Dispatch from Kuwait

Dispatch

It has been a busy week and now we are into week five in this desert country. I discovered that we really don’t need a hot water heater at this time of year, since the water for each building is stored in fiberglass tanks on the roof, it basks in the noon day sun and the evening heat, until turning on the cold tap will produce an infinite supply of very hot water.

Our apartments are the equivalent, maybe a little better, to a university dorm situation. Unfortunately, the company that owns the school did not prepare the apts for our coming. After many complaints from many teachers they began to systematically address all of the issues. Since this place is constantly covered with dust everything is coated inside and outside of buildings. Floors cupboards everything needed cleaning. Curtains and windows are dirty. We got rid of our curtains and had new ones made. Our toilets did not flush; we had cockroaches to contend with etc. Eventually, all of this has been taken care of and we, as a group of teachers, are more content.

The apartment is definitely humble, but Cheryl has found creative ways to make it look attractive, comfortable and colourful. We share a large lobby between the two apartments on our floor where we placed the couches, chairs and tables that we replaced from the apartment. We now have a common sitting area where we can visit and have a sense of more space. As the temperature gets down to the more comfortable mid 30 range in the evenings we can leave the apt door open and not feel quite so claustrophobic.

I started private tutoring for two young girls who attend the American School of Kuwait. One is studying American History and the other world history. This family is an extremely rich one. The father is an investment banker and they own a home in Beverly Hills, where they spend their summers. I was brought to the house by taxi, although they offered me one of their drivers. I was greeted at the door by a Filipino maid and taken up a large curving stair case through a maze of hallways to a comfortable study. Another servant brought me a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice which I was allowed to drink despite the fact it was Ramadan, very progressive and hospitable. My student Sara and here father then greeted me and we talked about my tutoring. I get $60/hour, transportation and orange juice. I mentioned that as a new driver and new to the country I was having trouble navigating. He gave me a GPS for my car and calibrated it for Kuwait. A few more clients like this one and I will never again suffer the scourges of scurvy.

Their backyard was large by Kuwaiti standards because most mansions are build side by side and usually in family groups. This family had four houses (think 10 000 square feet each) to house the extended family. In the back yard was a large swimming pool. It was covered with sod as the government said the area was not zoned for a pool. The sod is a façade (pun intended) which can be removed to use the pool beneath, very creative.

This week we have had two dinner invitations and have met some very interesting people. Cheryl has made these contacts through the British Women’s Society and the Canadian equivalent. On Thursday night (which is the end of the week) we went to the Palm’s Palace. You know the one on Beirut Street. There we enjoyed the Iftar Buffet after the breaking of the fast. The host Robert is the CEO for a new Kuwaiti airline soon to open. The Kuwaitis supply the cash and the westerners supply the know how to make absolutely everything work here. On Friday we went to a luxury apartment where our host James ordered in Indian food. It was delivered, served and clean up all provided by the restaurant. Before eating we went swimming and enjoyed the hot tub. Our apartment is much different. James is starting up a chain of 15 home depot type stores in the Middle East. He lives in England and commutes to see his family. Fascinating people.

Last night, (Saturday night the end of the week end) we drove to the Marina Mall where there are several cafes and restaurants over looking the marina and the Gulf. It was almost “cool” enough to eat outside. We ate inside. Life here revolves around restaurants, social contacts and malls. It is what we make it and so far we are doing well.

Marty

From My Little Corner of the World

From My Little Corner of the World

As far as schools go mine would be a good school by Canadian standards in that they have some very good teachers (moi) resources and a great ratio of teachers to students. Most Canadian students would not ever get this level of attention. Mind you this is a private school for Kuwaiti kids, but they are referred by the Ministry of Education, and although there is no such thing as a poor Kuwaiti, the government does cover all costs. If students do not attend regularly the family is actually given a $200 fine (50 kd). However, with wasta (connections) I would say very few fines ever get paid in this country.

