Knowing me, knowing you...

So I’m now back in the land of land-ravaging oil production and, of course, the Oilers themselves! Indeed, though I’m loathe to admit it, I’m kind of getting into the whole playoffs thing. But more on that later…

I’m in decompression mode right now and experiencing a little bit of the old culture shock. It really only seems like it was yesterday that I left for Sao Paulo.

So now I’m left with the task of trying to figure out what really went on in the last 3 months, what my experiences have meant, where I go from here. Yeah, yeah, I write my thesis, but on a more abstract level, I feel like my experiences there have changed me in ways I wasn’t expecting and don’t quite understand. The problem is deciphering it all now. I feel like I’m starting out anew, in a sense: “Kyla: the sequel.” But the sequel to Alien or Star Wars, not one of those other crappy sequels.

In a more concrete vein, I feel incredibly driven to get the Canadian asbestos issue’s profile raised. The situation was so much worse in Brazil than I had expected. And more shocking was how much their government uses the Canadian position to justify their policies. It was thoroughly disgusting and exhausting.

There’s only so many times you can walk past the dump of asbestos waste and read the lovely warning “don’t breathe” while you see kids playing all over it. There are only so many families you can talk to devastated by our so-called safe asbestos. Obviously I may have been able to be more objective about all this if it weren’t for my own history, but I think if you can be objective about this kind of suffering there’s something seriously wrong with your soul.

Or indeed, you may be one of the many asbestos whores I met in my wanderings. These mother-f&#*@$rs get 400,000 Reais a year to peddle this crap to workers. That’s about $200,000 a year Canadian – clearly I’m in the wrong business. However I can, to some extent, sleep at night with out several thousand deaths on my conscience. I truly don’t know how they can sleep at night. However given that the average Brazilian salary is $100/month, I imagine it’s on a lovely fluffy mattress stuffed endangered condor feathers, covered with the pelts of baby seals whose heads were bashed in. Something like that.

I am happy, however, that I had the opportunity to make these guys a little bit nervous. The photo attached is of one of the Brazilian Chrysotile Institute cohorts feverishly snapping photos of me with his camera phone when I flatly told the conference members that everything you’ve heard from the Canadian government and the CI is complete and utter bullshit. Fancy them getting freaked out by little ole’ me. Hehe.

Okay, all this is getting a little too serious and esoteric for my liking right now – it’s just not good for my brain. But I think on the whole, it’s all good. The many hours I spent pondering on my balcony with Brahmas and Dona Flors have to have been a good thing…