Tag Archives: winter

Weathering Change

MC40_snowI landed from Osaka, Japan to Moncton, NB. I came to Canada because my wife is Canadian and from Moncton.  I went to the French LINC course there.

Although I already spoke English fluently when I came to Canada there were days of struggling with English awaiting me, along with French.

After 6 months living in Moncton, my wife and I moved to Ontario, due to job reson. We lived there for 2 years and 2 months. It was different from New Brunswick. I went to English LINC course there.

It was winter when we moved to Ontario. Speaking of winter , where I originally came from we have only few days snow. It was tremendously shocking for me to see the amount of snow and thick ice. It was scary. All I thought about was “Why am I here?”

I only lived in Saint John for 19 days now but I think I like the good mix of culture here.

I certainly have been home sick quite bad and have experienced some hard days coming from cultural differences as well but I can comfortably say that I am glad that I came here because I experienced something that I could not have experienced back home.

- Shigeki in Saint John, NB

- Photo Credit:  Fred Chartrand, The Canadian Press

 

Sugarcane in the Cold

 

MC40_sugarcaneIt was on a particularly cold Canadian winter evening that an unexpected skid of sugarcane brought a food bank to life.

The Seva Food Bank in Mississauga had just received our weekly shipment of food from our central distribution center. Among the expected boxes of soup, cereal, pasta and produce was a full skid of long yellowish bamboo-like sticks. Most of our young volunteers had no idea what these wooden sticks were and why we would be receiving them. Amongst the confusion, one of our well-traveled volunteers took one look at the skid and suggested that it might be sugarcane.

Knowing what it was still didn’t answer the question of “how do you eat it?” Running short on time before the shift began, our volunteers left out some the sugarcane sticks in our sorting area where our clients could help themselves to whatever they wanted. Continue reading →