Home for a Rest

Well I’ve returned back to Maputo after an amazing two weeks back in Canada. It was quite a whirlwind visit as I tried to pack in as many activities and visits with friends and family as possible. 10 months was the longest that I had ever been away from home and I was eagerly looking forward to the chance to soak in some Canadiana once again. July really is the best time to visit Winnipeg as the weather is optimal and the people are all out in full force trying to take advantage of the prairie summer glory.

In between family BBQs (those two wild ladies on my arm are my mother and my aunt), golf trips (shot an 85 at Niakwa, the best round of my life, and beat my dad for the first time…by 15 strokes!!!) and countless drinks on Corydon Ave. (the best place to take in Winnipeg’s patio culture), I was able to make it out to the scenic Bird’s Hill Provincial Park for the 31^st Annual Winnipeg Folk Fest. Now of course I did everything I could to time my visit home so that it coincided with the Festival, a Winnipeg institution that my friends and I have been going to since we were 16 years old. In fact, my parents used to come to this festival together back before they were married making us one of the numerous Manitoban families whose generations have been united by this fantastic event.

This year my parents once again came out for the Saturday and Sunday concerts, complete with their rainbow coloured chairs that my mother picked up to add a splash of pizzazz to their festival experience. I was also overjoyed to have my good friends Peter and Caitlin, the Canadians I met in Maputo who are now working back at home, join me at the festival on Saturday. Since I had raved so much about the event to them in Mozambique they figured that they had to come out and see it for themselves. It was an amazing reunion with these wonderful friends of mine and I hope the festival got into their veins enough to come back for years to come.

One of the things that I like the most about the festival is the incredible musicians that you discover. Folk Fest doesn’t bring in many big name acts but the performers are unbelievably talented and I am always surprised by the richness and the diversity of the music. Musical highlights for me this year were: Crooked Still, Steve Earle, Bedouin Soundclash, Ruthie Foster and the Refugee Allstars of Sierra Leone (check these guys out...unbeleivable story!!). Of course the other highlight for me is the Folk Fest Campground which becomes this bohemian community of over 5000 people living together in blissful harmony for four days. The times that I have spent in this campground, and the music and friendships that have carried me through many Folk Fests, have provided me with some of my greatest Manitoba summer memories.

One of the questions that I was repeatedly asked when I was back home was whether I felt any reverse culture shock, coming back to Canada after almost a year in Africa. I think the things that hit me the most were once again being in such large crowds of white people, being surrounded by green trees and green grass lawns and of course the huge box stores that define our rampant North American consumer culture. Those were the biggest “shocks” I found.

Other than that I was shocked to discover that Manitoba had changed its provincial motto from “Friendly Manitoba” to “Manitoba: Spirited Energy.” This has been quite a controversial change, not least because of the confusion around what “spirited energy” actually entails but also due to the fact that our provincial government paid an American advertising firm upwards of 4 Million dollars to come up with our new provincial identity. I like the acknowledgement of the spiritual dimension to my home province but I don’t like how we had to contract ourselves out to the Americans to come up with our new motto. I am curious to hear what you all think about “Spirited Energy,” do you like it/think it’s lame, I’d love to get some of your thoughts.

Well I guess that is all I have to say about my trip back home. A huge thank you to everyone that I was able to spend time with…our time together, even the briefest of encounters, meant so very much to me. You are all such wonderfully good people and I love you all deeply. Sending you all good vibes from Mozambique!!

Ate logo,

Jp