Easter and Cross country race day, 3-4-05

Original email April 3, 2005

Hello and Happy April!

I'm sorry to say that if ever I was a truly warm-blooded and hearty Minnesotan, I am one no longer. I remember with some nostalgia the days i used to celebrate the freeing warmth of a 65 degree F Spring day. Now such mornings have me shivering in my sweater and fighting off colds and flu's all through my Easter week off. It was a quiet week. Mostly i slept and sniffled and sneezed my way through books and boxes of tissues. Danny and I have been tossing the germs and cold pills around like a silly game.
But at least there are no more spiders!!

And Easter weekend here was quite good. There was more chocolate than even I could eat... chunks of it are still in our fridge a week later. It’s still a surprise to me, to be able to celebrate Easter at school -- in any way at all. Of course, it's simply lots of chocolate eggs and a big outdoor Easter Hat Parade for all the Littlies (the 1st - 3rd graders). Co-workers sometimes give out Easter chocolates the way they give holiday cards at Christmastime in The States.

One lady that I teach with gave me my favourite chocolate surprise -- an Easter Bilby!!! Rabbits are pretty generally considered the spawn of all evil in this country, so some Environmental group has created the adorably popular Chocolate Bilby -- an endangered Australian marsupial; a small, long-eared sort that conveniently resembles the bunny, but for its tail and long pointy snout. I loved it! I’d never been so delighted by a carved hollow piece of chocolate. Unfortunately i left it too long inside my school bag, in the backseat of my toasty car, and the Bilby I finally pulled out to show my husband looked like road kill. It was very sad. Still tasty, but that wasn't good enough for me. I had my mind made up to get a good photo to show you all. So when i found the Bilbies on sale on Easter Monday, I bought myself a nice healthy one. A delicious, dark chocolate, day-after-Easter Bilby. I’m still eating him bit by bit. And now you know the little story behind the pictures attached.

Easter for me was different than it ever had been. Of course -- there was no other way for it to be this year. Friday and Saturday were mostly quiet. Danny and i were together and reflective...as we tend to like to be on any kind of religious occasion. (Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here. most everybody has them off.) I wondered what would become of our Sunday. You can imagine being utterly far away from most of your family on a holiday you've always associated with your mother's kitchen and siblings' noisy banter... and singing with the spiritual community that feels like home to you. You can imagine the emptiness that threatens to fill the space of that hopeful day. Maybe you've felt it too. So you can imagine being invited to spend the day with family that has adopted you as their own. In a sunny backyard surrounded by laughter and acceptance and plenty. And I’m really thankful that that's how we spent our Easter Sunday afternoon -- with family :)

After that, some more rains came and the temperature dropped a few degrees and that's when the sneezing really began...and I’ve already told you enough of that slimy story!

So this week I go back to teaching for the 2nd quarter of the school year. In the first term, before the break, I got to be a part of something I'd never imagined for an Elementary school -- Cross Country Running. One of the schools where I teach is called Stafford. Stafford has a lot of space. It's this beautiful massive old school building that was designed and upkept to hold upwards of about 1000 students. There are around 200 kids there now. So indoors and out, there is a lot of space, and it's all well used and wonderful. Every year the school community looks forward to the Cross-country day. For a whole morning, all the kids in pre-school (which is like Kindergarten here) through grade 7 have races by age groups. They run around The Oval, which is just a massive grass field, and the older kids run through the adjoining park.
On this exciting day, my job was to stand at the alleyway between the school and the park, stopping cars from running into children, and encouraging runners with glee. Oh, it was fun to be on the standing sidelines of a cross-country race. To coach and cheer my own students along. To bask in the glory of my beautiful African students who struggle in the classroom but completely steal the show in a long-distance run. I love my students; they continually amaze me. And now that I’m getting this cold out of my system, i think I’m about ready to get back to them.

And right at this moment I’m about to get out to a baby shower. There are lots of new babies joining our shared family at the moment. The one I’m going to celebrate today will be born to Danny's cousin. So.... what will that make me? a 2nd-cousin-in-law? Danny & I are going to be Auntie and Uncle soon as well -- twice, if you haven't heard. We should be seeing a little one from Dom (Dan's brother) & Dominica in November, and my sister Loren is due in October. So that's all very exciting

By the way -- How do you wrap a meter-and-a-half long, multi-coloured crocodile baby toy? It’s not a riddle... i seriously need to know! I’ve got about 2 hours to sort something out, or this baby gift is going to the shower in a black garbage bag tied with a ribbon. Wish me luck!

Hope you're all doing marvellously or at least tolerably well,
Hope to hear from you soon.

Lots of love,
Alicia and Danny