It's on!

My first week at work is done here in Matane. I work for l'Association des Handicapés Gaspésiens. Basically, my job is to organize activities for disabled people and also to supervise and help them in those activities. All the clients are mentally handicapped and a few of them also have physical disabilities. So far, I like this job.

Back to our new Katimavik house in Matane, Nikki's mother and grandmother are visiting us for the week-end. Nikki is a participant in my group and she lives in Newfoundland. For your information, yes, we do a lot of Newfie jokes in our group! Anyway, her family is in town and yesterday night, they cooked us some Newfie meals. We ate pea soup with salt beef, Jig's dinner, salt cod and partridgeberry jam tarts for dessert. It was delightful!

The food was awesome but there was a lot of dishes! Guess what, it was my dishes night! Reza was the other slave with me. Reza is a good friend in my group. He lives in Toronto and we are two guys who like to laugh and to do jokes. So, after at least 30 minutes of hard work in the kitchen, we were tired and we decided to hide the dirty dishes left instead of washing it.

So, we finally left the house and we went to a bar to watch the end of the Montreal Canadiens hockey game. I don't know why I'm still watching that bunch of chokers playing hockey. Anyway, let's be honest, it was a good game.

When we were gone, Julie, our new Katimavik Project Leader found our dirty dishes. As she said: "I had two choices: giving you a verbal warning or answering with revenge."

When we went back home, ALL the dishes mysteriously disappeard from the kitchen. Julie welcomed us with a big smile and only let us know that if we're looking for something, it's outside the house.

Yes, we went outside, under the rain. Guess what we found behind the shed...

We brought all the freaking dishes back in the kitchen. Some plates and glasses got dirty because of the rain. To reorganize all that mess probably took us an hour. (We also had to wash what we didn't wash earlier that night).

Next week, Reza and I are the house managers! That means that we don't work and we stay in the house with our friend Julie. We warned her: the game is on!

There's a moral behind that story. There's always a moral with me! Our group arrived in Matane more than one week ago. The transition was hard for me and for everyone. My answer to those tough moments was isolation. I spent a lot of time alone in my room. Our group was not a group anymore for the last days. Robbie warned us in Castlegar: "A rotation can be very devastating." Those pranks make everyone (including ourselves) smile. I think this has an important impact. After a challenging week, our group is coming back together. Also, Julie is now a part of us! Our new Katima-house is slowly becoming our Katima-home.

Coast to coast

"The bus is there!"

That's probably the last sentence you want to hear when you're doing Katimavik. Tuesday, 11:00 PM, we left Castlegar. It feels really weird to leave the house you lived in during 3 months. It's also weird to take a last look on the town when you're leaving in the bus. You just remember so many things about that town. I'll miss Castlegar and Twin Rivers school very much!

ALL the thank you cards I received in Castlegar were in my luggage. I'll never get rid of them.

Now that Castlegar was behind us, we started a wonderful travel. 27 hours long! I had three flights. Kelowna-Vancouver, Vancouver-Toronto and then, Toronto-Québec City. If you know a little bit about geography in BC, you probably noticed that the first flight was kind of a detour!

Anyway, it's our only rotation, and it's the only time I had the chance to travel with some people of my group. We slept a lot but we also had some fun!

Something really cool happened: I saw my parents at the airport in Québec City. They drove two and a half hours and slept in a hotel to see me on wednesday night. It's so nice from them and it was so good to see them again.

From Québec city, we had to drive another 5 hours on a bus. Around 5:00 AM (that's on thursday morning, by the way), it started to smell like fish and we arrived in Matane!

The transition is a little bit hard for me and for the group: new town, new official language, new house (so much smaller!!), new Project Leader and we all start a new job next wednesday. It's hard, but it's part of Katimavik. You have to learn how to adapt. By the way, Matane seems really nice. I cann't wait to discover that town!

It will take me more than 27 hours to realize that I'm halfway in my Katimavik experience. Time passes so fast. I already feel like Castlegar was just a dream. Yeah ... but such a nice dream!

It's not by working in Matane that my English will keep improving. For sure, I'll keep talking in English with my group but I also decided that my blog will now be in English. Sorry if there's some mistake, I switched to my second language...

Goodbye Robbie!

It's the end of our first rotation in Katimavik. To help us transition to our second house, we had to leave our Project Leader two days before our travelling day.

Earlier today, we left Robbie. Actually, he left us and we are staying in our Castlegar house for two more days.

During our farewell ceremony, we all looked so miserable. That was a really tough moment for all of us.

As a joke, our group blocked the driveway so Robbie couldn't leave. I'll never forget the words he said when he came to see us for the last time:

"When you're ready, give me a last hug. Take a deep breath ... and then, let it go. After, walk away and don't look back".

"I'll see you again on the other side. I love you guys."

I'm still shaking while I write these words down.