo... we are plugged into the grid for some things, but the internet seems to be pretty dependent on the weather and this is the forecast for the next few days...

Granted, that is two hours south of here...

All to say that if you don't hear from me, I've either gone native or the internet is out.

Don't worry. There's food here. I'll be ok.

“Make work programs”

You would never know we were off grid...

Last night we thought it would be a good idea to watch Che in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. I need a lot more practice. That was a very sobering experience. Even reading the subtitles, I was having trouble following the finer elements of the plot line. We have all agreed that we need to pump up our espanol.

This morning I was woken much too early by the morning people who come into the Greenhouse to make breakfast. I was none too happy. To be fair to them, they always have a pot of coffee ready for me to appease the angry bear and lots of food, but this morning it seemed as though nothing was helping to get me out of my groggy morning-ness.

I had coffee, sat on the couch and tried not to bite anyone’s head off. I succeeded mostly. I snapped at a few people but people mostly know not to take me seriously most of the time, so I got away with it.

Our morning workshop was a conflict resolution seminar with one of the permanent staff. It came at the right time. Though I was mostly sitting there, silently seething and pissed off at the world, wishing everyone would just stop talking and let me sleep. At the break, I turned to E, said “DANCE PARTY” and we ran to the Greenhouse and rocked out to some loud obnoxious music. It was extremely necessary to blow off some steam. I felt great afterwards. E, P and I just jumped around to MGMT, BEPs and Missy for the ten minutes of the break and returned to the conference centre, sweaty and giggly.

The new WWOOFer arrived this morning halfway through the workshop and so we had to pause to backtrack and recap for him. The seminar was interesting, but again, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t learned or experienced from Kanawana staff training or the mediation books I’ve read.

Lunch was delicious as usual and as an extra treat, we had MEAT! I’ve never been so happy to see a big plate of ham. All the meat-eaters did a happy jig.

This afternoon seemed like more of a make work program. J, the director of the centre, is british and seems to really like well groomed and manicured paths in the woods. So, half of us went to rake the trails. It seemed like a pretty ridiculous thing to do, since we were disturbing the natural cycle of things and disturbing the soil, which could lead to soil erosion. Raking the trails was almost like undoing all of the good we are doing in the gardens. I made some joke about the centre being a net zero site. Good deeds balanced with bad deeds. Half of us spent “two hours” doing that, while the other half were weeding and composting the gardens. I think I got the better end of the deal.

After our raking adventure, we returned to the conference centre for part one of our survival training with our Woodsman of an intern coordinator. Again, review. Though, I never get tired of watching someone make sparks from a metal match or light a tinder bundle from a speck of coal. By the end of the day, I was shivering and my body was going into shell to core effect. We finished our work day and ran back into the Greenhouse where I’m now bundled up in my down sleeping bag on the couch, with a lovely intern warming my feet.

The people here are really making the experience for me so far. One of the M’s said it best today: “I’ve never been surrounded by such an intelligent group of people.” Everyone is from a different background and we all have different experiences in our bags of tricks so it makes for excellent conversation. We are all funny/HILARIOUS and the laughs haven’t stopped since we first broke the ice. It’s a great mix of intellectual, deep conversation and funny, light banter.

So far, so good in the garden of Eden. 

Gettin' Girly!

After dinner tonight, E and I were feeling like our girly needs hadn't been met, so we donned our prettiest frocks, put on our best pair of heels, pulled out the bottle of white wine and had an adult, girly dance party. 

“Manual labour”

The end of last week consisted of massive amounts of manual labour. At this rate, I’ll be as strong as an ox in no time. Thursday morning we started off in the conference centre with G, the appropriate tech guy who loaded our brains for three hours. His presentations were about climate change, peak oil, wind power and solar power. It was interesting, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard or presented on before. I’m always surprised when people don’t know about the ins and outs of climate change. I guess I’ve lived in a climate conscious bubble for the past few years. Thursday afternoon, we went out to Sim’s house where one of the big wind turbines is. It’s a 10-15 minute bike ride out there, up hill both ways. No joke. We spent the afternoon digging holes to plant our solar panel properly. That night, after another delicious dinner, we headed out to the “Ay Papi” centre (rec centre) to watch a documentary. It’s a movie called Surfwise about a man who raises his 9 kids to be nomad surfers and they travel all over the U.S. for 23 years together. Odd.

