The sun is shining in St. John’s!

The sun is shining in St. John’s! That’s literal and figurative. Yes, the sun is actually shining, and I am sitting outside in a little garden adjoining the hospital. It is actually a great space, terraced down so that you are out of view of parking lots and hospital buildings, but still absorbing the shining sun. We got some good news today too, and that makes the shining sun all the more bright (augh, I am resorting to clichés to describe things…it is high time we spring Anouk from the hospital and get back to the outdoors for some slightly more inspired writing). The graft donor site is on the mend, and the burn sites that received the graft appear to have accepted it 100%. It looks really good, even to me, and I am clearly the emotional one in the bunch. In an hour or so, Anouk is getting fitted for a pressure dressing which, according to our doctor, will help minimize scarring. Actually, she also told us that the jury is still out in the medical community as to their effectiveness but they certainly can’t hurt, and in her experience she feels they work, so why not? Our docs here haven’t failed us so far, so we might as well keep trusting. It might take some days (even maybe weeks) to get the dressing ready, so we don’t know yet how much longer we are hospital bound, but the good news (ok, let’s be honest, the FANTASTIC news) is that this is the first time anyone has actually said to us that they are trying to get us out of here! Sure, we want to stay as long as we need to for the little one, but I am going a bit batty between four white walls.

Fortunately, we’ve had some great diversions lately. A recent highlight was a visit from my parents, Anouk’s Bonnemamy et Bonpapa. Anouk recognized them from Christmas and fell right into swing hanging out with the both of them. She gave her Bonpapa a run for his money one day as he took charge of chasing her in the grocery store while I shopped. He declared her a smart cookie who quickly understood the meaning of “pas toucher” (don’t touch) and actually obeyed. And her Bonnemamy gave her a goldmine of happiness by simply chatting with her and listening to her chat back. In seemed like in their short five-day visit, Anouk’s understanding of French quadrupled!

Which leads me to the next latest diversion. I would never wish a hospital stay on anyone but am admittedly a bit glad that a little French boy named Elouan landed up here. Our new ward neighbor and his family are from France, St. Pierre et Miquelon, to be specific, which is the last remaining bit of the French empire in the New World, located just a ferry ride away from Newfoundland. St. John’s is the closest big hospital for the 7000 or so residents of la petite patrimone. And so, Anouk, Elouan and his family and I have taken to visiting, chatting in French, and swapping Asterix and Marie-Claire (those who might care know what I am talking about; for the rest of you, Asterix is a famous bande dessinee—or comic book—and the second one is a magazine). Anouk keeps steeling Elouan’s balloons so she is gaining the reputation of chipie. This word (that I have not heard since my days at the French school) is reserved for girls and means something like “you sweet but mischievous little bird.” How fitting.

And finally, we had some fantastic family medicine yesterday in the form of a boat ride! Anouk had another get-out-of-jail free pass and it was sunny (oui, Papa et Mamy, il y a VRAIMANT parfois du soleil ici!) so we went to the waterfront to see if there was a way to get out on the water. If there is one thing that brings a smile to my face, it is time on the water. And so we bought a couple tickets for a boat ride which took us down to the harbor, out the narrows, and into the wide open Atlantic. The icebergs were gone, but we saw a few Minke Whales, and a very cool colony of Black-legged Kittiwakes, known locally as "tickle-asses" because they fly so close together, it looks like one bird is tickling the ass of the one in front!

Once you are out of the harbor, it is uncanny how quickly the urbanity of St. John’s disappears. It looked like a totally undeveloped shoreline. I couldn’t help but imagine this waterway back in the great age of sail, when the schooner fleet came back to port with hulls full of fish (in Newfoundland, fish = cod, all other species are named specifically) or seal pelt. What a sight that must have been. I will spare the name of the company who took us out because the interpretation was a bit too sparse for our liking (hard to please a couple of naturalists on someone else’s boat I guess) but as Rich said, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 9, just getting out on the water merits a nine!

And I came to a really useful conclusion related to my sabbatical project on this boat ride: I am not so much evaluating the specifics of the tourism industry and its content delivery, but more evaluating the role of tourism in helping people move forward since the cod collapse. The two themes are linked but separate and this realization enabled me to relax and have a great conversation with the captain, a former fisherman. For him, obviously, tourism has had a positive impact: he has work and his work keeps him on the water. Yesterday, the sun was shining on the water in Newfoundland, and that is a good thing for everybody.