Inside the Kids' Tent
A warming station for the little ones; overflowing with donations.
Part 1: The Hope and the Light
After the first bouncy castle weekend, Bianca continued to care for the kids. In her words, "It's not just I make bouncy castle and that's it. No, no it's really a process." A lot of things, she says, happened during those three weeks.
While the children frolicked, a banquet table she'd set up outdoors displayed donated goods. Everything was free for the taking. "We have the blanket, the hot pad, the toothpaste," she remembers. "We have the dog food, the diaper, the Wet One. Really, it's ridiculous" how much.
"A lot of people give me the beautiful bag," she continues. "Inside it's crayons and the colouring book. So many people give me, and it's all from the heart." Families frequently brought food to share. "Sometime it's cookie, sometime it's the sandwich, sometime it's the fresh pizza. You have a lot of family make just for the Convoy. There's no hate here, it's just love."
In addition to traveling back and forth to her home every few days to fetch additional supplies and donations, Bianca - who'd been making do with a small storage tent - arranged for a larger structure. Equivalent in size to a four-vehicle car port, she'd rented it from a Gatineau-based company that provides installation.
The challenging part was getting it into position. During the first week, the police had allowed delivery access to Wellington Street via the lane that was being kept open for emergency vehicles. After they shut off that access, everything had to be moved the old-fashioned way, by human exertion.
Bianca says it was never clear which activities were forbidden and which were permitted. "It depend on the day, the night, the hour," she explains. "It's not the same police." Early attempts to unload her marquee tent were stymied, she says, to the point where the delivery team was threatened with arrest. That's when a local resident advised her to set up overnight, during police shift change. Once this was accomplished, the tent had to be moved down the street surreptitiously, so as not to attract the attention of the cops.
"We need maybe twenty people inside," she remembers. "Each hour in the night," the tent was shifted one meter. Finally, it arrived where it needed to be. A Canadian flag and a red heart were attached to the exterior. So was a large sign, bearing the blue and white fleur-de-lis of the Quebec flag. Translated into English, the hand-written text read: "Team Quebec. Courtesy of the people. Thank you to all!!!"
Inside, the tent was divided in two. Many of the straw bales became benches. Using money pressed into her hands or deposited in a donation box, Bianca purchased heaters that could be hung high, safely out of harm's way. Voila! The tent was now a warming station for the little ones.
More banquet tables were acquired, which were soon covered with donated drinking boxes, granola bars, fruit cups, and story books. Eventually, Bianca added her own family's plastic camping toilet, positioning it behind a curtain in a corner. Desperate calls of nature could now be accommodated.
At the beginning, she thinks she invested between four and five thousand dollars of her own money. As cash donations continued to flow, the possibilities expanded. Confident that the upcoming weekend - February 12th to 13th - would be well attended, she gathered together a new group of bouncy castles. She rented a popcorn machine and a cotton candy machine. She arranged for face painters and street performers. There was a clown, someone in a snowman costume, and someone else in a gingerbread costume. Balloons were inflated and twisted into animal shapes.
Earlier, a DJ had set up near her, but she wasn't fond of his music. "I know if I want people to feel good high energy music, it's better," she explains. While walking around, she'd met another DJ, whom she describes as a sweetheart of a young man from Vancouver. Taking his phone number, she followed up later.
"He tell me what he need for the next weekend: 'We need the speaker. If you want, I bring. But we need to pay.' I pay, and he bring all the system. And the next weekend he make the big party. And seriously, it's just amazing. I take the video and you see all the smiles - it's just happy people."
Once again, city councillor Diane Deans was outraged. In addition to the bouncy castles, two young francophone men had inflated a hot tub on the street, filled it with steaming water, and laughingly employed plastic trucks as bath toys.
"I've had it," Ms Deans told a CBC television personality. "I was just aghast this weekend that, you know, there's a bouncy castle and there's a hot tub. David, I wanted to go up there and poke that hot tub myself, and let the water flow out of it, and unplug that damn bouncy castle."
How dare anyone be playful as well as peaceful while protesting the government. Not for nothing is Ottawa called the city that fun forgot.
next installment: Snipers on the Rooftops