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The International
Child and Youth
Care Network
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The International
Child and Youth
Care Network
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POSTCARD FROM LEON FULCHER Happy New Year 2005! Having just returned from a week of family time in Scotland, I’m acutely aware of the fact that this month’s Postcard is being written on Hogmanay – that ancient end of year celebration that the Scots find even more meaningful than Christmas. It’s not to be rude about the Scots and their religious commitments to the meaning of Christmas. On the contrary, few realize that Christmas celebrations were abolished there during the 16th Century as part of the Scottish Reformation and that continued to be the case for nearly 400 years! Thus Hogmanay and the beginning of a New Year are widely celebrated by the Scots, highlighting ancient links with the Vikings. Auld Lang Syne is sung and tradition has it that your New Year will be a prosperous one if shortly after midnight a ‘tall dark stranger’ appears at your door ‘first footing’ with a lump of coal for the fire and something to eat offering good will. In return you offer a dram of the amber liquid and exchange good wishes for the coming year. Being neither tall nor dark, (a blonde visitor of the Viking variety was not a very good omen!) I guess you’ll just have to accept my humble good wishes for 2005 and remember that we were toasting absent friends while camping with new friends in the desert in Oman.
2004 presented many challenges, right up to the last week with the greatest natural disaster in recent history killing or maiming nearly a quarter of a million people living on the rim of the Indian ocean. As child and youth care workers, I wonder what lessons we might learn from those cataclysmic events? In the Gulf News I was reading an article released by the Associated Press drawing attention to the way that wildlife officials in Sri Lanka were surprised to find no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend’s massive tsunami – indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground. Then I have been struck by the accounts of survivors who said they had noticed how the ocean water had ‘changed’ prompting them to move back away from the seashore. Those who had no prior warning or who didn’t pay attention while basking in the sunshine of paradise rarely survived. Some were said to have passively accepted their fate while others struggled against the odds – surviving to tell of encounters with nature’s awesome spectacle called tsunami.
It made me think how often do we in child and youth care work pay close attention to subtle changes to the way the water is looking or the sounds of silence that precede a cataclysmic event? How alert are we to the possibilities and what might be starting to unfold? Or are we frequently bowled over by the unexpected? Kids aren’t like a tsunami wave but they do get churned up by incredible emotions – both joyous and scary – that impact their behaviours sometimes in ways we least expect. As child and youth care workers we can choose to be reactive or proactive, to be responsive to developmental needs or controlling after the waves have already started rolling in.
I hope 2005 will see us ever mindful of the Scouting motto ‘Be Prepared’. May you seek after peace and be alert to the sights and sounds of trouble brewing – while there is time for pro-active responses. May the Peace be upon you and yours in the weeks ahead. And remember, a kind word and a smile can often work miracles! __ And while you're here, a little fun. See what you make of this contemporary dialogue in ... well, I'll leave that to you. Let me know if you recognise the language — and the meaning! Peoples’ Palace Soup Kitchen, Or ‘Sook It An See’ Andy: Haud oan to me Jamie. Its oor turn soon. The line is gettin near the urn. Jamie: How in the name O the wee man am I supposed to staun here O night wi this damned lumbago, nea wunder am O’ humpty backit. Andy: Ah ken whit ye mean but it will be worth it once we’re fed and hae a good warm shower. Yer in Cubicle Number 17c, righkt next tae me Jamie. Jamie: Where did ye get the entry money Andy? Oh, grab twa rolls fur me. That’s a flim note you could have used yourself? Oh no! It’s that torn faced "small portions’’ sergeant Eric, dishing oot the soup the nihkt. "Band sergeant’’!! my erse! Andy: Here’s yur rolls. I goa’t the spondoolicks from that fancy bistro near the theatre, if I promised tae move along. Eye that Derrick gets oan my goat as weel. "Lord of the ladle’’ – he wus just a bag monkey on the coal before he joined the Sally Anne. Jamie: Ah wish they widnea hae this hall so hoat! Puts a righkt sweat o’n yae, get’s me all clammy, nae wunder we all take the chills, oh dinnae look noo Andy! It’s Yo Yo knickers Tilli Dowd cummin oor way wi her damn candles, as if we dinnea ken O’ready that when they go oot, it’s time for the off. Andy: Oh aye. I see her noo creepin up tae us. The professional virgin O the kirkgate brigade. Them rickits O hers, ye could drive a ker’t through wi oot touching the sides. The way the candles are shooglin; she has the DT’s the nihkt. Jamie: Help ma boab, lassie!! Whit are ye doing? Yu’v dripped candle wax aw doon the back O ma neck. Eye, an ye can take that glackit look aff yur coupon! Don’t try to kid a kidder. Tilli: Well I guess that’s time fur the soap a'n the rope then boys? An a didnea spill it oan purpose, it’s burning the buggery oot O ma haun’s as weel. Andy: Even though it’s nane O yur business, but we’re not oan the rope the nighkt. We have cubicles – Aw cosy an lying doon. Tilli: Ah heard yea haud a bit O dosh come yur way boys! Me no guid enough tea share a bottle wi these days? I’m aff then! I kin tell whin I’m nea wanted; I just hope yur next shites a hedgehog. Jamie: Ah ken fine she spilled that wax doon ma coat Andy, dea yae think it’s cause we had a wee swallie afor we came in? Andy: Yae could be righkt Jamie; maybe she wanted us to slip her a can O white lightning! But we ken better ma old mucker, as they say the road of excess leads to the path of wisdom.
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