The laws are rigidly enforced for non-white expats. Pictures are regularly run in the paper showing Pakistani smugglers, Filipino prostitutes and Bangladeshi drug dealers. Kuwaitis and white westerners generally are squeaky clean. The pictures of these criminal always show them tied at the wrists and posing in front of their illegal drugs, weapons etc. Parliament is voting soon as to whether or not the death penalty will be revoked. This country per capita is almost as bad as other regressive cultures such as Texas.

Often the police have random check stops, not looking for alcohol, just checking papers. White westerners are passed through. Duanne, our neighbour, has been stopped twice. We share a car and he simply waves my international license and he gets sent through the check point. It is comical watching a police car weave its way through traffic. The siren may be blaring but with certainty drivers will not ever get out of the way. I have seen cars cut off police cars. Police have to get on their bull horn and start yelling at the drivers to get out of the way. It’s all in Arabic, but I think there is an international word for asshole. In a parallel thought I never want to be in a Kuwaiti ambulance with or without a siren blaring.

There are good international clinics that will run every conceivable test, medicate and treat to a high standard. We know where these places are because the public hospitals, generally for non whites, are deplorable and people (patients) I have seen get treated with contempt. A teacher at school was at one of the international clinics and was amazed. She is from London, Ont and knows the Ontario system. It is a multi-tired system here and if that is the way Canada is going to go than we who are affluent will be well taken care of. In Kuwait the tiers are by social class based on birth, wealth and skin colour. I am humbled now to live as a white privileged westerner in a coloured neighbourhood of Pakistani, Egyptian and Bangladeshi.

We understand that Mr. Harper got his second minority government. This made the news here! Most Kuwaitis are of the mind that it is high time that Dion step down and give the monarchy more power. Cheryl has been in the Kuwaiti Times twice now with name and picture for her work with the Canadians in Kuwait group. She is now tied with Harper for appearances.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration and dinner at the Safir International Hotel in downtown Kuwait city with about 70 Canadians in attendance…say eh 70 times. Yes, there was turkey and cranberry sauce. The new ambassador introduced himself. He is from Edmonton. Likely the oil connection got him the job here. Cheryl has already been informing his wife where to shop, get her hair cut etc. Can you say “net working?”


Back to my school as this occupies a large part of my life here. There are about 150 students from grade K to 12. Classes are small and the kids really get lots of attention. Discipline is not a big issue. My biggest issues, in which I had to write up discipline reports, concerned food fights and swearing. In Canada I would be concerned with drugs, alcohol, many fights, absenteeism, defiance…plus I would have been told to F-off on a regular basis. At St Mary’s I avoided the halls because I didn’t always feel safe. I’m not sure what the students felt. Here it is quiet. Kids here have different issues because they live in a socialized -capitalistic state. For Kuwaitis everything is provided. They don’t have to do real work, the government provides mortgages and forgives loans, and the work week is about 15- 20 hours for a Kuwaiti. I have two members of the Sabah royal family in my classes. I don’t think they really worry about jobs after graduation.

Kuwaitis don’t have to worry about the normal financial constraints. For students they have their own drivers and sometimes tutors to do their work for them. They are a nocturnal culture, perhaps because of the heat, and kids are always tired. Although my kids are all special ed they do not expect to work or push themselves mentally or physically. I tried to start a senior squash club but there is an aversion to physical activity. The school does have soccer and a volleyball team, but not all schools do. Obesity and diabetes is a problem here. The students here are born into a system that renders them helpless. They expect, because of wealth, status, wasta, and having domestics, to have everything done for them. I think in many ways the oil money has created a useless society that depends on westerners to do everything for them. If we all left tomorrow there would be a collective call over the empty desert landscape of, “Wha Happened?”

Kids treat their nannies and drivers like shit. I have seen dear sweet little kids turn into demonic little assholes. We have a school policy as to how they can address and treat their domestics. Sadly, there are many nannies in the hospitals with broken bones and not because they are a clumsy people. Their suicide rate is also very high and some of those I would guess are not suicides. This country has a harsh interior.