Friday morning came around quickly and since it was such a beautiful day, the schedule was rearranged and we spent the day outside, working the land. In the morning, we headed out to Simm’s and we spread compost on the field. After that, we hoed and made nice little rows to plant potatoes in. We managed to get half of the field planted before our lunch break. It’s incredible to apply all of the theory I’ve learned in school in/on the field. This kind of work makes me really appreciate fossil fuelled machines. And makes me appreciate the extra money that organic food costs. Seriously people. If a head of organic broccoli costs 0.4$ more than non-organic, just think of me, breaking my back shovelling, hoeing, planting, weeding and pest-controlling everything by hand. Then imagine doing this on a slightly larger scale and for longer and you can justify the extra few pennies that help the farmers. Friday afternoon was a little more of the same, except that it was A and me in J’s garden, spreading compost, hoeing lines, planting seeds and de-rocking the garden. We were literally ROCKING OUT! Hahahahaha. Apparently the most common crop here is rock. We wheel-barrowed out 4 loads of gravel that went into the driveway to fill the holes. Nothing wasted here.

Friday night was our first bonfire party. It was drizzling slightly but we made it work. The bonfire lasted for 6 hours and we had a jam session with a guitar, an accordion and some tamtams. And rum. Some of the permanent staff and locals showed up and we mingled and chatted and drank.

The last men standing were E, one of the M’s and me out at the Wrecked Centre and we ended up crashing there. I woke up way too early for my own good and E and I ended up sitting in the cabin for about two hours chatting and not wanting to venture out into the pouring rain to make our way back to our home. The rest of Saturday was spent quietly, all of us hanging out together, working in parallel on our computers. You would never know that we are off-grid.

In the afternoon, almost everyone went to one of the staff’s house to milk the cows and make butter for us all. E, S and I stayed behind and watched tv shows. What a treat. The crew that left ended up getting a flat tire and having to put on the donut. Meanwhile, we were sitting in our cozy house, sipping tea and letting our brains rot.

It was an early night for everyone. Today I woke up early to the image of the chickens suffocating in their coop so I ran out in the rain to let them roam free. They were fine. And smelly. The rooster reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn. He struts like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We spent the weekend baking, eating, sitting around and talking. It’s been lovely.

We have another 5 days of rain to look forward to and this week will likely be mainly indoor workshops.

“Our first week” or “Nuestra primera semana”

Welcome to FBC

Monday morning we finally officially met Jean, the director. She welcomed us with the official powerpoint for FBC. That day we did some weeding, mulching, trimming, spread compost, wheelbarrow carrying… Back breaking work. And my back definitely broke. I had to take a painkiller Monday night because I couldn’t move without screeching. I’m hoping that my back will get stronger. I was fine on Tuesday!

Yesterday we met the “Tree Guy” who I really hope that I’ll have the chance to work with. He is an autodidact arborist and a fascinating person. He speaks in a constant stream of consciousness from subjects ranging from trees to Celtic history to space travel. We spent the rainy day planting hemlock and burr oak among the reforestation / restoration space in what was an agricultural field. Any time he would speak, I felt like a sponge soaking up as much of the information that he threw at us as possible. Once he felt that we had planted enough trees to appease the director, he brought us into the woods on a nature walk. This man knows exactly how to make me happy! It was great to get back into the woods and oil up my rusty interpretation skills and get a couple of new facts for my bag of tricks. 

He then let us go dry off and defrost in the Greenhouse where we spent the last hour of our work day talking about natural history. In truth, I should say that he spent the last hour of our workday talking about natural history. One of his tangents was about how ocean life sedimented to the bottom, became oil, then coal, then diamonds. So really, diamonds are condensed life. That blew my mind. Last night’s dinner was the first official Spanish night where we all could only speak Spanish. It was a huge success and E and I had prepped by putting up flashcards all over the cabin on the appropriate objects. The mix of Spanish in the group is great. From completely fluent (A grew up in Costa Rica) to those of us who need a lot of practice, we made the conversation work!

Today, I woke up to the smell of pancakes and coffee. Thank god for morning people! Our breakfast crew consists of the E and me, the two girls living at the conference centre across the path from the solar panel and the three boys living in the off-site “Ay-Papi” centre. The other two boys, living in the Cheerio fend for themselves in the morning. At 9am, we made our way the 10m to the conference centre where we had a 3-hour lesson on organic gardening with S, J’s partner and co-bear-hunter. We were all really interested in that part. 

Lunch was in the main house as is the norm on weekdays and then this afternoon we planted some more trees with the Tree Guy. After the trees, J, the intern coordinator/ex-army guy decided to give us a tool care/safety talk. We learned how to bevel an axe, sharpen and use a scythe and care for knives. Once we were finished with him, we had just enough time to learn about biodynamic gardening with one of the permanent staff at the centre.

