Hello sweet friends! Endeminachu or akam!
It’s Megan writing to you this month. I think I begin each letter with this same thought, but I have to repeat myself again - wow, we just LOVE hearing from you!! Your letters bring us such joy and even though we are not together when we read them, the members of Friends Ink - our writing team - share our thoughts with each other by email because it is just so fun so read your stories and learn more about you!
Summer has arrived here in Ontario, where we live in Canada, and that means all the plants have turned green again and the flowers are blooming! I absolutely love seeing the flowers and trees become bright green and put out their colourful blooms after a long season of snow and dead plants. It reminds me that we all go through stages and seasons and that anything can change even in just a few days or weeks!
Nature is so amazing and I always feel better when I get to be outside enjoying all the beauty - or even drops of rain on my face. Grandma Shelley gave me a wonderful red raincoat that she wasn’t using and I wear whenever we get a lot of rain. I always smile and think of her when I put it on! I hope sometimes you look at your Canada T-shirts or any favourite sweaters or pants you have from Canada and think of all of us. We are often thinking of you!
For us here in Southwestern Ontario, it feels really hot right now - the temperatures are between 25 degrees Celsius and some days as high as 31 or 32 degrees! - but we know it would feel pretty normal to you all, because you get lots of heat in Harar.
Since it is warm for us Canadians, we have to make sure we drink water a few times a day. Are you able to drink water throughout the day when it gets hot in Harar? I hope you have access to that to keep you hydrated. You will likely think this is very silly, but I even bring a tiny little water bottle for my pet dog when I take him out for walks!! He is very furry so he gets even hotter than a human under all that hair and I have a water bottle with a little folding bowl so that he can have a drink of water when we go walking. Can you imagine if someone was giving a dog or a donkey on the street in Ethiopia a drink of water? I know that might seem very funny, but some animals get hot just like we do, and some of them need to drink water to stay healthy.
Are there other drinks you like to have on special occasions? I know there is a lot of colourful and sugary pop (or do you call it soda? Or maybe Mirinda?) at shops and restaurants. You have many flavours that we do not get here in Canada! We also love that some of your drinks still come in glass bottles and get recycled.
We were all so touched by your beautiful reflections on second chances. Do you know how strong and brave you are? All of you have overcome big challenges and yet you are still looking for opportunities to seize every day and make a difference.
We are really in AWE of you. You should know that! As much as your Canadians friends love you and want to provide the support you need to have a good life, we are also learning SO much from you! What a gift you are giving us with your wisdom.
The Friends Ink team loved your “second chances” theme so much, we decided to share some of our stories with you in this letter. All of my wonderful Friends Ink buddies have shared experiences from their own lives, so I’m going to give the rest of this letter over to them! I think all of their stories are so impactful and I hope you think so, too. Thank you for inspiring us with your very powerful outlook on life!
Kim’s Story:
In Canada, we often learn to ride a bicycle when we are young children. I grew up on a farm so we had a long laneway. I remember learning to ride my bike for the first time and feeling like this was such an exciting adventure! I had an older cousin who lived near me and she knew how to ride her bike so it looked so easy! It was not easy at all! I still remember losing my balance, falling down and scraping my knees many times. My older cousin was very encouraging and tried to help me. She kept saying, “That's okay! Let’s keep trying.” I kept falling and feeling like I would never learn to ride my bike. I felt sad and frustrated, but I didn't give up. With each try, I got better and better. I just kept practising. And guess what? After many attempts, I finally learned how to ride! So, remember, it's okay to fall down sometimes. What matters most is that you get back up and try again. With practice, patience and maybe some courage, you can do amazing things!
Lisa’s Story:
When I was 12 or 13 years old (50 years ago!), my father went to the doctor for an insurance physical and it was discovered that he had an aortic aneurysm. About a year later, he went into the hospital in Toronto, a big city here in Ontario, for surgery. Tests done just before surgery, though, showed that instead of one aneurysm, he had three, and they would not be able to operate on him -- it was too high risk and they had never done such an extensive surgery on the aorta.