I had an interview with staff from the Ministry of Education for Private Schools last week. Generally, Canadian teachers are not questioned or given any problem.. I think I am more qualified than most of them. Some teachers have been grilled. One examiner has a daughter in McMaster and we talked about Canada and my travel plans. I told them how much I like their country and my school and wished them a good evening. I have now been officially recognized and accepted into my profession.

Oddly, the thing I do not like about my school is that due to perhaps the physical layout of the school, scheduling or the alignment of the planets… I work in isolation. I rarely see another teacher for most of the day. Often I would go to the staff room just looking for someone to chat with only to find a “maid” mopping the floor. Going out of the class into the un-air conditioned hallways is onerous and it makes people tend to stick to their classrooms. I have connected with two guys who play squash here after school, but day to day is very quiet and boring. There is a quiet courtyard with green plants that are green and very green…sorry I miss plants, especially all green ones large and small. I often think about the cliché, “The grass is greener on the other side of the dune…”

From my little corner of the world…Marty

October 16,2008

Tsunami (poem)

Tsunami

I have a picture of my son
taken on Christmas Eve
(cherished and very tattered now).
He is standing knee deep
in the surf

at

Phuket

Flush with joy and from
the beer he holds in mock toast
to the camera.
A small Canadian flag, on a white stick,
(why I still remember the fine details
I don’t know) waves toy-like
from his other hand
as the sun slowly sets over paradise.

***
Below mighty tectonic forces
flex their mantled muscles
as a massive crustal plate
drops 20 metres

displacing

A billion tons of seawater…

A little boy walks a sandy beach
idles,
he picks up an oddity.
Is it shell or beach glass?
Jet-lagged listless sunbathers
watch with mild curiosity
As the surf rapidly recedes below
low tide mark.

Missing persons,
frantic phone calls,
no answers,
too much
Silence.
A sick fear of not knowing.
Tears in a Father’s eyes

Then…

An e-mail

“Hey Dad caught a flight out to Laos…
I didn’t even read the rest.

mr

Religious Right on Fox

Religious Right on Fox

The Barbarian hordes lie without.
They build a wall to keep them out.
A righteous war with God on side,
the rising gap of rich and poor,
they sharpen spears and close their gates.
The Trojan Horse lies in wait.

Clothed in flag, a patriot soul
goes to cheer the New York side.
The Babel Towers topple over
they speak in tongues,
“All Hail the Chief.”
Who deflects the damage
and condemns gay marriage.

America the brave lives in hate,
burns the oil, it just can’t wait.
Religious right on Fox,
tells the world the holy truth,
“God Bless America with
Pictures at 11 in technocolour."

Why I Hate Rogers

Why I Hate Rogers

I really do not like large corporations. I especially do not like Rogers. Considering how many large corporations there are that really speaks volumes to my hatred level. I could have picked Wal-Mart, which I merely detest, for its abuse of its part time work force and union busting tactics. At one Quebec location Wal-Mart chose to close an entire store rather than allow a union to make inroads involving labour inequities, but I still picked Rogers.

Exxon qualifies for my contempt for the environmental mess it caused in the high Arctic, Enron for its greed and corruption, BRE-X for its blatant lies about non-existent gold reserves in Indonesia, IKEA because so much assembly is required, (I also hate their allen wrenches) Shell, Mobile, BP, ESSO, or any other multinational petroleum company for excessive profiteering over long weekends and enabling global warming, but I chose Rogers.

Rogers is a communications company with a near complete inability to effectively communicate with its customers. In fact I don’t even think Rogers likes most of its customers. Yesterday, it was about the middle of the month, about 2 o’clock, I was paying my Rogers through the convenience of my Bell land line. My itemized bill indicated that, for my bundle package, including my cell phones, high speed internet service and my basic cable package, I owed a grand total of $165.47. However, the customer service individual I talked to, who may or may not have been in Bangalore, India, informed me that my bill was 358.17. The pencil I was holding in my left hand snapped and flew across the room nearly putting out my wife’s eye. She doesn’t like Rogers either.