Now, I’m sitting in my living room writing while two of the boys cook dinner for the nine of us. Four of us are sitting here in comfortable silence, each doing our own thing, and soon we will all assemble to eat, chat and laugh as we have done for the past few nights.

We have initiated a few fun things, including Spanish dinners at least two nights a week and one uniquely Spanish speaking cabin (not this one). We might be having a party this weekend with the staff. I’m enjoying the fact that we already have running jokes and stories. I’m feeling very positive about this internship thus far and I’m looking forward to tomorrow when we will be learning about the alternative energy component of the centre and dismantling a wind turbine.

“The work begins” or “El trabajo empieza”

The Barn

Friday started with breakfast at Jean’s (the director of the centre) house. We met the boys in our group over a delicious meal of fried eggs, bubble and squeak and fruit. Our first task at FBC ended up being spreading 50lbs bags of dolomite (lime) on the CSA field, where we will be growing our food for the summer. Ow. The plot isn’t that big, but damn those bags are unwieldy. That took us until lunch, after which our intern coordinator spent the afternoon keeping us busy and away from the director. His plan was to ease us into the centre easily and buffer us from the director to start. During the afternoon he gave us a tour of the grounds and talked to us about axe safety. He is such a character. Imagine the stereotypical hippy in the army who taught the men about survival skills. 

Spring in NB

Friday evening we all got together and had our first supper as a group. I’m really liking the people so far, we are an interesting group of interns. West coasters to East coasters and places in between. 5 guys, 4 girls, ages from 22 to 30 with backgrounds ranging from teachers to engineers. Conversation has yet to lack in depth or interest. 

Friday night everyone sort of scampered off after dinner to do their own things. We planned to meet for breakfast the next day before our first workshop. MUSHROOMS. Yay. Anyone who knows me can imagine how excited I was about that.

Neighbours

Morning came around way too early, as usual, but S was kind enough to ensure that there was coffee for us all. And breakfast. The workshop was open to the public and all about how to grow your own shiitake mushrooms. The mycologist who ran the workshop was a really fun guy. Fun-guy… Fungi…!!! Had to do it. Sorry. He started the day off with a little lecture on mushrooms and then explained how they grow and what we would be doing later that day. After the lecture, we went for a walk in the woods to where the FBC mushroom stand is located. The mushroom “patch” is basically a clearing in the woods with a pile of 3-4 foot long logs beside a wooden platform with 5-6ft long bathtubs and ropes ending in nooses to hang the soaked, shocked logs from. We lunched with the public who came to learn about mushroom growing. Luckily, the lunch was shroom free. Phew.

That afternoon, we sawed logs with a big two-man/woman saw, drilled holes into them inoculated them with the spawn and growing medium and then sealed them with beeswax. These logs will be left in the woods until next year when they’ll be shocked/soaked in cold water and then the mushrooms will flower.

Neighbours

Sunday we had the day to ourselves and E and I started it off with an amazing dance party. The subject of dance parties had come up before and we had both agreed that we were keen on the idea. When people left after breakfast, I pulled out my Ipod and asked her if she knew what time it was… DANCE PARTY TIME. We rocked out for a solid 30-45 minutes, while the rest of our intern group sat on the picnic table outside, too afraid to enter our cabin. 

The dance party was followed by an intense yoga session with our resident yogi intern, P. He does incredible things with his body. Bends, folds, twists and balances in the most impressive ways. I couldn’t believe it. Sunday was really the only NICE day we’ve had since we’ve been here. It was bright and sunny and allowed our solar panels to recharge the batteries so that we have Internet. Sunday night was our first bonfire of the season out at the Rec centre, which is off-site and the designated party place. It has since been renamed the “Ay-Papi!” centre… Long story. 

Not really… basically one of the guys said “Ay Papi!” without realizing that it’s not really a male thing to say. We have since been making fun of him. E and I also started a quote list and after less than one week, we’ve already filled up one page. We are a pretty hilarious group of people. My abs are already stronger.

"Life in the Greenhouse” or “La vida en la casa verde”

Here I am. In the middle of nowhere, with a whole alphabet of new friends!

Aside from the most horrific political changes in our country over the past week, things are looking great. 

My most recent deadline for the GIFTS project went well, as did the packing up of my belongings for the next +8 months of my life. It was stressful and slightly overwhelming, but I got through it and managed to keep my head… mostly. 

