<\/p>\n
I got up this morning at 7am, washed, packed, dressed and checked out by 7:45 and went down for breakfast. I was being picked up at 8:30 but my ride came early. Fortunately, I’d had a chance to finish my breakfast.<\/p>\n
First stop was Ridna Shkola and the young children. These are Ukrainian language Saturday students. Taras had asked me to tell them why I didn’t speak Ukrainian. It all has to do with the prejudice directed at my father when he was a boy. He was beaten every day at school for speaking Ukrainian. And his and his siblings’ names were all anglicized. He didn’t want that for my sister and I so we never took Ukrainian. I told those kids that they were very lucky to live in Canada now; a Canada that was more tolerant. I think it was the sheer exhaustion of the week, but I began to weep. I hate it when that happens. The poor kids. A teacher brought me a tissue and I took a deep breath. Then I did a storytelling session with Enough<\/i><\/b> and we talked about the Holodomor.<\/p>\n
From there, Taras drove me to St. John’s Cathedral and I did a session with the Ukrainian language high school students. I enjoyed talking to these students. Mostly I have been presenting to younger students this week so it was a good change for me.<\/p>\n
When I was finished, Taras helped me out with my luggage and Marty Chan met me outside.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t met Marty in person but we play wordscraper on facebook quite regularly. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant and we had a great visit. I was enthralled with Marty’s journey to becoming a writer and playwright and broadcast journalist. There were many parallels in our early lives. He dropped me off at the airport and right now I am on the second flight. It is 9:50pm and I will be in my own bed in about three hours.<\/p>\n
It was an amazing Book Week. I met such great kids and so many fabulous educators. I love Alberta hospitality. If I were to move out of Ontario, Alberta would be where I would want to live. I love the friendliness and the wide open spaces. I love the vast sky and the fact that people can pronounce my last name without hesitation.<\/p>\n
An addendum. It is Monday November 24. I had my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon and the MRI showed that I do have a torn meniscus. A \u201cserious\u201d tear, he says, but fixable. My surgery is scheduled for just before Christmas.<\/p>\n
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I got up this morning at 7am, washed, packed, dressed and checked out by 7:45 and went down for breakfast. I was being picked up at 8:30 but my ride came early. Fortunately, I’d had a chance to finish my breakfast. First stop was Ridna Shkola and the young children. These are Ukrainian language … Continue reading “Ukrainian schools and Marty Chan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262,1],"tags":[1039,1003],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-stories","category-uncategorized","tag-book-week","tag-canadian-childrens-book-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10736,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions\/10736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}