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Category: Academy Updates

Hippie-at-Heart!

team-2.jpgNever in a million years would I have thought that today, I would be going into high schools all across Canada, set up this massive sound board that controls all the sound for our show and learn how to live this glamorous life on the road. This is all so new to me, but it’s very easy to take myself out of my life in Victoria and travel on a bus, live out of different homes, churches and schools because I am a “hippie-at-heart” as my team would say.We do not know where our next meal will come from and that’s okay because every day is an adventure. One thing that troubles me is that I have limited options during mealtime because I am a vegetarian. If there is one dish for a meal and there is meat in it, I will take out my protein bar and use that as a meal replacement because I am Zoe Bigauskas. I have something to say about everything and I can pull a fact out of my brain at any given time, so the team just laughs and giggles because I often just “pull a Zoe”. It’s important to joke around and have fun on this four month long tour, the ten of us are together every single day and when the going gets tough, we have to work through every thing like a family. Talk about things that have been working and things that we have to improve on. To go into schools every day and show students what it’s like to be a responsible person, the importance of giving, and the power of hope, it needs to start with us.I never thought I would have such a huge impact on people’s lives in a positive way. The students we speak to are just people and I was one of them just last year, a student in high school trying to make a purpose out of my life. It’s interesting how a lot of the times I don’t share my story but people still come up to talk to me, open up their lives to me and I know that I am able to be a listening ear to those who seek help.I approach students every day and they often let me know that our presentation has truly impacted their lives. I realize that these students do want to do something different about the way they have been living, they want to make a change, and that’s what makes me get up every morning.Sometimes it is easy to lose focus of our goal, but just keeping in mind our purpose and our message, it makes me want to take out all the gear from the bus, set up my sound board, and get ready for another engaging show. I know that each presentation there is always a chance for us to reach at least one student in the crowd and that alone is what keeps me going everyday.Zoe, a School of Leadership student on the roadzoe.jpg

 

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: March 24th, 2011

No Big Deal

It’s 6AM and I roll off my latest air mattress in a dark basement. I couldn’t tell you what city I’m in. I wash my face and begin my day. A beautiful thing about life that I’ve noticed is that it seems no matter where you go in Canada, when provided with cereal by any billet, the delicious brand of Raisin Bran cereal is unquestionably there. After a delectable breakfast, the day begins. I pack all of my things back into my bag, back onto the bus and cuddle up in a seat for Sleeping Part II until I get to the school. Once arriving at the school, I bundle up for the loading in process. I’m trusted with small cases, trusses, and rolling cases…but I have faith that I could take on the big heavy sub one day! Once everything is loaded in, we each start our individual jobs in setting up. I have to figure out the power, which never seems to be as easy as just plugging it all in. Things are all set up and the students start loading in and that’s when the excitement sets in. Zoe and I usually have a small dance party at the back table.To be honest however, the best part of the day usually starts once the shows all over. We could have had a terrible show, the sound cut out or maybe the lights computer decided to just turn off for fun, but without fail, students will come and hang out with us after and tell us it was an awesome show. I get to meet so many amazing students, some who have these incredible stories and some who are just plain fun to hang out with! And the number of awesome people I meet in a day just grows and grows by the time I arrive at a billet’s. These people have no idea who I am, but I just show up at their front door with my life contained in a duffel bag and they welcome me with open arms, food and a shower. Every day I am amazed at how kind and giving these people are to us total strangers. Despite the early mornings and often exhaustingly long days, it’s the people that I’m meeting every single day (not to mention the people I share this stinky yellow bus with) that make this all worthwhile. No big deal but…my life is awesome!Alex, a School of Leadership Student on the road

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: March 2nd, 2011

Team One Checking In

Team One checking in. We have been in BC and loving it. The schools have been amazing and each of our billets have been great. One host family even took the whole team out whale watching in Ucluelet. (I must admit the team agreed they have never been more cold!). We went out in this little boat called the Zodiak. It was just big enough to fit the ten of us, and it was windy, but it was so worth it. We saw bald eagles, sea lions, went through the broken Islands, and then saw not one, but two whales. It was amazing! Thank you Al and Margie, that is one boat ride we will never forget.team-one-blog.jpgThe week before that we were in Bowser, after we exhausted all of our Mario Brothers puns, I received an e-mail. Not long ago there was a murder in Duncan: a teenage girl named Tyeesha. They were having a memorial for her and wanted us to come and Bondless to play a concert. You see Bondless was her favourite band and her mom wanted them to come and play. So after our show in Courtney that morning we drove to Duncan. There we met an awesome guy named Jeff.Jeff was putting this whole thing together. It was called the “Take Back the Night Walk”. We went to the center and set up our stage. It had been a long day but the SOL’s were happy to be there and happy to help. I’m not sure what time the walk started but the building we were in was the finish line. At about 8:30pm people began entering. It took almost 30 min for everyone to file in. There were over 3,000 people there. It was amazing to see all those people come together for one cause, and that we had the opportunity to be a part of it. At about 11:00pm the speakers were all done and the band started playing. It was truly a great way to end the night.It has been amazing here on the island and we can’t wait to see more of BC. Next stop – Vancouver!

