So here we are, having just completed our 6 month stay at the A Rocha Canada's Surrey Field Study Centre and soon to begin our 6 month stay at the Mwamba Field Study Centre in Kenya. We thought now would be a good time to update you all on some of our work and adventures and a little of what we’ve been learning along the way.
We arrived in Vancouver on the 2nd of February just a few weeks before the Olympics kicked off. It was thrilling to finally begin our big OE year and it didn’t take long for us to feel totally at home at the centre in White Rock, Surrey; about a 45 minute drive from the city, and a 10 minute walk to the beach and US border. We quickly came to love the lifestyle at the centre – beautiful grounds with large vege gardens, free range chickens, ponds, a small forest and even resident Highland cows. We enjoyed the weekly rhythm of the place too – Tuesday to Saturday work week, daily prayers, shared meals, weekly bible studies and music times to keep working on the guitar skills.
The challenge of the first month or so was working out exactly how we would be involved. Volunteers usually choose one field to work on – conservation science, education or agriculture. The natural choice for Lynton was conservation science but we arrived in winter, at the quietest time of year for the centre, and had to wait for spring before any science projects could begin. Glad for the break from teaching, I was reluctant to become fully occupied with the education field so it took some time to work out where I could participate.
This period of uncertainty provided a good opportunity to reflect on the hectic time schedules we used to have back at home with work, commuting, youth work, committee meetings, and more work. It was so refreshing to be in a place where work did not define and absorb us completely, and to remember that our worth is not measured by how productive we can be.
And before long we both ended up with plenty to work on! As we waited for spring, Lynton got stuck into removing invasive weeds from the property. Then together (and with the help of another volunteer Stan) we began a frog survey. For the month of March we took one day a week to walk around 16 ponds on 7 different sites all found in the Little Campbell River watershed. We were repeating a survey conducted by a science intern the year before which involved slowly walking around each pond looking for egg masses from the threatened Northern Red Legged Frog and also recording sightings of some other salamander and frog species. Lynton completed the project by writing up a report of the findings as well as sending a letter to pond owners with information about how they can enhance the habitat on their land for Northern Red Legged Frogs.
For the remainder of our time, I was occupied with a number of projects. In April as the weather got warmer, school groups began to visit a couple times a week and I would help lead them. The programs were typically geared for hands on encounters with nature – pond dippings, collecting eggs, looking for bugs, birds and frogs etc. For many city children, going to the centre is a rare opportunity to get out into the outdoors and see creatures they might otherwise never see. It was great to see their excitement when seeing a rough skinned newt or bald eagle or Highland cow (or worm!) for the first time.
I also had the privilege of being able to spend a lot of time producing some art work for the centre. There are a couple dozen chickens onsite and when we came most of us could not identify the names of the different breeds. I painted a series of acrylic paintings of 7 different chickens. These paintings now hang at Brooksdale Farm (the new site that A Rocha Canada is moving to later this year) in rooms that will likely be used for guest accommodations. I also made some posters and flashcards for educational purposes so we could learn the names of the different breeds. The paintings have recently been used to make gift cards to be sold in the store on site as well. That project was quickly followed by another – painting about 40 signs for the vegetable garden.
Some of Lynton’s time was spent organising the creation of a preliminary biological inventory of Brooksdale Farm. He held a bioblitz at the farm with 15 volunteers identifying over 190 species during the course of 6 hours. The data collected will assist the development of a well-informed management plan that will enhance and nurture life at Brooksdale. Lynton also put his science skills to work in supervising the conservation science interns that arrived for the summer. Halfway through our stay, Lynton was given the opportunity to attend the 2010 Pastor's conference at Regent College on Science and Faith. Regent College graciously gave him a scholarship to help cover a lot of the conference fee and allowed me to attend one day of the conference for free. He thoroughly enjoyed the theological stimulation and excellent bookstore housed on campus (Anne-Marie’s short but action packed visit provided him with a way to get all his new books home).
It certainly wasn’t all work and no play for us though – in June we had the opportunity to hire a car and travel around BC for a week. We spent the first couple of days staying at a holiday home belonging to a family of the one of the staff at A Rocha. Then we headed east into a desert area called the Okanagan. There we stayed with a former intern from the centre who now works in a Rattle Snake Recovery program. She took us out to hunt for the snakes with a quick safety briefing (look out for falling rocks, poison ivy, and hidden snakes.) Using a radio telemetry receiver, we managed to find a couple transmitter-tagged rattle
snakes hidden under piles of rocks.
The next day we headed north up to the Rockies. It was great being able to drive into campsites and pitch our tents in spots with stunning views of the mountains. We were keen to do a 2 night hike but it was pretty early in the season and most back country sites were still closed due to snow. But we managed to find a hike that was open in Banff National Park. A 5½ hour walk took us into a simple campsite next to a frozen lake. We had to spend a fair bit of time hanging out in the tent trying to keep dry, and we were very diligent to keep our campsite free of bear-attracting food scraps. All our food could be hung in bags high up in the trees that were hauled up by a pulley system. The views and wildlife we loved, Camping in Yoho National Park the threat of bears and lack of camping huts made me miss NZ hiking. Then we finished our holiday by heading to Banff, a tourist mecca just inside the state of Alberta. The hotel, the roof top spa, the specialty shops were all welcome luxuries after roughing it in a tent, so it was a good way to end the holiday before making the 10 hour drive back to the centre the following day.
Camping at Yoho National Park
We come away from our time at the centre greatly enriched. One area in particular is our relationship to food. Living on an organic, sustainable farm, watching documentaries and enjoying table fellowship have all challenged our view of food. We have come away with a greater appreciation of God's role as provider, greater respect for lives of the creatures that feed us and realisation that food is more than just nutrients. It holds the power to draw us to thankfulness, to create community and provide much joy and celebration rather than distancing us from creation and damaging ourselves and the earth as so much 'food' does today. Our experiences of living more simply and in community have also shaped us for how we want to live in the future.
We have a few weeks now on the other side of the continent visiting friends in Toronto and New York before heading to Kenya via the UK. We are very thankful to God for all that we experienced in Canada and look forward to moving to the whole new world that is Africa.
Because of Him,
Anna and Lynton Baird
PS. You can follow us at our blog and see photos of the trip on flickr:
http://www.lyntonandanna.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyntonandanna
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