Thankful Thursday: Win & Régine
This story starts in an embarrassing place: until a few days ago my mother knew more about the members of Arcade Fire than I did.
(…..I know. No really, I KNOW. In all fairness, you should know that my mother’s knowledge of Arcade Fire is limited to one pretty spectacular-sounding radio interview she heard on the CBC.)
After my mother finally convinced me that Régine really is from Haiti, they really did take part in relief efforts after the earthquake, and I obviously needed to read everything about Arcade Fire I possibly could, my roommate directed me toward this:
Win Butler and Régine Chassagne’s first date was also their first jam session… That night, in Butler’s apartment, the pair wrote “Headlights Look Like Diamonds,” which would eventually appear on Arcade Fire’s debut EP. “The countryside’s deserted / there’s no one on the farms,” Butler croons; perhaps not a terribly romantic tune, but when was the last time you composed a song on a first date?
-Drew Nelles, The Walrus
Maybe this is because it’s almost midnight, I’m exhausted, and I have a piano waiting in my parent’s living room for me to find a place of my own, but doesn’t that story kind of, a little bit, maybe make you believe in magic?
The full piece from The Walrus is here.
Monday Morning Pep Talk
You Can Fix This Picture: The Girl Effect
One of the happiest girls I’ve ever met doesn’t own a pair of shoes. She is less than ten years old, but she has more responsibility on her small shoulders than I had at 15, or 20, or even today. Her name is Mercy, and I met her in a rural community in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya, where I was building a school. This little girl had no shoes, and carried her younger sibling on her back, but she had a family and friends, clean water to drink, and she was going to school. She pulled me away from the work site and across the grassy field to her classroom. She sat down with me at her desk, and with the proudest smile I’ve ever seen, she read to me.
I grew up in a part of the world where girls are empowered and educated, but it wasn’t until I met Mercy that I realized how lucky I was. I realized something else that day, too. Something more important, something bigger than me and my small life. Sitting in that classroom listening to Mercy read, I knew just from the determined look on her face that I was looking at a little girl who would grow up to be a leader in her community. I couldn’t have felt more sure that these girls—if given the opportunity—will lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.
This post is part of the 2011 Girl Effect Blogging Campaign. Visit the Girl Effect site to find out about the movement and to find out what you can do to help girls!
