Premiers jours à Kigali

Je suis arrivée à Kigali au Rwanda il y a environ 48 heures et je suis tellement excitée à l'idée de travailler ici pour les deux prochains mois. Mon travaille va consister en un stage de journalisme à la station francophone Radio 10, dans le cadre du programme Rwanda Initiative, en collaboration avec l'Université Carleton.

Je commence à travailler jeudi alors pour l'instant, je découvre tranquillement la ville, ses nombreuses collines, la langue locale (le Kinyarwanda), l'excellent café et thé et le moyen de transport par excellence, le taxi-motocyclette!

Voici quelques photos de notre quartier: Kimihurura (la prononciation locale est plutôt "Chimihurura"). 

À gauche, les portes donnent sur un salon de massage que nous allons fort probablement visiter bientôt! Photo: Andréanne Baribeau

Nos routes de terre rouge couvertes de nids de poule et de crevasses sont très différentes des belles routes neuves et pavées du centre ville. Tous les quartiers semblent avoir un élément en commun par contre, et c'est la propreté! Je n'ai pas encore vu un seul déchet par terre - un grand contraste avec Toronto où j'étais il n'y a que deux semaines, durant la grève des employés de la ville (dont les éboueurs!). 

Une écolière se promenant durant l'heure du dîner. Photo: Andréanne Baribeau

La vue de notre patio à l'arrière de notre maison est difficile à décrire en mots, alors voici plutôt une autre photo:

Couché de soleil, vu du patio. Photo: Andréanne Baribeau

Mes aventures jusqu'à maintenant comprennent quelques balades en taxi-motocyclette (qui me paraissent de plus en plus sécuritaires et amusantes, quoique ma première expérience a résulté en une brûlure sur mon mollet...attention au tuyau d'échappement!), une dégustation de café rwandais au Bourbon Cafe, une session de jogging - ou plutôt de course à obstacles - à travers notre quartier et une balade avec des écoliers qui devaient se demander ce que je pouvais bien faire dans leur coin! Peu importe, ils savaient comment poser pour la caméra!

Un groupe d'écoliers en route pour l'école. Photo: Andréanne Baribeau

Corbeille ambulante

À peine quatre jours de grève pour les quelques 30 000 employés de la ville de Toronto qui ont troqué leurs camions de vidange pour des pancartes, ou délaissé leur siège de sauveteur à la piscine municipale pour assiéger le coin John St. et Wellington, et nous voilà déjà au bord de la catastrophe.

Bon, j'exagère un peu. Les seuls désagréments que j'ai connus depuis le début de la grève inclus mon manque d'exercice causé par la fermeture de la piscine de mon quartier. Quoique j'y suis allée juste

 une fois depuis que je reste à Toronto. Mais j'avais des grandes ambitions pour nager cette semaine. 

Et que dire des bestioles qui se donnent à coeur joie dans mes sacs de vidanges qui s'accumulent dans le vestibule de mon appart. Ça fait deux matins de suite que je me réveille à l'odeur du contenu en déchet de la fin de semaine dernière, éventré sur mon plancher. 

Et avec la canicule qui semble avoir pris la ville d'assaut, je n'ai pas beaucoup d'espoir pour les jours à venir. 

C'est à se demander, par contre, comment ont peut avoir produit autant de déchets en seulement quatre jours...Ma crainte, c'est que les gens se tanneront de trier leur composte et leur recyclage, et finiront par tout jeter.

C'est un peu comme trier ses courriels dans sa boîte de réception. Quand ça se fait graduellement, il n'y a pas de problème. Mais la seconde qu'on perd le contrôle et que les courriels s'accumulent, c'est là qu'on a tendance à tout envoyer à la corbeille. 

Awkward Moments

I obviously have a hard time keeping this blog updated! This is why for the next little while, I'm going to try a new concept, kind of like a series. It's going to be called: 

My Awkward Moments. 

Do you ever feel like you're always saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment, or you're unable to do what "normal" people do in certain situations? It feels like this has become the story of my life. 

Whether it's grabbing my boyfriend's dad by accident, sharing long awkward silences with professors or telling dead baby jokes to an expecting father, it feels although an exterior force is pushing me to embarrass myself. 

So, instead of feeling mortified, I will blog about it and hopefully, some people will relate to my experiences. 

Here's a first story to get the ball rolling.

I was doing my grocery shopping after work today, at Price Choppers in the Parkdale neighbourhood in Toronto. Everytime I go there, there are always what I've come to believe are homeless people hanging outside the store. 

Today, instead of carrying a shopping basket around the store, I decided to treat myself to a nice shopping cart, you know, the kind of carts attached to one another by a chain, that you must pay 25 cents to detach...

