Green booth

My first job in Edmonton was a mystery to me. I knew I had to work with children, I also knew that they would be older than the ones I had worked with in Montreal, and that everything would be done at one of the local playgrounds. I even signed up to promote this project in local schools. I had my first meeting with Taylor. I was thrown into a gymnasium with a thousand children seated equally in classes and teachers with speaking names (we hope you will not break this order for us). I had no idea what to do. English totally froze for me. I divided the room into three parts: front, right and left. I started with the simplest game in the world – How are you? Each group was supposed to shout their (Good !!!) as loud as possible. A few rounds turned me into a child’s master. The next day I went to the school park with Melissa. The bell rang and 300 laughing faces burst out of the school. Melissa, young but experienced after last year, said only one sentence – we divide them into two groups. I just nodded, eyes bulging, and saw Melissa swimming away in the lake of baby heads. I had a dozen or so children around me, watching me curiously and asking the same question. What are we doing? What are we going to do? What will we do now? I looked at them all and shouted – you know what? !! We will have fun !!! And I ran towards the pitch. This shout and my run were enough to start an avalanche of childhood happiness. Within seconds, I had 200 of them around me playing one of the many versions of tag. This was also what my whole summer job was about. I was given a wooden, green booth as an office and I was supposed to have fun.

You the serious work began with 4 days of training. Finally, I found out where I will spend my summer weeks. I was given one of the largest and most frequented parks in the city. The scope of my duties slightly overwhelmed me. The priority was to animate games with local children, I played half of the training. My understanding of the rules of games and activities in English overwhelmed me. I improvised. About 100 people participated in the training and this was the first time I had to deal with such a large group of exclusively English-speaking Canadians. In addition, I learned how to safely clean up a poop in a water park, what to do when I find a dead dog or even a dead person in the park. I was even told where to call if I found an old couch in my park. On other days, we were grilled with communication with the local community, discrimination, cooperation with volunteers and the municipal feeding program. We met with social workers who explained to us what indicators should be followed in identifying malnourished or generally neglected children. Everything was supplemented with the rules of dressing for work, confirmation of having a first aid course and a certificate of no criminal record. After the training, I also realized that I was just starting a job in over 30 years of social program in Edmonton, which is also one of the most recognizable.

The first two weeks were difficult. Although I had support in all formal matters from my park partner, it was my responsibility to organize all the fun. The weather was fine this summer. In the end, we built a permanent group of our 20 local kids together. There were also days when we had 30 or even 40 of them. Our permanent twenty came from not very wealthy families. It is also true that almost all of them came from immigrant families and did not speak their parents’ language. They were basically the typical Canadian generation. These kids were, in a way, a model of how Canada’s system of assimilation to local values ​​and conditions works. These children came as toddlers from all over the world: Europe, Asia, Africa and they were all Canadians and Canadians. Besides, I was from Poland in this park and my partner was of Indian origin. We all worked according to standards and rules that we understood.

As everywhere, not everything always works as it should work. Edmonton, however, is a different place than Montreal. There are different traditions and different attitudes to many things. It is a city that has actually grown relatively recently. There are quite not very old people here who remember the times when you got your license to drive in Edmonton basically with the car. Interestingly, there are many places in Canada where this still is the case. These are driving licenses that are valid in one region. I have a friend in Canada who lives in such a place and has this driving license. I would also like to add that he flies to the doctor on an insurance-paid plane. The flight takes 1.5 hours!

Coming back to what I learned about Edmonton in my work and what I didn’t like was the attitude towards homeless people. Here it is very rare for anyone to understand that the homeless are part of any large group of people. In Edmonton, homeless people “clean up” places where it is considered unlawful to stay. Many times I have been told by people representing local organizations and groups that when I see a homeless person in the park, I should call the police, who are tasked with escorting them to the right place. Fortunately, our training was not so clear-cut in this matter. By standards, we were only supposed to call the police when we felt threatened. And here I realized that the sense of danger in Edmonton is interpreted differently than in Montreal. This city probably has not yet understood that it is a large city and that because of this, unusual but not necessarily dangerous things happen here. Unfortunately, if discrimination and prejudice creep into this thinking, it all gets out of hand. Unfortunately, such a situation happened in my park once. It was a day when I had three associates from other departments. What is more, they were in my park with games and activities derived from the aboriginal tradition. A group that has been culturally and ethnically devastated by Canada’s Indian resident schools, 60% Catholic. Theoretically, they were people with greater sensitivity. Briefly, the two students who worked with me that day concluded that a group of black men in the park was working together and watching our work with the children. They travel by van around the park. From my perspective, this story was so imaginary that at first I didn’t understand what it was about. My and their coordinator were called, and unfortunately my version of these events and a clear indication that we may have a problem with the interpretation of cultural differences did not work. I saw rush for sensation and total ignorance. Ignorance for my experience in this field as well, and I was actually thrown in an immigrant sack (a guy from Poland, what could he know). The situation grew to such an extent that the police were called and I felt that there was a lot to be done in this city. In the end, it turned out that the people in the van were installing the local cable TV or the Internet. The rest of the people in the park who luckily the police did not talk to were accidental. It took me a few days to rebuild my motivation to work. The kids took care of everything. They made me enthusiastic about what I should do. Our backyard diversity is still one of the elements of the future of this country.

All the fun with children that I refreshed and learned reminded me of my childhood and how much a child there is in me, and how good it is that I have the opportunity to do so return everything.

Tomorrow I am starting cooperation with an NGO whose task is to stop oppression against people with intellectual disabilities in Edmonton. The topic is close to me and I am very curious how it is here locally.

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