I would like to give you an idea of what life was like for me in Canada, you will then be able to see how drastically my life has changed since I have moved to Taiwan.
- In Canada I lived in a small town called Goodfare, the population is around 200 people. In such a small town I was lucky enough to have three bestfriends; actually they were more like sisters, we spent so much time with eachother that their families felt like my family. Our families would always come together and have small parties for no reason. So to say the least we are a close knit community!
- Starting from the top right hand corner is Sarada and to her left is Kari, below Kari is myself and beside me is Lenka.
Sarada's family owns a buisness called Next Generation Reforastation. What this buisness does is replants trees after they have all been chopped down. Her families buisness attracts employees from all over the world, some come all the way from Africa! Although planting trees seems like it would be easy work, it's far from that. Imagine your self carrying a 40 pound bag of trees all day, constantly bending over and digging, working in all kinds of weather, and the misquitoes insecently bitting at you all day. Actually when I describe it like that some of you might be wondering why anyone would want to go treeplanting. Well if your a good treeplanter you can make enough money to not have to work all winter, and the food out at camp is better than food in the restaurants, and just to meet new people is interesting.
Kari's family has an unusual buisness as well. Her family owns a farm called First Nature Farms. What makes their farm interesting is that everything grown there is organic; this means that there are no pesticides used, the animals graze on green grass, and the cattle are not in a closed building which are called feedlots. Long story short, Kari's family works incredibley hard to have healthier animals which in turn keeps us healthier.
There are two reasons why I would like to show you this; first I would like to describe to you the amount of snow that some people in Canada experience. I am actually sitting on top of a snow bank, as you can see the height of the snow is taller than myself! Second reason I would like to show this to you is to describe how little population we have compared to Taiwan. This picture is taken in the middle of nowhere. There are no roads, barely even a trail. The few ways to get here is to drive what we call a ski-doo or you would have to walk; which I don't incourage you to do unless you bring a pair of snowshoes.
-There are many places in Canada that are like this; we just don't have a big enough population to expand. We might not have some of the conveniences that a big population may have but, thats what I think is so great about Canada the wide open space!
Here is a picture of my family. This picture was taken at my sisters college graduation. Starting at the left is my sister, she is now 21 years old and works on the surgical floor of the Grande Prairie City Hospital. Grande Prairie is an hour away from Goodfare so in order for her to make a short commute she and her friend share an apartment. One of the many things I have noticed about Taiwanese culture is that most University students live with their parents untill they are in their mid 20s. In Canada, and I am pretty sure the U.S. too, young people move out when they finish High School or when they turn 18. Our 18th birthday is a huge deal, we are declared young adults. We can finally make our own decisions. In my brothers case he moved out when he was 17. He had finished high school and was moving on to college where he was learning to be an electrical engineer. He has now finished with his last year at college and has been working for a year. My father has several buisnesses such as log building, raising elk, and historical restoration. My mother is a teacher in an elementary school, and I have ruled out being a teacher myself because of how much work and overtime she puts in.
No comments:
Post a Comment