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This past Sunday was Vancouver’s Pride Parade.
And with Pride comes a sad realization that summer is creeping to an end.
About 700,000 people lined the parade route this year to take in the show and we weren’t disappointed.
It was fun, euphoric, colourful, risqué and above all amazing.
Here are some pictures and two videos;

I hurried home from work on Friday to catch the opening ceremony of the 2010 Paralympics on TV.

It was a lovely and inspiring show; I look forward to the next two weeks

The Paralympics are going to be a mellow and calmer affair than what the Olympics were

I’m sure this image has been making its round on the internet.

The boss sent this in an email; the first picture is Granville Street on the last day of the Olympics and the one beneath is Granville Street a week later.

Pretty amazing huh?

One other thing to come out of the Olympics is this video for Haiti recorded in Vancouver during games.

A group of Canadian artists dubbed Young Artist for Haiti recorded K’naan’s Wavin’ Flag.

Proceeds from the song will go to Free The Children, War Child Canada and World Vision Canada.

Here’s where you go to find out more about getting the single and contributing towards a worthy cause.

PS: I have a picture and video heavy post coming soon from the K’naan concert last month.

I first read about Mariatu Kamara in Chatelaine of all places. Mariatu, like Ishmael Beah is a young author who recounts her experiences as a child during the civil war in Sierra Leone.

I bring up Ishmael Beah because he wrote the forward to Mariatu’s book and also because one of the questions P. asked him when he was on his book tour a few years ago was why there weren’t any accounts of the experiences of the female/girl child during the war in his book. He said he had purposefully left those out because he didn’t think it was his story to tell. He later on mentioned half jokingly that maybe we could tell that story one day; I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my memories of Sierra Leone were not of the horrors and atrocities of war. But this is Mariatu’s story to tell and she tells it in her book (with Susan McClelland), The Bite of the Mango.

I’ve been meaning to write about this book for months, everyone in my family read this book months ago – but I just couldn’t seem to make time to read it.

My mom burst out laughing one afternoon while reading it – this was a little disturbing to me, “Why are you doing this? War is not funny” I said in mock horror.

Yes, this is a sad book, but it’ll also make you laugh, it’ll make you angry, it’ll break your heart and make you cry but above all, it’ll make you hopeful.

It’s Mariatu’s story told effortlessly about her circumstance and life growing up when the war reached her village.

There’s the barbaric and irrational act of violence that has left her without hands, a permanent physical reminder of the horrors she’s endured.

There’s her having a baby when she was but a baby herself.

It’s a tale of what is undoubtedly the ugliness of war and the hard journey to reclaim oneself.

It’s a little about forgiveness and going back home.

It’s quite an easy read for book with such a hard theme.

It’s a little about happy endings too.

Now twenty-three years old, Mariatu lives in Toronto and is a UNICEF Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, she also runs the Mariatu Foundation.

Chances are you don’t know Ibrahim Essandoh. I don’t know him either; not personally anyway.

I only heard of him this weekend – Mr. Essandoh is a soft spoken 42 year old immigrant from Ghana who lives in Vancouver, BC with his wife and three children.

I imagine the Essandohs were a happy family once, and at one time Mr Essandoh considered his life, family, blessings, magnificent views, his great friends,� neighbours and his new country, he even believed a little that he lived in the “best place on earth”

These days Mr. Essandoh is very sick, his liver is failing and is on frequent kidney dialysis, but what Mr. Essandoh needs most is a new kidney.

His would have been a standard medical story (although medical stories are hardly standard), had it not been for his potential kidney donor. Mr. Essandoh’s brother, Thomas lives in Ghana, is a match and is willing to give his brother a kidney. The only set back is that the Canadian Embassy in Ghana has rejected Thomas’ application for entry into Canada – where his brother Ibrahim resides and needs the kidney.

This is where the details get a little sketchy; all we know for now is that the kind officials at the Canadian Embassy in Accra are “skeptical” of whom Thomas says he is, which confuses me a little because… how the heck then did the hospital determine he was a match? His doctor was on tv confirming his brother is a match, he even wrote letters to support his application. Is the Dr. in cohorts with Thomas to swindle the Canadian government?

They seem to be also concerned about Thomas’ “motives” – I’m not exactly sure what that means (possibly because I’m not trained in the art of weeding out fake visa applicants) but here’s a logical way out, since this is an established matter of life and death, how about we grant him the visa and let CIC take it from there (when he gets here), if Thomas has some maniacal motives to prey on his dying brother for a free trip and entry into Canada and squanders off with his kidneys intact, then let’s have the branch of government that deals with that handle it. But please, please do not deny Mr. Essandoh his life because we’re skeptical of Thomas’ motives. Mr. Essandoh could die.

Personally, I think Thomas is a hero and I commend him, I doubt that any of my brothers (I have three very healthy ones) will give up a kidney for me. He should be given an award not shut out of the country while his brother possibly dies.

It’s also imperative that we address this now, it’s vital that this doesn’t set a precedent. Canada is a multicultural nation, we’re a country of immigrants with family scattered all over the world. If my mom needed a bone marrow transplant tomorrow, and her only brother happened to be a match, I would hate for him to be denied entry into Canada because no one said anything when the first, second or third would-be donor from a developing country was denied entry into Canada — to help save a Canadian’s life.

Isn’t Ibrahim Essandoh’s life worth saving, isn’t he Canadian enough? The man has lived here for 25 years; he’s paid taxes and has been a model citizen.

Let his brother help him.

Links:

• CTV Article – 22-May-09
• CTV Video News Report
• Facebook group to help Ibrahim Essandoh get a kidney
• CTV follow up article – 25-May-09

On my way from work last Monday, there were a small group of Tamils protesting the Sri Lankan government in front of the US Consulate on Georgia Street. The drumming reminded me of West African talking drums.

There have been quite a few of these protests all over the world in the past couple of months. In Toronto, where the largest population of Tamils live outside of Sri Lanka they literally stopped traffic for hours.

The Tamil issue is tricky since support for Tamils in Sri Lankan somehow automatically means support for the Tigers. Someone (I think it was M.I.A.) said it best when they said we need to learn that there are “Tamil civilians” too.