I am who I am

I've been thinking a lot about how to infuse the lessons I learned, the experiences I had, the world I saw in Zambia into my life in Canada. Over the past few months, I feel as though I may have unconsciously started to stash my memories of Zambia and the person that I became away in a box in my heart. I didn't mean for that to happen. It was a slow process, one day would go by where I didn't speak of Zambia and then two. It also seemed easier for those around me. They didn't have to get used to a new person, one who perhaps wasn't as naive about the workings of the world. Someone who perhaps wasn't as familiar. It wasn't their fault. How were they supposed to connect with stories of women having to collect water from a hand pump or people not being able to eat 3 meals a day? Or what it's like to have malaria or to bathe with cold water every day or to live in a house where people have to share beds? These were things that became part of my lifestyle. I got used to those circumstances and they definitely affected me. Your environment really does have the power to shape you.

And so there I was. Feeling as though I'd suppressed my Zambia. Feeling as though I'd been moulded to conform to what people expected of me. But the truth will always come through. And I couldn't ignore it any longer. Yesterday, I decided that it was my 'Zambia' day. I went for a 3 hour bike ride. No computer, no phone, just rural NB. I stopped for lunch and decided to write down any memory I could think of from my past 3 years. I filled two pages in 20mins. It was freeing to accept that I'm not the same person I was before I left. I've now resolved that Zambia will ooze from my pores. I will be proud of who I've become and I won't believe that Zambia was something I needed to 'get out of my system' - it's something that invaded my system and will be a part of my life forever.

For anyone else out there who's gone through a life changing experience, the only advice I can offer is this: don't try to go back. Whatever you've experienced has changed you. Move forward from here.
Take care.

Self-sufficient NB - still a long way to go

Our New Brunswick government, under Shawn Graham, has created a plan designed to lift our province away from its dependency on Ottawa and into a new era of self-sufficiency by 2026. The plan is called 'Our action plan to be self-sufficient in NB' and can be found at http://www.gnb.ca/2026/osspdf/report-e.pdf. The document is filled with trendy buzz words like 'transformative change', 'strategic investment', and 'robust, innovative economy' - terms that could truly inspire any reader to feel as though Mr. Graham was actually serious about creating growth - almost.
The plan left me with some fundamental unanswered questions. First of all, what, exactly, does 'self-sufficient' mean? One would assume that the NB government would establish measurable indicators to define self-sufficient. Then they'd know if they ever achieved it. By creating a detailed framework with clear steps toward attaining their goal, the government would be able to better understand their impact and adjust their actions accordingly. That is, if they were honestly interested in having impact. This isn't necessarily the case. By not defining 'self-sufficient', the Graham governement has made it easier to justify their actions under the plan, since it's end goal is so ambiguous.
This trend of ambiguity continues throughout the entire document. For instance, under the focus of 'Transforming our economy', the pledge to 'Establish NB as the region's energy hub...' tells me nothing. How much money does this require? What markets are we pursuing? How many more people will we need for this? Does 'energy hub' mean that we produce 50% of the region's electricity, or 85%?
Without a quantitative, explicit plan outlining the path toward self-sufficiency in NB - one that allows the public to hold the provincial government accountable for their decisions - we will never get one step closer to weaning ourselves from Ottawa.