Back in grade six, nearly 30 years ago Mrs.Ritter taught our class about Chaim Nachman Bialik. Each student was given a magazine called Daf La’Talmid for Jewish children from some far off country called South Africa. This magazine had an informative article on this Hebrew Poet Laureate. And so we learned. However…I learned much more…
Elsewhere in this magazine was a column for children to request pen-pals. I eagerly wrote off telling of myself and my life in Winnipeg, hoping some other little girl in the other end of the world would like to be my pen-friend. How fortunate that Gaynor, Rivka, and Maureen, wrote back and we continued our friendship through junior and senior high school. Through these letters, in a time before videos, computers and at least my opportunity to travel, I learned so much – about the lives of other children in the world, about a different culture, and about the realities of apartheid.
Somehow through this growing friendship, passion for writing letters, interest in the world, and desire to assert my independence from my family, I chose to take a year off before university, and travel off to South Africa to see for myself all that I had imagined all these years.
So on January 6, 1982, my fellow Peretz school classmate Darlene and I said good-bye to our families, all that was familiar, and the freezing Winnipeg winter to a sweltering hot African summer and a wonderful adventure.
It was three months of amazing travel. The contrast of beautiful beaches, breathtaking scenery, vineyards, camping, Sun City, game parks, romance, independence, and overwhelming hospitality, contrasted with our limited views of apartheid, poverty, and such an intense discrimination and hatred that we struggled to understand. It was an education that you could never receive in a book.
I thought back at the time how fortunate I was for the circumstances that lead me to this time and opportunity. How a teacher doing her job lead to so much more…and there is more.
Amidst tears of good-bye, my pen-pals and I vowed we would somehow see each other again. It seemed so unreal at that time.
But…two years later found Rivka working as an au pair in Europe and Gaynor and I planning to travel to Europe together. Looking back it seemed so simple to do. And so there was another summer of beautiful memories to cement our friendship, as together we learned more about the diversity of the world.
Again more tearful good-byes, as I returned to Winnipeg, Rivka to Cape Town, and Gaynor decided to work as an au pair in New York. Her wonderful New York family really loved her and when it was time for Gaynor to move on they wondered if perhaps she could arrange for another South African girl to take her place. Gaynor wrote a letter to her old high school in hopes that a graduating girl might want to take up this opportunity. Well, Rivka’s mother was a teacher at this school, and she told Rivka of this opportunity, and next thing you know Rivka of all the girls in Cape Town, is in New York.
Oh wonderful, another opportunity for this nice girl from the North End (Me) to travel to another exciting city, and to catch up on a friendship.
Then…it so happened that the father in this family was an immigration lawyer, and while times in South Africa were very uncertain and so many young people were leaving the country, this was an opportunity for Rivka. AND as it had been many years since Rivka had seen her (widowed) mother, her mother traveled to New York for a visit. Well in this continued string of amazing events, the mother met a man, fell in love, got married and moved to America as well.
Rivka later moved to Louisville, Kentucky which resulted in another holiday for me, but I’m sad to say that in the last few years we have lost touch.
Gaynor and her husband, to make a long story short, they ended up immigrating to Canada, and stayed with us for a month (in Calgary) upon their arrival. We both have 9 year old daughters, and as they now live in another city perhaps our daughters will one day be pen-friends too!
But there’s more….
About five years ago I was working at Jewish Family Service, spending half my days speaking in Yiddish to the seniors I was working with as a social worker. At times I would again reflect on my thanks for my Yiddish education that allowed me to connect with a generation of stories and experience that we are so quickly losing. Well, one day the phone rang, and it was Maureen who I had also lost touch with through her many moves. Circumstances had led her to Calgary, and wouldn’t you know, she just bought a house two blocks away from ours. I wasn’t listed in the phonebook, but she found my name on a posting I wrote for work that was on the synagogue bulletin board. Small world! Again our children played with each other, and another friendship was rekindled!
Who needs fiction? I love the coincidences and the intertwining of life. Mrs. Ritter, thank you so much for the Daf LaTalmid, which I still have! I have to be truthful that I do not remember what you taught us about Chaim Nachman Bialik, but I have learned and experienced so much because of the opportunity you handed me that has enriched my life.