A garden story

In the collective garden. I try to plant tomato plants while keeping an eye on my son, who runs up and down the aisles. A- is weeding down at the bottom. Ah-, M- and G- haven't arrived yet. J- comes up with the shopping cart full of tools and plants. It is hot and windy. My son has dropped his cashews on the ground and is picking them up with dirty fingers.

A white, French-Canadian woman comes up to the garden. She seems to know many of the members. She smokes a cigarette and has a loud voice. She is looking for Ah- and says she will wait until he arrives. In the meantime, she approaches A-, who has come up to the fence. Cigarette starts telling A- about a research project happening at UdeM, something to do with women from different cultural communities and their food habits, she says. You get a basket of free food, she says, selling the project. There are already women from South Asia and the Middle East, Cigarette continues, we need women from other areas. You're Haitian, right, she asks A-. I am from Burundi, says A-.

I am cringing inwardly as I shove basil into the soil.

Oooh, continues Cigarette, Africa! That's far. She goes on in this vein for a while. I am so offended that I stop listening. That is ok, though, because I have been ignored completely. Too white, I guess.

I swear to myself that when I go back to work, I will not be like Cigarette. I will not pigeonhole people. I will not guess Haiti when it's Burundi. I will not offer people to be part of research studies because I would never want to be part of some research project where free food is seen to be an acceptable and respectful compensation.

People are not their cultural identities. People are not poverty.

I dislike Cigarette. Although I have not smoked in years, there is always a part of me that could.