Biting my tongue, which drew blood, I asked as politely as possible why my bill showed one amount and yet I was now being told an amount that was double. “Well sir the difference is what you will owe on June 15th. Quickly I checked my calendar and noted that June 15th was an entire month away and I was therefore being billed for the month of communication services that I had not yet received or used. Quietly, and calmly I paid the lesser of the two amounts all the time thinking how much I hate Rogers.

My Rogers land line didn’t work and I had to have it disconnected because the technician had hooked it up next to my micro wave. Every time I zapped my coffee I simultaneously disconnected my wife as she talked long distance to her mother in Victoria. Now my mother-in-law does not like Rogers either.

In order to discontinue my Rogers land line service I had to return a modem to one of the convenient Rogers stores on the other side of the city. When I located such a store I was told that they couldn’t make the return because their system was down. They provide the service and their system was down, that did not instill a high level of confidence. I hate Rogers.

The next day I was able to return the modem only to receive a letter from Rogers a week later stating that I hadn’t returned the modem, implying that I had stolen it and perhaps sold it on e-bay. They further informed me that since I seemed to be of such vile and low moral character I owed them $340 for the stolen modem.

On my third trip to the Rogers store I showed one of the clerks my accusatory letter and explained that I had in fact returned their merchandise and would not be paying for the modem that they lost. A quick 35 minute search of their records (they were not computerized) showed that I had in fact returned the modem. The clerk smiled and reassured me by saying that’s okay this happens to about 1 in one hundred customers. Imagine a corporation with a form letter suggesting that their customers are petty thieves.


I hate Rogers because most of the messages I get on my Rogers answering service are from Rogers complaining about my bill, which at the time of their harassing message may not be due for another month. If Rogers was a person, then judging by the frequency of their messages to me it could appear to an outsider that I am having an affair with someone named Roger.

I hate Rogers because of the inane robotic voices they use on their answering menus. “Press 5 for tech assistance from India.” I usually lose track after the sixth or seventh option. I have always hoped, but never had the patience to reach the last numerical menu choice: sentient carbon based life form.

The plot thickens…

Since my diligent, intelligent daughter, Meghan, is also a university student and is working two jobs as a nanny and a waitress, as well as volunteering in a day care, her mother and I have agreed to, amoung many other things, support her by paying her Rogers wireless bill. It is much like the federal/provincial cost sharing programs. In this situation I play the part of Ottawa and Meghan is Newfoundland or maybe Ontario.

Last month her bill was about $150; her itemized account ran into 7 pages using a 5 point font. It indicated that over a thirty day billing period she had been on the phone, not counting texting, for a total of 24 hours. Quick math, twenty-four hours, (whether you use metric or not), is still one day. The Earth will rotate once completely on it axis from west to east and Meghan would not have hung up the phone.

Meghan’s talking prowess translates to one minute out of every thirty on her Blackberry. This may not sound like anything too staggering until you factor into the thirty minutes, time for such miscellaneous activities as sleeping, eating (can be done with a cell phone) studying (usually done with a cell phone), working, entertainment, work outs and uninterrupted free thought on any topic with face to face conversations with other like minded sentient carbon based life forms.

I don’t wish to sound punitive because I have seen Meghan without a cell phone in her hand. Once. At that time she had a very vacant look on her face, her hands were trembling and she was near tears. Talking on a cell phone is much like any other cult activity. I understand cults because a drive a Subaru. There is nothing wrong with Meghan that a month of intensive deprogramming can’t fix.

I can forgive Rogers their inability to communicate, their excessively long waits for tech support, their numerous random inefficiencies, the fact that they own the Blue Jays, and have ruined Maclean’s Magazine, their unethical billing practices and their constant harassing voice messages.

All I ask is that they give me my daughter back.

I hate Rogers.


