First, second, third and fourth

For most of his career my late uncle devoted his life to people living in the Third World. In 1952 I vaguely remember attending his ordination into the priesthood at the Scarborough Foreign Mission House. At the time I was, of course, a bit too young to understand what “ordination” meant and how we would, for years, only ever communicate with him via handwritten airmail letters. By the time I was about seven or eight years old I understood what the Third World was. Basically, I was one of the “haves” and the children who lived in the West Indies, in particular in Haiti and the Dominican Republic (and later Nicaragua and Guinea-Bissau), were the “have nots.”

On his vacation trips home to Canada, once every two or three years to fundraise, my uncle was the centre of our family’s attention for weeks. He brought photographs and stories from his life in the Third World. Stories and photographs of people who lived in crudely constructed homes without bathrooms and televisions and radios and kitchens. Pictures of children who looked to be about my age and who wore stained, ill-fitting clothing and shoes and smiled broadly into my uncle’s camera. Those people were the Third World. I didn’t know, at the time, I was living in the First World. And I didn’t ask if there happened to be a Second World? What about a Fourth World?

Toward the end of my uncle’s career he was brought home to Canada to be reassigned. His new “mission” was in remote locations in northern British Columbia, northern Saskatchewan and northern Ontario. By the time he was working in Canada I was well into adulthood and knowing the type of work he did, I was surprised by this move. The Third World was my Uncle’s specialty. He brought his faith, his political acumen and kind heart to people in Third World nations. He was known for his downto- earth approach in forgotten communities where education, sanitation and inspiration were lacking. Over the years he was instrumental in the building of communities from the septic to the spiritual. Perhaps I had slept through the news story about a Canadian Third World? Indeed, over the years I wondered if the Third World would, one day, become a First World and then, my Uncle wrote to me about the Fourth World, right here in Canada. What the H E double blind eye is a Fourth World all about? Who would have guessed a country like Canada would be home to a Fourth World? Yet, we are guilty, if guilty is the right word. To me, guilty is the right word.

Right here in Canada we are home to a subpopulation with living standards of the Third World. We live in a country of “haves” and right in our back yard are communities like Attawapiskat. A Canadian community that recently declared itself to be in a state of emergency. Had it not been for my uncle, I would never have known there could possibly be a community, in Canada, without decent housing, without clean water or sanitary waste removal. A community, right here in Canada, without decent schools or access to transportation and communications. Always a documenter of life, my uncle sent photographs of children smiling into the camera wearing tattered and dirty clothing, living in unheated, prefabricated shacks, attached to his emails. A sad story of life in a world of “have nots” right here in Canada. Without a caption, these are Third World children, but in a First World nation.

“On November 26, The Canadian Red Cross mobilized to meet the immediate needs in the community of Attawapiskat. The Red Cross continues to work closely with public authorities and the community to identify and address urgent, shortterm needs.”

It wasn’t a natural disaster that brought the Canadian Red Cross out to one of our own Canadian communities, it was a national disgrace. Please consider making a donation to the Canadian Red Cross this festive season and put a real smile on a kid’s face!

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca