The Perks of Protesting
Ordinary Canadians provided the Nicholas Street truckers with a woodstove, laundry service, pans of home-cooked Italian food, and endless praise.
Part 1: Time to Move On! Â
Sheldon livestreamed numerous short videos while he was in Ottawa. In one, a woman named Josie explains that she and her husband are pensioners. She then hands Sheldon hundreds of dollars in cash to purchase the woodstove. Recalling this later, he says,
That was a blessing, all on its own. This elderly couple showed up in our trailer. And they're like, 'We're here to support you. What do you need? How can we help?'
And we're like, 'No, no, it's OK.'
'No, we need to help you.' They were adamant about this.
I'm like, 'OK, you want to help? Well, we need a wood stove.'
They said, 'What's it going to cost?' I think we'd found one for five hundred bucks online someplace. This lady pulls out an envelope and gives me six or seven hundred dollars cash. And she says, 'We do not want you to leave.' My God.  Â
In a second video, a young Asian woman is delivering a shopping bag of clean laundry. She explains that she was born and raised in South Korea, but now lives thirty minutes west of Ottawa. We are helping "the wonderful truckers around the city," she says. "We've met really nice people, they're really friendly, they truly represent what I know is Canadian."
She has been visiting the protest every other day, she says, "because my heart is here." In her opinion, the fastest way to get the truckers to go home is for "high officials to come out and talk to you." It's important, she says, that the protesters' concerns be heard.
In three videos recorded on different days, we see banquet-sized foil pans of home cooked food being delivered by Lidia, Maria, and Rosa. There's lasagna, two kinds of meatballs, pickled cabbage coleslaw, steamed broccoli, green salad, potatoes with butter and fresh dill. There's beef tenderloin and baked apple dessert. They "fed us like kings," Sheldon remembers. "Twice a week they'd come by and feed us this big meal. They were young, in their early to mid-thirties. And their moms, the grandmas, would be cooking like crazy at home. We called them the Italian ladies, and boy oh boy were they ever fantastic."
French Canadians also dropped by the Nicholas Street trucks. In a video recorded on the first Wednesday of the protest a smiling, middle-aged francophone couple from Mont-Tremblant, Quebec is standing on the sidewalk beside the parked trucks. Home is a two-hour drive away, and they came for the day, the man explains.
Sheldon tells them he's "making a video for my friends back home" in Manitoba. Would they like to say anything? The man replies, "Absolutely. First, thank you. Congratulations - and we love you, thank you very much." Smiling broadly, his wife says everyone just wants things to go back to normal, for the country "to be Canada, again."
In another video dated two days later, Sheldon introduces his viewers to a second Quebec couple. Inside the trailer, the man says his name is Eric. Looking straight into the camera he delivers a fluid, 50-second statement entirely in French. Throwing his arm around Eric's shoulder, Sheldon says, "I don't know what he said," but he's sure it's something good. Eric's wife contributes a few words of her own: "Merci beaucoup."
A friend of Sheldon's passes along a translation a few hours later on social media. This couple lives "200 kms away in Quebec," she explains. They'd joined the Convoy the previous Saturday to support the truckers fighting for their freedom, and have now returned to Ottawa for the second weekend. "He said he brought wood for you guys. He said you should all be thanked for doing this for Canadians."
next installment: Block Captain
Sigh, what a beautiful thing, what an amazing time. We need to feed our hearts with your reports, Donna, to prepare for what is coming. United we stand.
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