The Journey of a Friendly Giant

“You don’t look like you’ve had a baby.” I get that line a lot. I know it’s meant as a complement, but I always feel a bit insulted. It makes me wonder what is thought about women that don’t lose the pregnancy weight? That are curvier than me, or don’t have time to workout because they are too busy taking care of their high-needs baby? It also sort of undermines all of the hard work that I’ve put in to achieve my own goals. I’m sure you will notice that based on many of my posts; but What I struggle with most is being openly over-criticized during the process of motherhood. Parenting is hard enough as it is without getting constantly judged by every Jane, Dick and Joe that crosses your path. I also wonder what that says to them about the quality of my parenting? Does it suggest that I am a good parent or a bad one? The way that I look should have nothing to do with that information, people should instead gauge how well I’m doing, and how well any mother is doing based on how happy,heal...

"So how's daycare going?" When I say ‘okay’… what I really want to say is that it’s not that great.  Daycare isn't getting easier for me, but it is getting easier for him (apparently). He still screams "MAMA!" every morning with big tear drops streaming down his face. It still crushes my heart every morning, (how can it not?...)  I'm not numb to his crying yet (What If I never am?)....  Plus I'm still breastfeeding so physiologically, and quite literally… I'm a hot mess. This is the beginning of week three, and he has now started crying for the entire 20-minute car ride to daycare. He then proceeds to fight me when I try to take him out of the car seat when we arrive. He's strong too! He has ripped a blouse and a necklace almost effortlessly because he didn't want to let go of me when I tried handing him off to the daycare attendants. He also head-butted one of them right in the mouth, taking her by surprise and frankly,...

The shortage of landfill space across the globe has made waste an important issue that every nation has to deal with. In Canada, recycling is promoted as way to reduce waste and contribute to a greener planet. I’ve always been a fan of recycling; it even became second nature to me. When I have garbage, I’m used to sorting it and placing it in the recycling box. But to my surprise, my apartment here in Ecuador didn't have one. When I asked my roommate why he didn't recycle, his answer was “nobody recycles at home Cassie, that's something some people do at work .” I convinced myself that his opinion could be the exception, and decided to ask more people. By reading my blogs one may gather that I'm a very curious person. I like to know why , things are the way that they are, and am never scared to ask. That's one of the reasons I chose international development as a field of work, because I learned some reasons “ why ” the world was the way that it was, and I wanted...

In my Dynamic blog post I spoke about an interactive activity that I was asked to prepare for a group of kids from an environmental club of a nearby community. Since then, thanks to the two supervisors that were also present during the activity, I’ve been asked to do more dynamic workshops three times after that. Each time just as rewarding and inspiring as the first time. Two of the administrators of the programs all recommended and shared my “ tree game ” to other teachers and community members. One of the groups even recorded the entire thing for guidance on how to facilitate the activity in the future. I didn’t blog about them all to not be overly repetitive, however, the most recent event was very different.  This happened about a week and a half ago, in a small beach community named Anconcito that’s located about 2 hours away from Guayaquil. This community, like many others surrounding it, had no street signs, no banks, no clinics, and no hospitals. It did have markets, sm...