Working on Aboriginal children’s rights has been incredible. I have learned some amazing things – for example, almost everything about Iroquois child care practice before colonization – and will work on sharing them when I am not working under a terrifying deadline (ie. after August 5th).
However, in addition to learning amazingly good/inspirational/eye-opening things, I have also reached new levels of anger and bitterness towards colonialism and Western bureaucracy. After a healthy dose of pillow-screaming following “an assessment of the implementation of the audit's recommendations that offers further recommendations as to how better implement the previous recommendations not being fully implemented,” I indulged my inner cynic on Google and found the following quote:
1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.
Kurt Vonnegut, thank you for articulating what my Half-Full-Eternal-Optimist-Yes-We-Can Self could not.
Back to cold coffee and deep breathing. 7.5 hours to the deadline.
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You just need the cold, slithery hand of fate to pass you a couple of crisps under the table.
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