For the next two years, I lived with the knowledge that my dad was going to die. I had gone to the public library to research aneurysms, and even though my dad did not want my sister and I to know how serious it was, I found out but never told him that I knew. It was a very sad time.
It seemed like a miracle to us when doctors in Texas reached out to my dad's doctors to say that they wanted to meet him to see if there was something they could do for him. He went to Houston, Texas, and had surgery! He recovered and lived another 13 years. I was so grateful for that extra time. He was able to walk me down the aisle at my wedding and see his two grandsons. The experience of almost losing someone so important to me changed my life. It showed me what is really important in life and what isn't.
Patti’s Story:
I went to university after my high school education to learn to become a teacher. Unfortunately, when I graduated from University with my Teaching Certification, there were no jobs available in my area for teachers. I tried for two years to secure a job as a teacher, taking supply teacher jobs. Supply teaching means I would cover the work of a full time teacher who might be sick for the day, or for a teacher who needed time off of teaching for a medication condition. These jobs were not reliable, and did not pay enough wages to help me cover my living expenses. Finally, I was forced to take a job in a totally different field of work and abandon my teaching career. I was sad that I did not get to teach, as I really did love working with children.
Last year, 35 years after I gave up on finding a job in teaching, a fellow volunteer for Hearts for Ethiopia asked me if I would consider teaching at the college where she worked. I would be teaching people who had criminal records who were struggling to find work because people looked down on them because of the mistakes of their past. They were looking for a SECOND CHANCE as well. I was really nervous to go back to teaching after all these years, but I decided to be brave and try it. It was my SECOND CHANCE. Guess what? I loved it so much. I am so happy that I got a chance to teach after all those years of missing it. It is something I really love to do. Second chances truly fill a person with gratitude and happiness.
Shelley’s Story:
I am so thankful for second chances. There are many examples when I have had a second chance but the one I think might encourage you is when I was accepted to go to University as a mature student. When I was in high school, we had grade 13 which was a requirement if you wanted to go to university. I was taking very difficult math classes and science classes and I was not doing well with my marks. At the same time, I had a long-distance relationship with a young man who was in his second year of university. I thought I would marry him and knowing that university was going to take me another at least four years to complete, I believed that it would be too hard to wait to be married that long and be so far away from one another. He was my first love.
I was never a natural student. Some of my classes like music, home economics and social studies were my favourites and I got very good marks in those classes but math and science were difficult for me and my marks were not good.
With the combination of really struggling with my math and science classes and thinking it would be too difficult to wait for another four years to marry my boyfriend and be together, I decided to quit school in grade 13. My mom told me I had to have a plan for what I would do with myself before she would allow me to quit grade 13. I decided I would become an esthetician (estheticians do manicures, pedicures, facials and make-up application) and I started that program. I got very good grades and continued to have my boyfriend who lived in the United States.
While I was doing esthetician work part-time, I also started a job caring for elderly people living in their own homes. I broke up with my boyfriend because I realized that I did not want to move that far away from my family and friends. While I was caring for the old people, I realized I really loved them and wanted to be able to do a job that would allow me to improve many elderly people’s lives. I knew I needed to go to university to accomplish my goals. Where I live, universities allow mature students (people who are 21 years or older) to apply to go to university even if they do not have all of the educational requirements. I knew that I would have to do my irst year of university completing a few classes in math and science because I did not have grade 13. Although I knew that would be difficult, I applied, and I was accepted to go to university which I graduated with honors in gerontology (the study of aging).
That university degree allowed me to get my one and only career job as the Executive Director of the Alzheimer Society of Oxford. I worked there in that leadership position for 29 years! The university education allowed me to get the career position of Executive Director and the experience as Executive Director allowed me to develop the skills and gain the credibility to start Hearts for Ethiopia which I love and hope to do until I die.
I hope this will encourage you to know that even when our paths in education may not be direct or in the timeframe others are following, it doesn’t mean you cannot get to where you want to be. Although I felt like I had not succeeded in school like my friends, in the end, I got my education and now have the most favourite work I have ever done in my life … serving you and many other children and women in Ethiopia.