Ottawa Insanity

I have a love-hate relationship with Ottawa. When the tulips bloom on a sunny day in early May, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather live. Same in October when the autumn leaves turn all shades of crimson and gold.

Then there's winter. Ottawa becomes hell on earth. Constant snow alternating with freezing rain. Traffic slows to a crawl and streets are a slushy, icy mess to walk in as you scramble and slide over frozen slush banks. Edmonton was much colder, but at least it was a DRY cold.

And then there's work. I work with a great bunch of people on Parliament Hill, and every time I walk down the halls of the Centre Block I think what a privilege it is to work in the heart of Canadian democracy among the historic institutions of our nation.

But it can be insane, and recent weeks in our nation's capital have been exactly that. After the stress of an election followed by other instability, I need to get away. So I cashed in my Air Miles from several years of shopping, and plan to spend a month in Belize and Guatemala, escaping the Ottawa Insanity. On Friday I fly to Cancun, and hopefully the next morning I'll catch buses over the border into Belize. The idea of a shopping centre resort like Cancun has no appeal to me, but it's the closest to Guatemala that my Air Miles could get me.

Belize is the only country of Central America I've never been to. It's more Caribbean than Central American, an English-speaking former British colony once known as British Honduras. It's a mixture of cultures -- Black Caribbean, Mayan, East Indian, and even a handful of Mennonites, some of Canadian origin. Geographically, it combines coral reefs with jungles dotted with Mayan temples.

I have been to Guatemala several times, the longest in 1993, when I studied Spanish through a one-on-one immersion program in Antigua, staying with a family. Guatemala is the most indigenous of the Central American countries, and the many Mayan cultures thrive today with people who are among the most colourfully dressed in the world. Guatemala has a tragic history, marked by human exploitation and culminating in the civil war and massacres that peaked in the 1980s. In fact, on my trip in 1993, I was there during the collapse of a dictatorship in a failed "autogolpe" or "self coup" that bore a striking resemblance to certain recent events in Ottawa. Will Stephen Harper, like General Serrano, be swept away in disgrace in a wave of public disgust?

A couple years ago I took a picture in Ogdensburg, New York, that I keep on my wall to remind me never to take Ottawa too seriously. It has a sign that reads: "Bridge to Canada Psychiatic Center" and beside that is another sign showing a bridge that says: "Ottawa - Canada's Capital". The signs say it all! Actually, I love the madness, but only for so long at a time.