While Chris was at home stacking apples.....
I was at work being peeked on by my 2 favorites ....
After work, Mary and I drove to Courtenay to stay at a new hotel so we were close to the Big House for the workshop in the morning. We had the most amazing dinner and then waterslides/hut tubing and in bed by 10.
Sweet bruise hey? Got that while jumping like a gazelle over the wooden auditorium chairs ... yeah, a little lower to the ground than I thought!
Mary and I on our way to the BIG HOUSE (which we always thought was a term for jail ... we wondered why nobody else would laugh like we would when we would say we are heading to the bighouse for a workshop.)
This was an amazing workshop. CLBC now has services that can extend to reserve, so this is part of educating us as employees with the Native history. It was quite an emotional morning ... the facilitator took us on a journey taking numbers of employees and making them 'children', then we needed parents, then aunties/uncles, then elders, and then on the outer circle hunters and gatherers.
Everyone took their 'roles'...we imagined how we would feel. The children felt safe, the parents felt supported, the hunters felt purposeful. And she spoke in a way that really made us feel that way. But then she put a red hat on and spoke to us as though she were the colonist, coming in, hired to assimilate them. At the end, the children were taken away, and we journeyed from there. It was very emotional and gave just a peak into the experience. I think it was a good workshop to enable more empathy. If anything, I don't want to be the one with the red hat coming into the Native bands land to 'help' support them. I am still processing this workshop 36 hours later.....so I won't write much more as I am tired and am having trouble articulating my thoughts ... but I felt pretty honoured to be allowed in that Big House.
Time for lunch at the Waverly.....
We listened to our new CEO for a few hours ... she seems fantastic. But when she was finished, Mark announces that its my birthday and Troys birthday (I didn't feel the need to correct him that he was a couple days early!!)...so he brought out 2 cakes!!! And they all sang Happy Birthday....it was pretty sweet. Nice send off.....
Many hugs and well wishes, a 3 hour ride home with Linda, and I crashed pretty hard when I got home.
Chris, Elliot and Isaac got home from Victoria around 8 .... they had a great time ... I love how happy these boys are these days ... it makes us just that much more excited about holidays...less work and more fun!!
