Ginta — The making of a community: stories from here and there

Daniela Ginta writes for the Armchair Mayor News on Fridays.

COLUMN — We’ve always been lucky neighbour-wise; or lucky enough to have a few good ones that made the experience worthwhile. Having had to move three times in the last two and half years gives me a chance to speak confidently about that.

We never fail to introduce ourselves as soon as we have the chance after moving in and it has become an interesting litmus-paper kind of social testing. Some people are welcoming and happy to see new faces, others look you up and down and months later, you still don’t get more than a nod.

Most recently, we moved on New Year ’s Eve. It was cold and we moved out of a house on a hill to another house on a hill. No, we did not do it intentionally, it’s just that we have child health restrictions we have to heed and very few places would do.

We had good people with strong arms to help us and smiling while doing so, a humbling gift of time and energy during that time of year when all people do is be lazy at home or go on vacation; we’re lucky, I know that much.

The four of us had a family New Year’s Eve dinner among countless boxes, toasted to a good year and felt grateful. Thanksgiving truly should happen every day if it is to happen at all, there is no point in saving it all for just that one time affair.

A couple of days later, snow dropped in buckets from a cloud-heavy sky and everything was white and quiet and beautiful. Sledding and tumbling followed, and then came the realization that the preoccupation with the recent move left the pantry empty. You just cannot allow for that in a house with growing boys.

We attempted a drive to the nearest food store down the hill only to realize that our car was too shell-shocked by the thick blanket of snow. We got stuck just two blocks away from our new home and it was one of those predicaments that has people say ‘now what?’ one too many times.

A woman offered her driveway and all her expertise in a motherly friendly way; we felt like we’ve known her forever. It was only 20 minutes really. The car refused to cooperate, so we parked it in front of our new neighbour’s house and as off the road as we could, with the intention to deal with it later in the afternoon. After thank you and goodbye, the snowy roads swallowed us whole.

The day was thick with snow and waiting times for tow trucks, you see, so we figured we’ll play the truck game later. Lo and behold, our new friendly neighbour got on the phone in the meantime and did not get off the line until she secured a tow truck for us. Just like that.

By the time we were heading up the hill two hours later trudging backpacks through thick snow, the truck was also on its way. She did it! It felt like she’d known us for ages, but it had been no more than twenty minutes really.

We felt welcome and that is a good feeling to have after just moving into a new place. Since then, we have been greeted by a handful of people and welcomed into the neighbourhood. Hands ready to shake ours, jokes over the mountains of snow we all had to remove so we could park our cars and smiles to warm up a cold winter’s day. Can’t beat that.

You never know what to hope for when you have to switch neighbourhoods or move across the province.

When we moved from Vancouver a couple of years ago we left a changing attitude behind. The lady in the house next door, well into her seventies, was telling me stories of how she used to know everyone when she moved in her house many years ago. Slowly, the neighbourhood changed. Some people moved out or downsized, new ones moved in, and not everyone felt the need to introduce themselves and know who lives next door.

She said she’d never felt lonelier. She knew very few neighbours and felt uneasy about that. People used to know people on a few blocks radius, she said, but that was no longer the case.

Here in Kamloops, our former nonagerian neighbour who lived across the street and whom we still visit, told us many stories of her former neighbours from back in the day when they first moved to the area and how nowadays the contingent of known neighbours was getting smaller with every year.

It keeps a neighbourhood safer and better, she told me more than once. When everyone looks out for each other, kids can play in peace, people can go away without the fear of being broken into, and if it so happens that you need a certain something when time obliges and nothing else will do, a neighbour is there to lend a hand.

I will always cherish the over-the-fence chats I had with our first neighbours here in Kamloops and the running across the street to our nonagerian friend to tell of things I knew she’d love to hear about. We will all cherish the pitter patter of tiny feet on our porch – the neighbours’ little boys coming to visit ours – and all the water gun fights that ensued on warm summer nights.

It made sense and it still does, to have a neighbourhood where we feel at home and help give everyone else the same feeling. A community that wants itself healthy needs to be one where people know each others’ names, where they get out of their way to help and where they cherish the occasional chat or impromptu evening out.

It’s up to each of us to make it so. And it’s all of us that benefit from it.

Daniela Ginta is a mother, scientist, writer and blogger. She can be reached at daniela.ginta@gmail.com, or through her blog at http://www.thinkofclouds.com.