Marty Rempel

From “Monkey Mind”

After Glow

To say that my dad was quirky would be an understatement. He was also a pyromaniac. To his credit and to my knowledge, he never burnt down any sheds, barns or public buildings.

My dad had the habit of collecting the family dry and flammable garbage in the basement. He stacked boxes full of our waste paper and cardboard, (all very flammable), along one entire wall. We all knew that if the house ever caught fire we were sitting on a tinder box and we were all doomed.

I think my dad, without knowing it, was ahead of his times. He was the forerunner of sorting garbage for recycling; only no one had heard of that concept yet, and we never actually recycled a thing. When we had a cereal box, newspapers wrappings, cardboard box, grocery bag (they were made from course brown paper) we were trained to simply throw them down the basement steps for later stacking against the wall.

The “wall” also became a great place for target practice with my BB gun until “someone put an eye out.” I attached targets to some of the paper filled boxes along the wall and use them for my marksmanship practice.

That practice turned out to be short lived when to my dismay I soon discovered that at such a short range BB’s have the ability to travel through the target, the box, all the paper in the box, hit the cement wall on the other side, then ricochet madly back in the shooters general direction. Now I would remember if I, or anyone else actually put out an eye, but I did get a BB between the eyes. I took that as an omen and used the gun outside on small woodland creatures.

The point of the exercise after all was not to shoot at the boxes, but to burn them. As a family unit we had to accumulate a critical mass of fibrous product for a pyrotechnical display at the end of the month, even better, sometimes at the end of several months. This had become a popular ritual for the kids in our neighbourhood and I was frequently asked by my friends, “Is it time yet?”

At the end of the month the Rempel kids their co-conspirators and random enablers eagerly joined together to make a giant pyre at the end of the driveway. I’m certain that any passing Hindu would take serious pause and deep reflection as to our intentions. We weren’t multicultural back then and wouldn’t have cared anyway. We wanted to burn stuff!

I think my dad was of the opinion and lived by the motto,” if you burn it, they will come” because we always had a crowd of exuberant kids and disgusted adults. These were the type of disgruntled adults who often appeared in early horror movies carrying pitch forks attempting to run the monster out of the village and ironically quite eager to burn down the castle in the process. It was a rough neighbourhood.

Our driveway and property, by the way, were not situated on some isolated country acreage. Our short drive led on to a very busy street and was on a bus route. None of this seemed to faze my father as we continued to heap the cardboard boxes immediately under the hydro lines that ran about 20 feet above the driveway.

Next to Christmas, as far as festive occasion goes, this was even better than Easter. It was more of a pagan ritual probably stemming from pre-Christian times. As kids we had also played a game in which we dressed up as “savages” from the equatorial rain forest, or more precisely we envisioned ourselves as some sort of Greco/Roman/Amazonian hybrid.

We made spears and shields from garbage can lids and took our sisters and other girls in the neighbourhood as hostages for sacrifice to the Gods of the orchards. We lived in the Niagara Fruit Belt and felt human sacrifice was a prerequisite to a good harvest. We were a more suburban version of the children of the corn. We always thought the fire ritual would be a perfect setting to sacrifice a young virgin, but to our collective disappointment my father was quite strict on this point.

However, I believe a few cats went missing during the burning, but I think this was just a vicious rumour started by some of the local missionaries. To my knowledge no animal or virgin, was ever harmed in the making or burning of our pyres.

For some unexplained reason, as a child, I never understood why my mother never joined in on the fire ritual. She chose to look out; quite nervously it seemed, from the living room window. With the reflection of the flames on the window my mom at times looked quite surreal. I could see her hands go to her face as the flames leaped and tickled the hydro wires above the driveway. I never really got the connection between those wires and the necessities of life, such as watching Saturday morning cartoons and Captain Kangaroo.

After doing some major yard work involving cutting down some willow trees and pruning some of our plum trees we had a veritable arsenal of fuel for the “Rambo” of all fires. I sensed great anticipation in the neighbourhood as the combustibles began to mount in the vacant lot next to our house. Even the local virgins appeared to grow restless as the night of the great and inevitable fire approached. The evening had a genuine Lord of the Flies feel to it, and the momentum was mounting.

Off course it was all anticlimactic because no sooner did the flames reach the requisite 20 foot mark and the neighbours house seemed threatened, as was our own; the fire department showed up, dosed the flames, spoiled the fun and gave my dad a very stern warning and I suffered the angst of another missed opportunity at sacrificing a virgin, little realizing what a virgin was, or that I was one.

As an adult I have since returned to my childhood neighbourhood. If I look very carefully and get down on my hands and knees I can still make out the black ash remains of fires long spent and when I close my eyes I can clearly detect the acrid smell of smoke in the air.

Albino Python

Revel to the rare and exotic sound of spoken English,

turban,

fedora,

capri

burka,

Avoid eye contact, don't cross the yellow line,

stay in the DWA.

Descending stairs to the north bound trains

an array of Rochart ink blots done in gum,

a desperate need for a high pressure hose,

a rush of warm stagnant air,

the train is approaching,

squeeze in, the rush for seats,

darkness to light and back again,

the metaphor of urban life.

A view of shoes and a need to wash my hands,

psychotic episode or just a cell phone?

Print ad for Pardon Services,

“Don't let your past limit your future.”

What demographics am I riding with?

Stale air.

Snake through the tunnels my back to the

forward motion, disorientation sets in.

I move a water bottle to sit down.

Moments later,

“You moved my water bottle

I don't think that's right”

Immediate apology!

I did move the bottle!

“Israel will over come its enemies,”

spoken by a black woman to a middle eastern man

a twist on ethnic profiling.

Muskoka cottage starting at $185 000.

Demographics?

“Danger stay off tracks”

Do we have to be told?

Young girl in a long pale blue dress

dragging the floor, black T-shirt with blue hair

she has a dog in a baby stroller.

Next to her a man with bag of groceries and a set of golf clubs,

orange glow in tunnels between stations

an ad for the Spanish Center,

swaying motion,

St Clair,

Summerhill,

Rosedale (no graffiti here)

Bloor,

Wellesley

and

off at College.

Tile colour changes with each station

through the turnstile up to the sidewalk.

Rush of air and bright lights

“All my rights have been violated for political reasons.”

A shirtless wild man wearing rubber boots

does push ups in front of a stag shop.

An albino python tattooed to his back

Our National Icon: Le Grand Castor

Our National Icon: Le Grand Castor

The stately Bald Eagle is the national symbol of our neighbours to the south. It is a magnificent bird, an efficient hunter. It is elegant in flight, truly a symbol of the highest order. Our national symbol is the Castor Canadensis. That is the largest of North American rodents, the beaver. The symbol of our nationhood, unity and Canadian Identity is a large rodent. How did we come to this point in our history? What’s wrong with the polar bear as a symbol? It is a large carnivore, unique in many ways, definitely a stately marvelous creature, and with global warming threatening, also on the endangered list. How is that for national appeal? I vote for the polar bear.

Fossil remains on parts of Ellesmere Island indicate that a late Cenozoic version of the modern beaver existed millions of years ago and stood as high as a small black bear. Now there is a true national symbol, but back then we didn’t actually have a country, or people for that matter. By the time we did, we could have really used the grand daddy of all beavers, it was extinct.

Grant it, the beaver is really industrious. “Busy as a beaver” was an expression that constantly annoyed me as a kid, especially when it was applied to me while not demonstrating beaver-like characteristics. Oddly, I did have the habit of chewing pencils when bored or in deep thought.

In an historical sense early settlers were drawn to our vast continent in the quest and acquisition of political and religious freedom. Explorers and settlers also came to take resources such as whales, cod, and lodge pole pines for ship building. Some explorers took home boat loads of fool’s gold thinking that they had struck the mother lode. However, the main lure remained the buck-toothed, humped back beaver. It was a kin to voting for the Hunchback of Notre Dame for homing coming King.