Author: LiveDifferent

Date:

The Shack – Day Seven – ‘RAIN’

The alarm first went off at 5:44am, but I didn’t actually make it out of my sleeping bag until about 6:10am. Deryn and I tried to stay wrapped in our sleeping bags for as long as possible. I didn’t sleep so well. It was a cold night – slept with my toque, scarf, mitts and an extra sweater. Waking up was not so lovely, it was still cold outside.Last day of work in the shack today! Rock picking. Today we’re getting paid for what we pick so our goal is to reach at least 300 pesos; more if possible but we also want to finish asap so we get the rest of the day off. Once we got to the beach we all went to town on picking out black rocks. We had to move fast to reach our goal. Sadly it was overcast so no sunshine. Figures, the one day I remember to bring sunscreen. At first we had a slow but steady pace. As it got closer to lunch time it also began to get windier and therefore colder. It even began to rain a bit. So we worked even faster. By noon we had made 305 pesos – awesome! We all packed up and headed back to drop off the rocks. After we dumped the rocks we put them at the front door of the bunkhouse to make a patio type area with all the rocks that we had collected on our two days at the beach. At this point it was raining, windy and cold. Once we finished spreading out the rocks we all ran to our shack to fix any leaks. Our shack had one main leak on the girls side and apparently multiple places on the boys’ side. We spent the afternoon huddled in the shack trying to stay warm and dry. A break in rain near dinner allowed us to make a fire and boil some water for our soup. Let’s hope we make it through our last night as dry as possible. We are looking forward to moving back into the big house across the street tomorrow morning and are aware that sadly this is a luxury that others in our neighborhood do not have to look forward to. Makes us even more grateful for a water-proof house, hot showers, a dresser full of clean, dry clothes and a pantry full of food.
Written by Emily MacIntyre, School of Leadership student

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 28th, 2011

Shack Day Six – Why Do Such A Thing?

Josh and Emily carrying pile It was back to early mornings today – another day working in the field. The students slept through their alarm and ended up running down the street in the first light of the day to catch their ride at 5:45am. We went back to the same tomato field as earlier in the week but by this time the regular crew had almost finished taking the trellis’ apart in the whole the field. We continued to roll the plastic tubing into football shaped bundles like we did last time. It was nice to arrive and know how to do the job – it didn’t feel nearly as awkward as it had our first morning in the field. It was even better to hear the field boss say he was impressed by how quickly we had caught on to the job and how well we were doing. Once we were finished that last section, the field boss sent us over to a different Putting pile on sling section to clear away the dead tomato plants that had been pulled out and left drying in the middle of the rows. Half of us used sticks to roll the plants into large piles. The other half of us used a giant sling made of burlap bags to carry these piles down to the end of the row and throw it onto a giant pile to be burned. By the end of the work day the pile of dead tomato plants that stretched along the section was taller than us and it felt like we had walked a hundred miles up and down those rows. There are still many sections left that need to be cleared before the field will be ready for the next crop of tomatoes to be planted.I marvel at the amount of work that goes into the produce that I pick through at the grocery store to make sure they are not bruised and then complain if the prices are too high. I also marvel at Throwing onto big pile how hard the people I have met work to take care of their families and how generous they are with what they do have. I have been proud of the students for everything they have tried this week in an effort to get a better understanding of a life very different than what we are used to in Canada. Many Mexicans that we have met this week ask Santiago, our translator, why we would want to do such a thing? Why would Canadians live in a house made of cardboard, cook over a fire, give up their hot shower and work in the fields or go clamming? They do not understand why people would voluntarily do this and after some explanation they are appreciative of our efforts to understand where they are coming from. But they still leave shaking their heads. Little do they realize there is so much that we can and are learning from them.Written by Rose Friesen, School of Leadership Mexico Facilitator

Author: LiveDifferent

Date:

