I like turkey, do you?

Last night was thanks giving dinner. And oh boy, I am thankful that my stomach did not explode with the amount of food I inserted into it. I then gave my stomach a belly rub in the spirit of thanks and then giving. We went to my host mothers brothers house. He is a very skilled cabinet maker and artist. His cabinets were definitely captivating. There were also three little girls who insisted on chasing me and pinning me to the floor. I learnt the meaning yesterday of “power in numbers.” Unfortunately for me, the numbers were not on my side.

Thank the heavens, our educational activity day (ead) is done! After two weeks of planning and many phone calls we have finished. 3 other Canada World Youthers and myself assembled an entire day of learning about youth and media. We started off with a woman from the library talking about youth and their involvement with the library and their ability to influence media… We then bussed to Owen Sound where we were given a tour of the radio station. Complete with a jingle recording session for the “MIX 106!”, and an observation session of how Home Depot radio commercials are recorded. They were also kind enough to show us how the news wire service works. Everything is accomplished on a computer. They have almost no need for a paper trail. Excellent. Ross (our tour guide) told us that there is one company in Canada that owns about 83 radio stations. And that there are a few other companies which own a similar number of stations. It seems insane that a medium that could be so powerful in collaborating and organizing perople with a wide range of views and interests is now controlled so tightly but only a few controlling interests. There are also entire teams which work at stations solely on marketing and advertising. The money for radio needs to come from somewhere, but it is to bad that it entirely comes from corporate America. Favors are always owed to those who pay for your meals. I can say this from experience, in return for dinner here I clean kitchen… The positive news is that we have the CBC, and now…internet radio!!! Hurray! After the radio tour we returned back to library where my group and I forced some educational thinkering activities upon the other participants. My favorite activity was the one which required them to create an advertisement. The task of group one was to sell Pepsi, the task of group two was to make an anti-smoking campaign. They performed, and then we debriefed as a group. We then asked a series of thought provoking questions. All in all I think our ead went very well. Especially considering I had to translate…

Other than the ead, this past week has been fairly easy going. We finished our mural at the library, and we ate elk burgers for lunch on Saturday. We also volunteered in the set-up of a silent auction.

Here is to more rivetting weeks of fun and learning.

Until next week,
your host,
Zacilly (According to one of the Cubans, this is my name)

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