Well, when I came out of the store after doing my purchases, I tried to put the damn cart back in the stack to get my frecking 25 cents back, but the stupid thing was stuck and couldn't get close enough to the last cart so that the chain would reach, releasing my quarter.

That's when one of the homeless men came to my rescue. Well, I think he was homeless, but I wasn't sure. 

He told me to step back and let him try. 

That's when the existential questions started firing in my head. 

"Is this the point where a normal person would walk away and say 'keep the quarter', or, should I stay and watch until he successfully retrieves my money?"

"But if he does succeed, what do I do then? Take back my quarter and leave the homeless guy empty-handed?"

"What if he's not homeless and just likes to hang out at Price Choppers? If I tell him to keep the tip and it turns out that he's just some regular guy waiting for his girlfriend to finish her groceries, then I just insulted him..."

"Maybe I could offer him an apple instead. That would be much better than a quarter!"

So what did I end up doing?

I did what I usually do. 

Froze, smiled, giggled awkwardly, took the quarter he handed to me, smiled some more and walked away, feeling bad.

I'm probably just over-analyzing things and I'm sure these situations are not as bad as I think. But then, why do I care so much?

Well, stay tuned for some more of my awkward moments, cos they just keep on coming. 

 

 

 

How the University of Ottawa has left me paranoid and cynical

The University of Ottawa has ruined me. 

There once was a time in my life when I still believed in the good faith of university administration employees. This quickly change when I worked as news editor of La Rotonde for a year and realized administration members would go to great length just to keep information away from me. 

They sure kept up with these standards this year when dealing with an access to information request I filed to the University, taking their full grace period of 30 days to finally get back to me, just to say they couldn't disclose the documents I wanted. 

What a surprise! Did I really think the U of O would ever release records documenting complaints made against their Protection officers? Or release the expense account of the University's beloved Allan Rock? 

This is why I was so surprised when the Secretary Office at Carleton University responded positively to the access to information request I filed with them.

I asked Carleton for surveys of their Dining Services as well as complaints filed against the University's Aramark-run cafeterias.  

Within two weeks after mailing my request, I received a letter from them saying they were working on my case. All the material I asked for was ready for pick-up well within the 30-day deadline and one of their employees from the Freedom of Information department even gave me tips on how I could get the fees waived. 

But after my University of Ottawa years, I was suspicious. How could a Canadian post-secondary institution so easily agree to release possibly damaging information?

At first, they were going to charge me over $60 for the documents, but told me all I had to do was write a letter asking for the fees to be waived. I did so, and success! They waved the fees. They even called me on my cellphone to ask me whether I wanted to pick up the documents myself or have them mailed to me. 

After all this trouble, I didn't want to risk the chance of having the documents "mysteriously" disappear in the mail. I was sure the University was still planning some sort of scheme to keep these documents out of my hands. 

So I said I would pick them up myslef. The Freedom of Information lady said she would leave the envelope in a plastic bin in the main room outside her office so that I could pick it up anytime during the day.

I agreed and said I would drop by the next day. Before hanging up, she specified that everyone has access to that room but that she would be surprised if someone else left with my envelope. 

After I hung up, I couldn't stop thinking about those last words...a lightbulb went on in my head. 

Suddenly, I was sure that the University would somehow make the documents disappear from the bin before I got a chance to pick them up. Or, that the documents wouldn't even be placed in the bin in the first place.

I knew it. Just like the U of O, Carleton University had some twisted plan to make sure I would never see these complaints. It was all clear. They even had the perfect excuse for it. They could simply say I consented to have my documents left in an open area and that they were not responsible for the lost.

At that point, I ran to Robertson Hall as fast as I could. I had to get my documents before they would get stolen and burned by some insider who was part of the conspiracy.

When I arrived on the sixth floor of Robertson Hall, all sweaty and out of breath, a brown enveloppe was waiting for me in the plastic bin. At last, my records. The Freedom of Information lady was even there and smiled at me as I picked up the envelope and put it to safety under my arm. 

So there was no conspiracy. No scheme. Just surprisingly cooperative people working at the Freedom of Information office of Carleton.

Maybe one day I will heal from my U of O wounds. 

As for now, I have a whole bunch of students' complaints against Carleton's Dining Services to go through. 

Sleepless in quinzee

My first attempt to spend a night sleeping in a quinzee failed miserably. The only worst thing that could’ve happenned to me would’ve been to have the actual thing collapse on my face while sleeping.

Ok. To put you into context : a quinzee is kinda like a cheap version of an igloo. You make a node of snow, wait a few hours for it to harden, and then you dig the interior, leaving about a foot thick of snow for walls. And then, you sleep in it. Yes.

My friends had prepared the quinzees the weekend before and last Friday, we decided to test them out. They were nice and solid by the time we got there and we could just relax by the fire and have a good time.