Day Four In The Shack – The Cold Ocean

Dear world,claiming1 Today our job was clamming. We had to be up and ready to go in time for low tide which is prime clammin’ time. So we awoke at 2am, which is when I often go to bed at home in Canada. It was fairly cold – so cold in fact that three of the clammers we were to work with got scared off and didn’t show up. So we ended up waiting for an hour and a half for the rest of the clamming crew to show up. I wasn’t complaining because it meant more sleep in the van. We finally got down to the beach around 5am with the boss man and his two remaining workers. We were told to get out into the cold and trade our pants and sweaters for shorts, shirts and barefeet. Once we were suited up with our clamming gear, which consisted of a clam net tied around the waist and a trident (pitch fork), we went out into the freezing cold ocean claiming2 water to search for some clams. After about half an hour you lose all feeling in your legs and the cold doesn’t bother you as much.Clammers are paid 35 pesos for every dozen clams they bring in so we figured that between the six of us, each pair would need to collect 40 clams to reach our goal of 300 pesos for the day. Emily and I had no problem reaching that goal and we all went in to call it a day as the tide was coming in and the increasingly growing waves were making it difficult to continue. However when we showed our chores around the house bounty to the boss we were shocked to discover that over half of everyones’ clams were not large enough to keep and had to be thrown back into the ocean. We did not come close to our goal in the end and didn’t have enough money to survive the rest of the day. So later in the afternoon we did some extra house and yard work to make up for the rest instead of going back out with the clamming crew for the afternoon low tide.I personally really enjoyed our clamming experience, though most of my other counterparts do not share my joy due to the cold. If I were a Mexican in need of a job I could see myself doing this for a source of income. Though us rookies didn’t bring in a sizeable haul, the two full-time clammers we worked with each brought in about five dozen clams in the three hours we were there and I am told that on a good day clammers can make between 500-800 pesos a day. And that sure beats working in the fields.Written by Josh McClelland, School of Leadership student

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 26th, 2011

Day Three – Refried Beans

Colin with a pail of rocks We got to sleep in today! Work only started at 7am so we had lots of time to get up and attempt to make refried beans. They turned out a little dry but hey, I was hungry enough at lunch to eat them anyways. We went to a beach in the view of a bunch of expensive houses where wealthy retirees stay. We began our job for the day: rock picking. We had to sort through rocks on the beach and pick out small smooth dark stones for landscaping purposes. A sack of these rocks would go for 10 pesos and at the end of of our mind-numbing, monotonous day we had about 125 pesos worth of rocks gathered. Only 125 pesos between 6 people for a whole day; so we aren’t very good at it. We were told that those that do this for a living can collect 10-20 bags of rocks per day. This does not mean that they would be paid for these everyday. For example right now there is no market for the rocks so no one if buying the bags of rocks they collect. Truck load of rocks They can work all day and get paid LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)ly nothing. We were told that rock-picking is considered by some locals to be a good job because it is not so hard on the body and you work for yourself. But I’m glad I don’t have to do that all day for the rest of my life.At the end of our day spent collecting and throwing rocks we gathered a bunch of drift wood along the beach to burn and went home to make supper. We enjoyed the generosity of neighbors who brought us a bag of donuts. We used our leftover beans to make a soup and even had crackers with it.  In the end we had too much soup to eat so we shared it with other neighbors – that’s what you do here, share with one another what you have to offer. After a short visit with a few of the Hero Holiday participants that dropped by we went to bed with the sun.Written by Colin McWhae, a School of Leadership student, and Rose Friesen, School of Leadership Mexico Facilitator

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 24th, 2011

The Shack – Day 2 “In the Tomato Fields”

What an eventful first morning. We had to get a fire started, cook our breakfast and pack our lunch. All in the complete Journaling around the fire dark! We ended up running down the street so we wouldn’t be late to meet our ride to work for 6am.Our job today was cleaning up the tomato fields, gathering the plastic that had been used to make the trellis’. Because we had to eat lunch when the other workers did, we didn’t eat until noon. I think I can say for all of us that we were ready to eat by 10am. Thank goodness for being in the tomato fields so we could munch on the few overripe tomatoes that had been left behind.We ended up working until 2:30. My hands were wrecked, my arms were sore and my legs felt like they were going to fall off. But this was only one long day for me, but to the workers it was just another day that blurred together with many other similar days.Workers in the field Field workers only get paid the equivalent of $10 a day. There’s a man there who has worked on the same ranch for years so he got a raise – only 10 pesos (less than one dollar). It’s crazy to think that in Canada people who do manual labour tend to get paid more but this isn’t the case here. When asked if we could imagine doing this job for a whole year we said no. Most of us said we might consider it for a summer job, but only if we were getting paid a lot more. On the other hand while people here do not enjoy the job, they are happy to simply have a job and be getting paid.We were lucky to get home early to buy groceries, collect firewood and make dinner before dark. There is not much to do in the evenings and we do not have enough wood to sit around a campfire to stay warm so it is early to bed for us after a long day of hard work in the sun.Written by Sarah, a School of Leadership Student, and Rose Friesen, School of Leadership Mexico Facilitator

