This morning was a vegan topic one again. Guess it was because there was going to be a Vegan trivia game the night. As usual the first ones to wake up were Jim, me and Fran.
After the usual morning routine made of wood, office conversation and breakfast, I helped Jim with the cabin. Actually during breakfast we called Fran’s sister Anne. We wished her happy birthday in all of our languages and made personal wishes even if we did not know her.
During our building session I actually felt a little bit down because for the second day in a row I hurt Asher and made him cry. Jim was so nice and he told me “Only the living ones can go through this”. He tried to make me feel better by telling me that things can happen and actually they can happen only if we are alive. And being alive is a good thing.
Since I caught up I am trying to find my own style of writing. I am stuck in between what I would like to write (which is basically everything) and what I should write to keep it concise and interesting. It takes me too much to write down each day that I need to find a way to get faster so that I can enjoy living instead of just writing.
We fixed the cabin deck’s roof in an hour and then I went with Annika and Alyssa to clean cabin number 3. I got to bond a little bit with the new girl and learned that she is here with her friend for her university studies.
We had some bread and a soup for lunch. Actually Jim made a focaccia by mistake. I do not know why but they are making a lot of Italian food recently. We spent lot of time to wash the dish but I am getting better at this “camp style” dish washing.
I got a little break after lunch and went on a motor boat with Jim, Asher and Larry. We went to a hidden lake where Jim and Alyssa would skinny dip which means they would swim naked. I think it is a good thing to do to get comfortable with your own body and your partner. Jim even let Asher drive the boat for a little bit and talked about his plan to go on a three week canoe trip along Magnetawan river.
We stopped at a bridge hanging over the little river we were driving in. I had to go in the wild to get from the dock to the bridge because there was no path, but then I got up there to jump from a height of about five meters. I am scared of heights, so I tried to do that as fast as possible without hesitation. Jim took some pictures and filmed a video of me jumping. To make sure I could overcome my fear of heights I climbed up and did it again. Sometimes you have to do something about your own limitations.
We went back to the camp’s beach and we cleaned the beach for the massive turnover of people who would have come after 4pm. In fact, in Canada the week starts on Sunday so we had lots of new guests coming especially because we were starting the vegan week retreat.
I went with Jim and Laila to Hardware to buy the steel we need to finish the cabin, but the store closed at 3pm. Jim was shocked, but he was even more incredulous when Alyssa told him that the day after the stores would be close because of the long week holiday that Canadian people have at least once each month. That gave me a lot of free time before dinner, so I washed in the lake and it felt so refreshing! Asher was skinny dipping and the way he felt so natural made me want to grow up a kid as cool as he is. I spent the rest of the time riding around with Asher on the bikes. I taught him how to use a chronometer and we raced around the camper area. We went also to call the girls for dinner and it really is so fun to bike around here.
We had a whole wheat pizza with lots of vegetables as toppings. It was so fun because every time I went from the picnic table to the kitchen to grab another slice of pizza, the leftover slices would just multiply while getting also smaller. We did the dishes so fast and moved some picnic table to have the vegan trivia game.
The evening event started with an appetizer. I was really carving for the spring rolls, but I did not really like them. However, I really liked a crumble of coconut which looked like a cake. It was really good and I had a lot of that together with fruits.
We played the game and our team was mainly made of the workawayers and Fran. Our teamwork got better as the game went on and we got to know each other better with the exception of Laila who spent the evening talking to a famous youtuber. I do not know the name of the channel but the guy’s name is Isaac. He does videos about the ethics and moral of being vegan and he is apparently really knowledgeable on a multiple number of topics. Another important guest for this vegan week is Mic The Vegan whose name is Mike. The word pun he used for his youtube channel’s name is actually funny and original. He has more than a hundred thousand followers on his channel but it did not feel like he was conceited about himself. He was actually a super nice guy.
We did not score many points and came second to last, but we could bond with each other, especially on a question about Pithagora, who was the first known vegan. The Americans and Canadians all said he came after Christ, but c’mon… he is a Greek philosopher, how could he die in the 500 a.C.?
After the trivia I hoped to work on my journal so that I could go to bed, but we had a jam session at the activity building with many people. We played lots of songs and everyone had so much fun. Mike was on the cajon, Isaac on the bongos, Laila on the ukulele and me on the guitar and since everyone (except for me) was vegan, I like to call it a Vegan Jam Session, or as a word pun “Vegan Jam” which could refer to a mix of vegan flavors. Everyone sang and danced, but I am really glad that Mike said to keep something for the day after.
I wrote down what happened today and then got too scared to go back to my trailer because of Verena, so I asked her to teach me some German sentences and words to keep my mind off of the scary things she would make me think about. I learnt “Tja”, which I will use for everything like I am doing for “kein Ding”. I even learned “Shafa shafa hoisla boa” (which is actually written “Schaffe, Schaffe. Haeusle baue.” used in the southern part of Germany). Now I am educated. Not Isaac level, but I will be able to surprise German people from now on.
Godyl Go! 