I followed all the rules and dressed warmly, brought an extra pair of everything and rented a super extreme sleeping bag supposed to go to minus 20 degrees. I thought this would be a fun activity to do with my friends before I leave for my two-week journalism internship at the CBC radio in Quebec City !

But apparently, you need to be in good shape and well-rested if you want to survive a night in a quinzee. Being a journalism student, I was at the other end of that spectrum !

I had been sleeping an average of 6 hours a night for the past 2 weeks and spent my whole Friday running around in our radio class, trying to put together our broadcast and current affairs show. By 6:00 pm, I was ready for bed.

But instead, I drove to Gatineau, near the airport where my boyfriend’s dad owns a farm (that’s were our quinzees were waiting for us). After twenty minutes of cross-country skiing in the dark – my first attempt at cross-country skiing since I completely destroyed my elbow last winter under very similar conditions – we got to the camp ground. I managed to fall only, hum, a couple of times but luckily there were no dislocation of any body parts this time.

My friends and I crowded over the fire for a couple of hours, trying with all our might to remain alive. At around midnight, we called it a night, whished everyone good luck, crawled into our respective quinzees and curled up in the foetal position.

My boyfriend and I actually had the best looking quinzee. It was high enough to stand on our knees and just wide enough for us and our luggage. I slipped into my super extreme sleeping bag, which was suprisingly pretty warm. A couple of minutes later, my boyfriend was already snorring and I managed to fall asleep a couple of hours later !

Everything was going according to plan.

And then, at around 3:30 a.m., I woke up in a panic. There was a big dark figure standing on top of me, breathing in my face. My first thought was "Oh God, my boyfriend is sleepwalking, again !"

Upon further inspection, I realized the hairy beast walking on my stomach was not my boyfriend but his big labrador, Bosco.

The poor thing had been freezing outside and thought he could brake into our quinzee and curl up between my boyfriend and I. We were too tired to try to get him out and allowed Bosco to stay.

The problem is that Bosco brought in a lot of heat with him (he is that kind of dog) and after a few minutes, I started shivering from the change of temperature. I thought I could tough it out and that the shakes would go away, but then I started almost convulsing and had to tell my boyfriend something was wrong. I was having a panick attack, could barely breath and had to get out as fast as possible. I guess I suffered mild hypothermia mixed with exhaustion and lack of oxygen !

(I think I’m just not cut out for extreme winter sports. At least, not until my master is done)

Defeated, we abandonned our quinzee and headed for our car. We drove back to our apartment in downtown Ottawa and by 5:00, we were in our warm bed.

I’m alive. But I’m still trying to recover from it.

While starting my internship at the CBC in Quebec.

(It was my first day at work yesterday and I think it will be great ! The crew is fun and the show I work on is pretty cool. You can check it out by streaming it live)

There will be more coming !! Stay tuned

About those strikes...

So a majority of Carleton's teaching assistants did not support their Union's Bargaining Committee in last week's referendum. 

CUPE 4600, who's currently in the process of negotiating its collective agreement with the University's administration, asked the TAs they represent whether they were in support with their Bargaining Committee's strike mandate. 

51.6% voted AGAINST the strike mandate, thus further weakening their Union's stance in the negociations. 

This is a shameful example of apathy, selfishness and spinelessness that currently plague this country's university population. 

In the weeks that have led to the referendum, I've heard things such as ''like TAs don't make enough money already!'', or ''I don't want to picket 20 hours a week during the strike'', or ''look at York University. Do you really want to end up in a similar situation?''

Yes, at first glance, it does look like graduate TAs are being paid a fortune. In fact, they make $34 an hour. But the problem is that they are only allowed to work a maximum of 10 hours a week. Therefore, TAs working during their fall and winter terms will make a little less than $9,000 a year. And when you're a TA, you're also a registered student paying tuition fees that are constantly increasing! 

So. Taking all of this into consideration, my take-home pay this year from my TA work will have been of about $3,500. 

Unless you've got a scholarship that helps you ease the burden of tuition fees or you have a second job, you're basically earning well below this country's low-income cut-off.  

With the increase in tuition fees, this take-home pay further erodes. 

Fortunately, in the past CUPE 4600 has been able to negociate an important clause that has allowed TAs to keep their take-home pay from decreasing due to raising tuition. 

This clause enabled TAs to keep paying the 2005 tuitions fees, no matter how much they increased throughout the years. Employees would pay the current tuition fees but would get a refund at the end of each term. This refund would represent the difference between what they had paid in tuition fees and what they would've paid in 2005.

Fabulous!

But it's this same clause that Carleton University wants to take away from CUPE 4600's collective agreement. 

