"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.