My flight was on Thursday afternoon so I spent the morning with my lovely mom. The morning was mostly spent with her distracting me with activities so that I wouldn’t fret and panic about the upcoming change/move/job/adventure. It was exactly like it used to be when I was a kid before going to kamp. Extreme excitement, mixed with a lot of panic. The usual “what if the other kids don’t like me” or “what if my councillor is mean” or “what if I don’t get in the cabin group I want to be in” all came flooding back to me in a wave of nervous excitement. Mom, in true good parenting fashion, kept my mind and hands busy by letting me beat her at backgammon. As the clock ticked away closer and closer to my departure time, my heart started beating double time. When it was time to get into the car and head toward the airport, I started getting the nervous butterflies somewhere around my tummy. I kept trying to be rational and tell myself how great everything would be, how I’d make friends right away, how the program would be a great experience, how I wouldn’t get fired as soon as I got there for speaking average Spanish… my rational brain just wasn’t connecting with the rest of me. I had my mom drop me at the airport and not come in, fearing that I (not her) would make a scene before I boarded the plane. Trooper that she is, she helped me unload my stuff from the car, hugged me goodbye and drove off as I walked into the airport. 

This part was fine, I’d done it many times over the past few months. I could handle the airport part. One thing at a time, I told myself. I got in line to check my luggage and waited. And waited. And waited. It was taking forever! I checked my watch. 45 minutes til departure. I waited more. And more. Twenty minutes later, I checked my watch again. 42 minutes til departure. 

OK. Breathe. My nerves settled down after a lovely girl walked up to me and asked if I was Emma. A! How appropriate that my first new FBC friend’s name started off the alphabet. I dropped my luggage off and wasn’t charged for my extra duffel bag. Things were looking up! I went back in line to where A was waiting with her bro and friend and started chatting. 

She dropped off her bags and said goodbye to her fam and friends and we set off to the gate. We quickly discovered that we were both in the same boat as to not having a clue about what we were getting into. Our flight was quick and bumpy on a teeny propeller plane that chugged along like a champ. An hour and a half later, we landed in a different province and a different world from Montreal. We grabbed our bags and settled down to wait for our lift to our new home. As it happened, our lift wasn’t arriving for two hours and the canteen at the airport had beer. 1 + 1  = Great idea. 

A and I chatted and got to know each other a little better over some good ol’ Keiths IPA. Halfway through our second beer, a tall man with a purple kerchief wearing a forest green flannel coat and a huge genuine smile asked us if we were the new FBC interns. He introduced himself with a big strong handshake as J, our Intern Coordinator. We instantly started asking him questions that he easily answered or deflected. Just after 8pm, the third new arrival landed from Vancouver and we headed off in his big truck. 

After a pit stop at the Fredericton Sobey’s for some groceries to tide us over for the weekend, we headed off on the dark highway. It had been a really long time since I’d been in an area so void of light pollution. The nearly two hour drive passed by quickly as I learned that our intern coordinator had been in the army for nearly 30 years and this position was his retirement project. He told me about bear hunting with his partner and kids, tanning the hides, rendering the fat… I took an instant liking to this big lumberjack of a man. He seems to walk the fine line between wilderness and civilization. Or rather, he seems to combine the two rather well. J told me about his son who goes hunting with him (and helps with all of the stuff that the average city dweller would never even imagine doing for themselves) in the same breath as telling me about his son’s new Wii.

My home

We arrived at FBC well past 11pm and unloaded our luggage and groceries. By some stroke of luck, I walked into a cabin called the Greenhouse before the other two girls and am now living here. It may very well be one of the nicest cabins. It has an adorable little greenhouse/hotbox attached to the front of it (I am now in charge of making sure the lettuce and spinach in there grow well). 

The Conference Centre

The cabin itself is divided into four parts: two bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room/living room. I share the cabin with E, which has so far been amazing. We have a lot in common and christened our new home this weekend with a crazy impromptu dance party. It also turns out that we have friends in common! The biggest upside to this roommate is that our combined laughing power could provide electricity to the entire North-East. Once we get rolling, we can’t stop. I think I may have cracked a rib again just from laughing with her. Our giggles have already proven to be too intense for some of the group.

Outdoor cookhouse

Back to the narrative… Thursday night was a little bit of greeting and meeting the girls. There are four of us: S, E and A. S and A are in living in the conference centre until another cabin opens up. It seems to be a pain in the ass for them, but it’s nice to have them close to begin with for bonding purposes. They are just across the solar panel from us. HA! The Greenhouse kitchen and living room/dining room have been proclaimed as common space so we have people hanging out here for meals and downtime. I like it for now, but I’m sure that I’ll be looking forward to having more alone time as the summer progresses. 

Life in the Greenhouse

Post coming...
Life here is wonderful so far!