#fmm fire

There was this quote, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” that really spoke to me. And that’s what inspired my summer. I wanted to put myself WAY out there. As many people do, I have a daily routine. Wake up, go to work, study, eat. It’s very safe, very nice and very comfortable.

I wanted to be challenged.

So.

Right now, I work as an intern by day and a volunteer coordinator by night. And the organization that I work with supports evacuees from Fort McMurray- a town in northern Alberta (the province from which I am from) which was completely evacuated due to the giant wildfire. Over the last month, I’ve met and talked to so many different people and their stories have really had an impact on me. (I’m not sure what I’m allowed to share publicly on a post, but if you want to hear some stories, message me and you’ll never get me to stop talking.) I’ve been in the middle of this incident for a while now. A lot of my friends are engineers who do their co-op terms in the oilsands- luckily everyone got out and they’re carrying out their co-ops elsewhere. My uncle was one of the techs who went in to check on hospital equipment during the evac. It’s been a wild ride.

People have been allowed to return to Fort McMurray since June 1 but many people have chosen not to. It is ill advised for kids to return due to heavy metals and asbestos in the air from old burned down houses. The fire is still going but the rebuilding process has already begun.

And so. The volunteer coordinator up there is heading home and apparently I’m a replacement? Me? ??? There’s like ash sifting and debris removal and supply warehouse stuff to do. *sigh* I’m not a Certified Adult™️. But this is something that i have wanted to do since I heard about the fire so as much as I hate it, I’ll put on my Sort of Certified Adult Shoes™️ and do what I set out to do this summer. Be uncomfortable.

I will be firing up the ol’ queue for the week that I am away so that you are not completely without me. I don’t know the status of wifi there so I’m unsure if I’ll even be able to do any updates- aside from people I can text because I do have my phone on me, but I don’t have data so :< . I will be able to tweet some stuff because of Twitter SMS and if you tag me at asmolbear on there I should get notified? Don’t expect much from me though, Twitter SMS is terrible. 

(Let’s be honest. This is sort of surreal and I am more than a little bit scared. Super excited! Sorta scared. Scarecited. Am I in over my head? Yeah. A little. A lottle. Yeah.)

So friends! All I ask of you is to keep the people of Fort Mac in your thoughts and prayers! (You can think of this smol bear too, I’m sure I’ll need it...ahahaha) Send some good vibes this way! (if they can put out the fire soon I’m sure my parents will be much more comfortable about me going. But apparently my uncomfortability thing does not exempt people around me :D)

See you in a week!