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 23rd, 2011

Shack Day 1 – Five Pesos to Spare

Deryn and Josh digging a bano hole We moved into our shack today and started work right away. We did physical work around the yard.  We started around 9am, had lunch break at noon and the work day ended at 3:30pm. Apparently this is a short day of work! All I know is that I was ready to nap during our lunch break! While two people dug a hole for a new outhouse (bano), the rest of us re-fenced the yard. This consisted of ripping old plastic off the sticks used as fence poles and stapling on new plastic. The people doing the fence periodically rotated with those digging the bano hole. In the end the bano hole was at least ten feet deep. We carried the heavy bano structure over from the next yard and put it safely on top.  By the end of the day we had a new bathroom and a repaired fence.Our income for the day was 300 pesos; however by the time we paid our bills and bought groceries for dinner tonight and breakfast and lunch for tomorrow we only had five pesos to spare. It was the most stressful situation ever for me. Based on some requests from the rest of the group Emily and I were the ones doing the shopping today. By doing this I really got a sense of what life could be like for a struggling family (and not only here but anywhere). Standing in a grocery store trying to calculate in my head what the bill will be, how much money we had and worrying if we were getting enough to fill our evening around fire families stomachs. Trying to put a bit of money aside for a day off. And the worries of what if we didn’t have enough money, what would i put back and the embarrassment that goes hand in hand.Even as we sit here by the fire with barely any light left planning our meals and schedules for tomorrow, I cannot help  think  how many people in my neighborhood are thinking along the same lines. Only their worries are much stronger because at the end of this week they don’t get to ‘check out’ and go back to a big sturdy house and worry-free steady meals. We only have five pesos to spare today but when it comes down to it, we are going to be okay.Written by Deryn, a School of Leadership Student

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 22nd, 2011

The Shack Intro – “We’re All in This Together”

group and the shack  For 7 full days, I’ll be living in a shack that we, the six of us School of Leadership students, built out of cardboard, wood, and plastic scraps that we’ve salvaged from the streets of Zapata & Vicente Guerrero. Why you might ask? To experience some of the life challenges that a migrant worker in Baja Mexico might encounter.Each day, we’ll be working common labour jobs to make a daily combined wage of 300 pesos; the equivalent of three people working. This will be shared between the 6 of us to buy food, water, and supplies – including toilet paper, firewood & any other life bills that may come up like medical expenses. Just so you know, 300 Mexican Pesos = 26 American Dollars.stapling cardboard on roof Building our new home seemed like a near impossible task when we first began. Considering all we were given was a staple gun with staples, a few nails and a hammer. We had zero money and needed to build a stable, water-proof structure to keep us safe from whatever weather is coming our way. So we turned to the ditches of the highway; we scavenged for cardboard, wood, scraps, windshields, anything and everything to build our shack. Some generous businesses also donated some scraps of wood, twine and cardboard boxes. Once we filled our van with cardboard and such, we headed home. cardboard dumpster diving After we got everything out of the bus we started to strategize where we would build our new home. We tried to find the most level surface to build on, from here we decided where the shower, fire pit and water barrel would go. Idea’s were flying. We decided on a raised tent shape, basically a triangular shaped frame with about a 2ft base at both ends; similar to a basic house shape, only shorter. Once we had the frame of our shack built we started to lay and staple cardboard to the roof. We covered the roof with the plastic to make a water-proof roof for our lovely new home. For the plastic we used the rope that the lumber yard man gave us; it was quite handy. We did some problem solving and came up with different ways of holding down the plastic. Once the plastic was in place we made sure everything was secure.I think we may just survive in this thing, considering I’m looking out the window at the shack & it’s still intact despite a night that kept me awake with rainstorms & windgusts like you wouldn’t believe! (Or maybe I just stayed awake because I’m terrified for the next 7 days..and slightly eager to get started!) But all in all, it’s an experience I’m excited for. Here goes nothing – we’re all in this experiment together!
Written by Leah and Emily

Author: LiveDifferent

Date: February 21st, 2011