| by Celia Sankar
In her younger days, Joan Neil lived for
a brief time
in an igloo with the Inuit. She also traveled dusty roads in Nigeria to
train young women to become teachers. In more recent years, she has
welcomed
German and Thai students into her home, in the northern Ontario town of
Elliot Lake, and made Japanese visitors part of her life.
Three quarters of a century of
experiences such as these
and an unhappy two years of service in the Canadian Air Force during
World
War II have taught her two lessons: one is that regardless of race or
culture,
all people are the same; the other is that war is senseless.
"I just like people, regardless of where
they are from,"
she says. "I don't think it matters where they're from. If people would
stop concentrating on the differences we see in each other, this world
would be a better place."
Neil was born in Toronto, "in the days
when you had to
take streetcars to go down town — there were not even buses yet." Her
early
years were shaped by the Depression. Her father could not find a job
and
had to go on relief. Although life was hard for her family and most
others,
she remembers a special quality to those days; it was a time when
people
shared what they had with their neighbors and appreciated each other.
Neil grew up to become a teacher and her
career took her
into many different cultures. She traveled to the Arctic, to Baffin
Island
in the Northwest Territories to teach the Inuit, who were only just
then
beginning to integrate with the rest of the world.
"As teachers, we had our own homes and
flew in and out,
so we didn't have to deal much with the people," Neil says. "But I
wanted
to. I identified with the people and one summer I lived with a family
in
an igloo. The whole family slept in the igloo and you didn't worry
about
rooms — there was no mine and yours or any division like that. We ate
seal
and caribou and Arctic char. It was a wonderful experience. But don't
ask
me to live in an igloo now."
Neil also taught among First Nations in
Ontario, but her
career took her furthest from known experiences when she was hired as
principal
of a women's teachers college in a remote part of Nigeria. Her six
years
in Africa caused her to think about perception, about how our
experiences
shape what we consider real or normal.
"I was the only white person there," she
recalls. "For
months and months I would see only dark colored skin, and so, whenever
I happened to see myself in the mirror, I was startled; I thought I
looked
like a ghost. When I left Nigeria and was returning to Canada, I had to
pass through the airport in London. I looked around at the people and
thought
how pale they were; they seemed sickly. Before, I would never have even
thought of that."
Seven years ago, Neil chose Elliot Lake
as the place of
her retirement. Shortly after her arrival, she linked up with the high
school to host exchange students. She has had teens from Germany,
Thailand
and Japan living with her. She has hosted a German medical intern. Her
townhouse had been home for the Japanese women sent by their country to
teach Japanese culture and traditions at Elliot Lake Secondary School.
"I like having someone to stay with me
because I am an
old maid and I have no family left," Neil jokes.
Her walls are plastered with pictures of
the friendships
formed though these experiences. Her former boarders sometimes return;
their parents have come to meet her. Neil was bridesmaid at the wedding
of one of her Japanese boarders, who still visits her at
Christmas
and at Thanksgiving.
"I am amazed at how people get hung up on
culture and
our differences because of it," Neil says. "I think this business of
culture
is vastly overdone. I think even nationalism is overdone. When you look
at it, we are all people. All people are the same. We all have to go to
the bathroom. We all have to wash. We all have to drink and eat. We're
all just people."
Because of that understanding, and
because of her wartime
experiences, she has come to oppose armed conflict totally, and
particularly
fighting based on religion.
"I don't think what religion you belong
to matters, as
long as you are good to one another and accept everybody. I don't care
if you talk about Jesus or Allah or Buddha. It makes no difference.
Their
teachings are almost the same — brotherly love," she says. "People
should
treat one another as brothers. I don't think Jesus would ever sanction
war."
When she was 18, she didn't have that
perspective.
"I fell for the propaganda, like young
people will fall
for it now," she says. "The powers that be put out the propaganda. They
say you have to serve your country and they herd in the young people. I
would never recommend anybody going into the armed services now. I feel
there is no excuse for war."
During World War II, Neil worked in
Nova Scotia as
a radio operator, sending out signals to lead pilots over the Atlantic
back to land. Her sweetheart at the time was posted to Europe. She
never
saw him again. He was killed in the fighting.
"War," Neil says, "interrupts your life
totally."
She sees no justification for military
action in Afghanistan.
She believes, instead, the world should seek to attack the injustices
and
inequalities that would have led to resentment in that part of the
world
in the first place.
"You kill that kind of thing with
kindness," she says,
"You pour so much good and support into Afghanistan.... War is not the
solution. No war is winnable today. The weapons of destruction are so
powerful,
it's just going to be disastrous."
She is part of an organization called
Veterans Against
Nuclear Arms and supports those who speak up against war, but is not
inclined
to carry placards as some have done.
"I think protests are a waste of time,"
Neil says. "The
government does what it wants to do and does what the multinationals
tell
them to do."
Instead, in her own circle, she tries to
live her days
of retirement with that sense of fraternity which her life has taught
her
is key. And she is enjoying it.
"Retirement was made for the likes of
me," she says.
She enjoys, she says, the people she
sees at the pool,
where she exercises; at the Institute for Learning in Retirement, where
she's studying ethics; at the meetings of the Horticultural Society;
and
at the United Church. And she intends to continue to indulge in her
major
passion — having friends over for dinner.
"I like socializing that way," Neil
says. "That goes back
to my childhood when we'd always go somewhere or have somebody in for
dinner.
Nowadays people do their entertaining in restaurants. But it used to be
you'd have them home. I prefer it that way, to welcome my friends to my
home."
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