Fur top hats were in vogue in Europe in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. Beavers numbered in the millions, fur traders trekked great distances into the wilderness to trap and trade with the natives in order to keep up with the insatiable fashion demand of Europe. True, beavers were a boon to our early economy. Beavers also appeared on numerous stamps, badges, crests, provincial flags and coins. Witness the Big Nickel in Sudbury that’s like s shrine to beavers everywhere. Beavers are capable of, (at least while operating in pairs), promoting wireless networking products on national television while dating some pretty hot looking women. Will their influence never stop?

Beavers do not, as a group, need to do any lobbying or PR on their own behalf. They have arrived and I think they know it. I’m here just to balance the argument.

Beavers do a lot of damage and this is not just some idle gossip on my part either. Correct me if I am wrong but they are the only creature, with the possible exception of coral that can manipulate, alter or otherwise transform the environment to meet their own habitat and nutritional needs. Hold on, I guess there is one other species that can do that too, and we now number 6.8 billion, but other than that.

When I lived in the “Near-North” in the oil rich region of Fort McMurray, Alberta, I walked passed a beaver pond each day on my way to the high school where I taught, Westwood. It was like Sherwood Forest with beavers. The colony I passed by each day had a few adults some yearlings and 5 or 6 kits just born over the winter. They had dammed up a creek within the city limits and in the process hacked down dozens of trees. Other than the suburban mess we humans were creating in a parallel process, the beavers without licenses, permits, and against building code, were really making a mess of the neighbourhood.

During my many walk-bys I had grown accustomed and fond of the beavers. If I walked too close to the pond, the over-bearing matriarch of the clan, or at least I presumed, would sail on by and flap her tail madly on the water like Eddy Shack (I still think the NHL has 6 teams) taking a slap shot. The other beavers on cue would dive like German U-boats in the North Atlantic, likely not reappearing until I reached my school some five minutes later. I never really timed them. Now, I do admit to getting fond of this family. That doesn’t mean I think they deserve the national iconic status they seem to enjoy today.

Apparently, a local developer shared some of my sentiments and despite much protest by environmentalists to save the pond and the colony, it came down with a flood as a back hoe, we are told, accidentally breached the dam during practice maneuvers in the vicinity. It was clearly a case of collateral damage caused by friendly fire. The damage had been done and it was irreversible.

Since this act of ethnic cleansing had taken part in the North naturally there were other beavers out and about. Thankfully, these other beavers didn’t hear about the destruction of a colony in my neighbourhood. Fortunately, there were no retaliations and like the slave rebellions or the native uprisings in our sad history the beavers were eventually pushed back to the forest from whence they came and the suburbs were allowed to expand as was the intent of the master race in the first place. Life returned to normal.

Although beavers are riding on their laurels in Canada, they are considered public enemy number one in Argentina. Yes, in South America. Somebody, maybe it was Eva Peron, (Don’t Cry for Me Argentina) thought, wouldn’t it be a wonderful idea to start a fur industry and import a few beavers. Well so it happened, but for various reasons, including a harsh climate, the beavers grew long and coarse furs which did not translate well to a Western fashion sense.

It’s not like I’m a history teacher or anything that grandiose. Put it this way, if my facts were ice you could fall through, so don’t quote me on this part. Likely, the beavers either organized an escape or were released, but not realizing how far they were from Canada stayed in the wilds of Argentina where there were no natural predators such as foxes, coyotes, lynx, otters, weasels, hawks, eagles or owls to speak; so the dozen or so intrepid settlers soon became 100 000 nuisance varmints. The evil minions of beavers are considered a curse to their local environment; much like a coal fired power plant is to our atmosphere.

It just goes to prove that one nation’s hero can be another’s worst nightmare. The Argentinean government actually pays (cover your ears) a bounty to have beavers killed, farmers do their best to run them over. It’s not a pretty picture down there. I don’t know what Eva was thinking.

Oh Canada!

Marty Rempel