I think I said I would tell the story that leads up to all this. I'll try to be brief, there's a long history here.
It started when Greg Krueger went to Rwanda in 92, got Africa fever and contaminated me with it. Although I am obsessed with travelling anyway, didn't need much of a push there. I got into a program at York University after I graduated from Waterloo. It was called Leadership Skills Abroad and included an 8-month work placement overseas. I didn't really qualify as I didn't have a master's in anything but I guess my co-op experience (11 terms!!) had them interested. My reference embellished a number of things including my ability at school and my ability to speak french (he said I was bilingual from speaking it at home with my parents - I NEVER said that so I have no idea why he did). So yes, I got in on a lie.
I went to Burkina on Hallowe'en 1997. I was supposed to work at the UN office, working on desertification but that office wasn't doing anything so they moved me to the Burkina Ministry of Environment in Environmental Impact Assessment. I arrived November 1 at 7PM local time, it was 38 oC and I could not understand a word anyone was saying. (in my defense, my francophone roommate was having some challenges as well). This was a regular problem and I embarassed myself fully in the first few weeks. I got a teacher to give me lessons 3 times a week and was going fairly well by Christmas.
November 7 we (all Canadians) were invited to the Ambassador's house as he was new and this is tradition. I arrived and met 2 tall blond boys, who actually were anglophones and made friends. One was Loren, the other was his brother Derek. They introduced me to their parents. Loren and I spent a lot of time together, talking, going out etc. By Christmas we were dating officially and in January we did a couple trips together. We started discussing the idea of getting married by end January. At that time, I was 28 and he was 20. We had a lot of fights but always seemed to resolve them.
I left in August 1998 to come back to Canada for my sister's wedding. I worked for several months to make enough to go back but wasn't sure where Loren and I had left things so only planned to go for a month in March 1999. When I arrived, Loren seemed less than happy to see me but we sorted things out. Unfortunately I left again and we didn't really keep in touch.
Fast forward to 2000. I started to plan to move again - to Vancouver this time. I went for a job and house hunting trip in July and visited with Loren's family there - not realizing that Loren had recently arrived there. I moved to Vancouver in September 2000 and we got ahem re-aquainted. He was working in California and going back and forth so we spent some time together but mostly apart. He decided to go back to Africa in May 2001. I debated going with him but decided to stay and continue developing my career. I was also planning a world tour - a one year sabbatical to travel the world. And well of course that never happened.
Just a few weeks after he left, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn't contact him as the only emails and phone numbers I had were for his parents. I finally wrote him a letter and he didn't receive it and get in touch with me until I was over 5 months pregnant. That was a bad time for me, I was pregnant, alone, my grandmother died, I was laid off from my job, 9/11 happened and I lost half my investments. I moved back to Toronto in November and lived with my mom for nearly 2 years while I waited for my house to be built. Ben was born in January 2002, Loren and his mom came to visit for a month. We never really spoke about what to do, it was a difficult time. Then he left and we didn't speak for a long time. He received pictures and such from me through his parents who passed through occasionally. I received very occasional phone calls from him. Until 2007 when Ben started asking about his dad.
Loren and I talked about my bringing Ben to visit Burkina, but I wanted Loren to come here first thinking that a trip to Burkina would be hard enough for Ben without the added pressure of meeting his father for the first time. So Loren and his mom visited in October 2007. It was awkward and challenging for all of us. Loren seemed very distant from me, but tried hard to be with Ben. Loren's departure was really hard on Ben. But knowing we were going to visit seemed to help.
Not nice to leave it here but I just wrote a whole decade of info. I will write about the last 18 months later. I'm tired - it's been a long 12 years!! I will get back to the last bit a little later.
It started when Greg Krueger went to Rwanda in 92, got Africa fever and contaminated me with it. Although I am obsessed with travelling anyway, didn't need much of a push there. I got into a program at York University after I graduated from Waterloo. It was called Leadership Skills Abroad and included an 8-month work placement overseas. I didn't really qualify as I didn't have a master's in anything but I guess my co-op experience (11 terms!!) had them interested. My reference embellished a number of things including my ability at school and my ability to speak french (he said I was bilingual from speaking it at home with my parents - I NEVER said that so I have no idea why he did). So yes, I got in on a lie.
I went to Burkina on Hallowe'en 1997. I was supposed to work at the UN office, working on desertification but that office wasn't doing anything so they moved me to the Burkina Ministry of Environment in Environmental Impact Assessment. I arrived November 1 at 7PM local time, it was 38 oC and I could not understand a word anyone was saying. (in my defense, my francophone roommate was having some challenges as well). This was a regular problem and I embarassed myself fully in the first few weeks. I got a teacher to give me lessons 3 times a week and was going fairly well by Christmas.
November 7 we (all Canadians) were invited to the Ambassador's house as he was new and this is tradition. I arrived and met 2 tall blond boys, who actually were anglophones and made friends. One was Loren, the other was his brother Derek. They introduced me to their parents. Loren and I spent a lot of time together, talking, going out etc. By Christmas we were dating officially and in January we did a couple trips together. We started discussing the idea of getting married by end January. At that time, I was 28 and he was 20. We had a lot of fights but always seemed to resolve them.
I left in August 1998 to come back to Canada for my sister's wedding. I worked for several months to make enough to go back but wasn't sure where Loren and I had left things so only planned to go for a month in March 1999. When I arrived, Loren seemed less than happy to see me but we sorted things out. Unfortunately I left again and we didn't really keep in touch.
Fast forward to 2000. I started to plan to move again - to Vancouver this time. I went for a job and house hunting trip in July and visited with Loren's family there - not realizing that Loren had recently arrived there. I moved to Vancouver in September 2000 and we got ahem re-aquainted. He was working in California and going back and forth so we spent some time together but mostly apart. He decided to go back to Africa in May 2001. I debated going with him but decided to stay and continue developing my career. I was also planning a world tour - a one year sabbatical to travel the world. And well of course that never happened.
Just a few weeks after he left, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn't contact him as the only emails and phone numbers I had were for his parents. I finally wrote him a letter and he didn't receive it and get in touch with me until I was over 5 months pregnant. That was a bad time for me, I was pregnant, alone, my grandmother died, I was laid off from my job, 9/11 happened and I lost half my investments. I moved back to Toronto in November and lived with my mom for nearly 2 years while I waited for my house to be built. Ben was born in January 2002, Loren and his mom came to visit for a month. We never really spoke about what to do, it was a difficult time. Then he left and we didn't speak for a long time. He received pictures and such from me through his parents who passed through occasionally. I received very occasional phone calls from him. Until 2007 when Ben started asking about his dad.
Loren and I talked about my bringing Ben to visit Burkina, but I wanted Loren to come here first thinking that a trip to Burkina would be hard enough for Ben without the added pressure of meeting his father for the first time. So Loren and his mom visited in October 2007. It was awkward and challenging for all of us. Loren seemed very distant from me, but tried hard to be with Ben. Loren's departure was really hard on Ben. But knowing we were going to visit seemed to help.
Not nice to leave it here but I just wrote a whole decade of info. I will write about the last 18 months later. I'm tired - it's been a long 12 years!! I will get back to the last bit a little later.
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