Seriously, what is up with this place?!
I am living in Yarmouth, in Nova Scotia, in CANADA, one of the world's leading countries supposedly... not the back of beyond, or deep dark jungles of Africa, or some poor third world country! But it is really mind baffling, how at times, one can feel like they would be better off living in any of the above mentioned category of corner of the world. Here are a few tasters of what living here is like:
1- The road we live on has pot holes, and hasn't been repaired in years. It is actually dangerous to drive the normal speed limit on our road!
2- The Healthcare service is so bad. There is such a shortage of doctors. The doctor we are registered with is over an hour's drive away. Rachel had to go to 'emergency' and see him yesterday, she left the house at 8am, spent all day waiting to see the doctor and was finally seen in a very rushed manner and by the time she came home it was 10pm and the girls were already asleep in bed! He made her an appointment to have a scan and some tests, but the quickest appointment is end of January!!! What if she has a serious illness? (Thank God, Gary managed to speak to a doctor he knows who is pulling some strings for us to get her seen earlier). No wonder this place has the highest mortality rate. It is because people probably die before they can actually see the doctor. The doctor to population ratio here is one doctor to 5000 people! A lot of people don't even have a doctor! There is no private healthcare option available either.
Considering this is CANADA, it is appaulling to know that if you are in a life and death emergency, you might still have to wait for 12 hours to be seen by the doctor! And then Rachel got given a prescription that will cost $115. We are working here for the church, for the local community, on ZERO income. It is a struggle getting money for food, we still need money to replace the broken water pump in our house, we have no money to get the kids Christmas presents or buy ourselves a cup of coffee when we go out, yet the health care service here, expects people who have no income to somehow fork out $115 dollars for medicine! Again, no wonder they have the highest mortality rate, probably half the people are too poor to buy medication.
3- Yarmouth has the second biggest population of Nova Scotia, and it has one tiny mall (shopping centre) that has about 5 shops! We don't even have a 'Wallmart' here. (A 'Wallmart is in the process of being built at the moment but apparantly for years local businesses had objected to the idea of it, for fear of competition!!)
4- There is one tiny cinema here, so most of the films don't even get here. There are no trailers before a film, just some employee stands up and welcomes people to the theatre! What a joke! (A new cinema is in the process of being built at the moment and it is massive compared with the old one - the new one will only have 5 screens!)
5- My sister tried to send me a little parcel from England about 9 weeks ago! A couple of days ago it got returned to her, with a note saying, it had been refused entry into Canada because it did not have her (the sender) name on it, even though she had written her address and declared what the contents are. (Let me assure you, it is harmless.) What I want to know, is why did it take them 7 weeks to decide they were going to refuse it entry before sending it back??? She has now written her name and re-sent it - lets hope it arrives before Christmas!
I used to live once upon a time in North Africa in Libya. Now that was a country that truly was the back of beyond...they did not have street names or phones or any postal service, let alone a cinema! At times there were water shortages, meat shortages, bread shortages, we lived on rations at times. BUT even they had good roads and a good health service. OK the hospitals were not exactly clean, there were coakroaches I won't lie scuttling around on the floors, but they had excellent doctors, they saw you immediately and they had medicine and it was free.
Don't get me wrong guys, I know that God will look after us and provide what we need. I just think the public services here are a bit of a joke!
4 comments:
That's why I'm grateful I live in London!
I really hope you get the parcel soon. At this rate, it'll actually be Christmas before you get it!
I'm watching a documentary about Take That right now...
*shakes head* My dear Ash - things aren't that bad, surely. I mean, you haven't encountered the deer ticks, leeches, mosquitos, black flies or Kelly the psychic yet! Hey, you've not even had to endure the famous "Frenchy's". It could be far worse dear, you could be married to Kieron, live in France or support Liverpool FC. Love ya!
True Bananaman, but I did encounter the mosquitoes and they were not nice!
As a Brit living in Nova Scotia *sticks out chest* I feel the need to spring to NS's defence. We have natural beauty. Much less serious crime. A more laid back lifestyle. Folk are friendly. kids and adults (on the whole) are not fashion driven. We can waterski to our heart's content (yum). I remember last year, during a snow storm, that our car was stuck in the drive. It was 11pm and about a million degrees below freeezing. Three cars containing total strangers stopped. Asked if I was OK and then proceded to dig us out/tow us out etc. Give it time Ash, I felt the same way at first, now, I wouldn't want to swap. One thing that you didn't mention was....Rappie Pie, a traditional Acadian food. Ew!!!
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