Living in the Hood in Toronto

Living in the Hood
As mentioned in my previous post the house is situated off College Street and Bathurst. The neighbourhood life is very rich and something very different than what one would be accustomed in Calgary. Rich and vibrant and eclectic would be good words to describe it.

Cute front yard Lanscaping

The Houses
Between the major commercial arteries such as College, Bathurst, Spadina and Queens Street most of the houses are older row houses. There are many condos / townhouses projects popping up, but the hood has retained a lot of its character. Typically the houses have small front yard, some with very unusual lush landscaping. They may lack in space but they sure make up in creativity and lushness. Things in Ontario grow so much faster than in Alberta. You see it in some of the backyard vegetable gardens, it feels like you could stick a sausage in the ground and a swine would grow…

Amasing Backyard lush Garden

The Food

Great wings, suds and an old school hardware store... Heaven.

Around College Street there are so many places to get good food for very few coins. You can get a good Sushi meal for under $10. The hot dog vendor at the corner of Bathurst and College and Bathurst is always a delicious option when pressed for time. There is a fantastic soup and sandwich place right next door from the EWB office on Adelaide Avenue. We call it the sandwich place, I never looked at its real name; I just go in. Good cheap food is plentiful.
My favourite spot to treat myself is Oyster Boy on Queen Street. They usually have a selection of at least half a dozen different types of oysters. It’s on the pricey side but I love oysters and it’s a real treat for me to enjoy such a great selection of fresh ones. This is not something we usually see in Calgary. We ate there Karie, Pascal (my brother) and I before I started my placement. I went back a few times to snack on a half dozen raw oysters with a pint and it always made me feel much better. When Karie comes next weekend we’ll definitely have a last visit.

Of course we can’t talk about food without talking about wings. I found a decent spot on College Street called Duff. They have been enabling my wing addiction. I worked myself comfortably to the Super-Hot wings. Over and above the Super-Hot they have a few more levels with perky names ("Armageddon" comes to mind) which I didn’t enjoyed as much, especially the next morning. It’s a good basic place with good wings, a decent selection of suds and friendly waiters that were easily trained in the obscure concept of total beer randomness.


Riding the bike
Having the use of Pascal’s bike has kept my life somewhat more sane, especially in these 30+ degree weather. Being more mobile has allowed me to take a few detours around Queen Street or Bloor Street or zoom by the Kensington Market. It has allowed me to see much more than just the trip to the University from the “House”. In the past week I have moved out of the house and I am now shacking up with Pascal’s family. Being further up (a 25 minute bike ride from the office) it forces me to exercise some more, which I really need. This also allows me to make even more exploratory detours. It also allows me to spend some quality time with Daven my 2.5 year old nephew who is growing like a weed.

It's me riding the bike while sweating...

Toronto Revisited
I lived for two years in Toronto before moving back to Calgary in June 2008. Many of you have heard me say that I didn’t like Toronto and that I really didn’t enjoyed those 2 years. Spending a whole month in my old neighbourhood, riding through the same park I used to walk Buster (previous dog to Tango) or my regular grocery store where I was learning to speak Korean, has been cathartic. I think it has enabled me to close the loop. I love Toronto, the intensity but also the Hoods and the old world feel of some of its communities. And the food…

What I didn’t like was the fake pretentious life style that took me away from who I really was. But this was not Toronto because Toronto as I just rediscovered, I just happen to love.

Kensington Market

The Green Car in Kensington Market

The power of the first impression.

Karie and I made it to Toronto a few days ahead of my reporting date. I didn’t want to blog for the few days that Karie was around and since we started on July 4^th it has been very intense and “full”.  

My first impression (and Karie as well) was my arriving in Toronto and settling in the house. As mentioned, I arrived a few days prior my reporting and had a chance to drop by the house. The simplest way I can describe is” shocking”.  

The EWB house is situated just south of College and Slightly West of Bathurst in Toronto. It’s a humble neighbourhood very well situated; it is a 15 minutes’ walk to the University and lots of shops and watering holes along College Street. It’s a typical two storey narrow house. The upstairs has 3 bedrooms and the downstairs has a living room, dining room and a kitchen. It has retained its original layout and suffers from years of wear and tear. The house has all the basic necessities to accommodate modern living; running water, toilets and showers, refrigerator, clothes washers…and way too many people.

On the second floor one of the bedrooms has 1 bunk (2 people) and is occupied by 2 long term residents. The second bedroom has 2 bunks (4 people); the third one has 4 bunks (8 people) and there is a full bathroom. The basement has a washer / dryer a full bathroom and a bedroom.  

The 2 bunks room; it's very difficult to get a good photographic perspective since the room is so small to start with

Siera (left) and Marielle sorting things out in the 4 bunk room

There are a few postings on the walls explaining the rules of the house but no resident team leader or manager. It’s implied that it is first come first served, you grab a bunk wherever there’s one available. This should be simple if it were not for the fact that most bed still have the sheets of the previous residents and there  were so much stuff laying around that it’s not always clear which bunks were “free”. It appears that over time past residents have abandon stuff and personal items before leaving for their postings.  
Since I moved in, there were never less than 14 people living in the house at any one time.

The best bedroom in the house just happened to be outside of the house. Because of the unusual scorching heat I found it more comfortable sleeping on a air mattress in the backyard. I could enjoy a nice fresh breeze (well, later in the night anyhow) and wake up to the chirping of birds around 4:30 am.

The positive about this challenge is that after our first day of Sessions, all the new participants decided to have dinner together to address the situation. We cleaned the house as well as we could, got rid of the dozens of abandoned pairs of shoes and other items that were unclaimed by the present residents. We established a cleaning schedule and hoped that we could make the best of it.

There are a few things that we keep hearing from almost everyone at EWB. These include some of our team mates that have participated in oversee placements as Junior Fellows in the past or have work at the EWB office as volunteers and have lived in the house. The first one is that training as a whole is to challenge us and taking us out of our comfort zone. The second is that it’s part of EWB’s culture of sharing and being open and creating a space for idea to develop and personal growth.

I personally don’t subscribe to this notion. There are better ways to create team solidarity than piling people on top of each other in 30 plus degree temperatures. We should be looking at some alternatives.

I want to apologize for not posting as much as I should have. I have a few posts on the go and hopefully I can catch up in the next few days before flying off to Accra. Some good stuff is coming up; life in the neighbourhood, the great training we have been subjected to, my teammates and more on the role I’ll be playing.