Winnipeg day 1

My Saturday started at 2:30 am and ended with a big drunken bear of a man in a Blue Bombers jersey handing me a 20 dollar bill outside a casino in Winnipeg. I'll try to give an explanation about the parts in the middle.

A little more than a week ago, I volunteered to join the Humanitarian Workforce group of the Search and Rescue Volunteers Association of Canada. They were recruiting people to come to Winnipeg to help the wildfire evacuees in the city, of which there are about 10,000. That's the Winnipeg part.

The reason my alarm went off at 2:30am is that my flight to get here was at 5am, and it's almost an hour to the airport.

I'll get to the drunk guy eventually.

I left the house by 3:15, and made it to the airport in 45 minutes. There's no traffic.

The warm humid air, even at the early hour reminds me of adventures past, in tropical climates where this kind of environment is normal. The nervousness is also familiar. I'm alone, and I'm worried that I'm forgetting something, either left at home or not thought of to bring.

More than that, I'm worried that I made the right choice. This too is a familiar feeling. I'm giving up a lot to be here. A week's vacation time from work, a family camping trip withfriends, and a week with the Munchkin. I want to tell myself that a sacrifice to help others is good for the soul, but not all sacrifices are necessary. Sometimes you can help out effectively without it being costly. And just because it's costly doesn't mean it's necessarily helpful. The debrief I got seemed to indicate that what I'm heading into is more social work than search and rescue. This too is a sacrifice. Social work is among the most noble activities, but I think I would, and maybe will, find it difficult. I like search and rescue and being out in the woods with only a backpack and my wits. Being in a city helping disadvantaged people get through life is extremely valuable, but not as exciting. I'm selfish about my volunteerism.

On the plane, there's a group of teenage softball players ahead of me in the line to find our seats. They are confused by the fact that if they switch seats to sit together, they have to tell the person who's seat they took where they were originally assigned. This takes several minutes. I'm not in a hurry.

The person seated in front of me is wearing a search and rescue rescue shirt and a high vis vest. In case she might not be seen, I guess.

I make it to Winnipeg without incident and get picked up at the airport by a member of Winnipeg Search and Rescue, who apparently moved here from Vancouver Island. No offense to the great people of Manitoba, but man is that ever the wrong direction to go.

We are staying at a Ukrainian Orthodox Seminary building on the grounds of the University of Manitoba. Which means it's a cider block building built in the 60s without air conditioning and there's a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms written in Ukrainian posted on the wall. I have a single room, which is an upgrade on the double I shared the last time I lived in a dorm at a university.

My afternoon was spent napping, getting set up, not being given a sense of what kind of work we were to do, and then driving the previous team, Rotation 1, to a hotel as we had just disposed them of their dorm rooms.

The hotel they were staying at is connected to a casino. It is as I approached the entrance of this building that the guy in the Blue Bombers jersey was handing out cash. He saw the high vis vests and asked what we were doing. He liked the answer so much that he started handing out 20s to everyone on the team. There's 14 of us, then he bought us a round in the restaurant. I hope he had been having a good day at the tables. The Blue Bombers lost the game they were showing in the TV.

Tomorrow I start the wrong of actually helping people. I think.

Wes