They want to replace it with something called a rolling index. New TAs would pay the normal tuitions fees during their first year of work. No rebate. Then, during their second year of work, if the tuition fees increased from the previous year, TAs would get that difference refunded. 

The 2005 benchmark disapears. The new benchmark is whatever year you start to work as a TA. 

We're in a situation where the employer wants to take away a right that has been won by our Union in the past. 

It's similar to the City of Ottawa that wants to take away from the OC Transpo drivers their right to make their own schedules. We all know the consequences of this move...

A union simply can't stand back and allow an employer to take away a concession they've made in the past! And union members should stay united, if only to show respect to our previous members that were able to win us this clause. 

Yes, it would suck to go on strike. No, I don't want to do 20 hours of picketing in order to get a strike pay that would represent half of my normal pay. I already sleep an average of 5 hours a night in order to get all my school work done.

But that's the whole point of unions. We take a hit for all the others. TAs are currently being used by the university as CHEAP labour. Cheap labour without which the University could not function. 

And if the University succeeds in taking this clause away from us, it could also harm TAs that work for other universities. 

For example, the branch of CUPE that represents TAs and lab assistants at the University of Ottawa has been wanting to negociate a similar tuition rebate clause. They were counting on using the example of Carleton University as ammunition when they will be negociating their collective agreement in 1010. 

But by voting no in last week's strike referendum, we showed our employer that we don't really care about our rights nor about the future of the TAs that will inherit this new collective agreement. We showed them that we accept our role as cheap labour, while weakening our colleagues's rights around the country.

It's funny, but I have the feeling that if such a situation happenned in Quebec, nobody would've thought twice before voting yes!

Dans quelle langue veux-tu ton Noël?

Alors que je roulais en voiture en mission de magasinage mercredi dernier (et oui, avec OC Transpo toujours en grève, je dois recourir à la bonne vieille voiture polluante), j’écoutais le poste de radio 104.7, le FM parlé de l’Outaouais. Il y avait une tribune téléphonique et la question du jour était la suivante :

Est-ce que la langue française est un critère pour vous quand vous faites votre magasinage de Noël?

En autres mots, est-ce que vous faites l’effort d’acheter des cadeaux en français, dans des boutiques ou l’on peut vous répondre dans votre langue maternelle?

J’ai été surprise par le nombre de personnes (surtout des Québécois) qui ont répondu ne pas considérer le français comme un critère important dans l’achat de leurs cadeaux. C’était le même discours qui revenait sans cesse : « Si je vais magasiner dans une boutique et qu’un vendeur parle seulement l’anglais, je ne vais pas perdre mon temps à essayer de m’exprimer en français. Je vais simplement lui parler en anglais parce qu’après tout, je ne suis pas handicapé. »

Je suis restée un peu troublée par cette réponse, d’abord parce que je me suis reconnue dans cette façon de faire. Étant une francophone bilingue vivant à Ottawa, j’ai tendance à rapidement abandonner la bataille et à passer à l’anglais aussitôt que je vois que mon interlocuteur est anglophone. Pis encore, il m’arrive de tout simplement aborder les gens en anglais en premier. Parfois, on détecte mon accent francophone et on me répond en français, ce qui me rapelle mon absurdité!

Ce qui est troublant, c’est qu’on ose s’affirmer en français, mais seulement quand ça ne dérange personne. Aussitôt qu’on rencontre un petit obstacle, que ce soit un jeu de société qu’on aimerait acheter mais qui est seulement offert en anglais ou bien un employé d’une boutique qui ne parle pas français, on s’excuse d’avoir osé espérer mieux et on rentre dans le rang. Pourquoi? Parce qu’on en a la capacité. Parce qu’on est un francophone qui vit au Canada alors après tout, on est bilingue.

Mais j’en ai assez de toujours devoir être la personne qui fait l’effort. Il y a quelque chose de hautement frustrant que d’être avec un groupe de francophones mais de devoir passer à l’anglais parce qu’il y a un anglophone dans la salle, ou de devoir suivre une formation en anglais parce qu’un seul employé ne parle pas français.

Je ne pense pas qu’il faille pour autant piquer une crise à chaque fois qu’on entre dans une boutique à Ottawa et qu’un vendeur ne nous adresse pas dans notre langue. Toutefois, si l’on a encore une once d’estime pour notre culture, notre histoire et notre avenir, on peut au moins exprimer notre fierté d’être francophone en abordant les gens en français et en exigeant que les produits qu’on achète soient, au strict minimum, bilingues.

Parce qu’après tout, c’est le marchand de produits unilingues anglais ou la boutique aux employés non-bilingues qui, en 2008, devrait être « handicapé », et non les gens qui osent s’exprimer dans leur langue maternelle. Et ce, pas seulement durant le temps des Fêtes!