My father and I are bicycling across Canada this summer. We hope to raise some money and awareness for Amnesty International (AI).
AI is a worldwide movement dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights. AI takes action to stop grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination. We campaign to free prisoners of conscience, protect refugees, abolish the death penalty, and end political killings, "disappearances" and torture. AI seeks to expose human rights abuses accurately and quickly. We systematically and independently research the facts of individual cases and pattens of human rights abuses. These findings are publicized, and members, supporters and staff then mobilize persistent public pressure on governments, armed political groups, companies and others to prevent and stop these violations.
An ancient Japanese legend states that anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes will be granted a wish. This legend was popularized by Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who contracted leukemia as a direct result from the atomic bombing at Hiroshima. She died after folding 600 cranes. Today, tens of millions of cranes are folded in that country and others every year. These symbols have come to represent hope for a better world. I have folded 1,000 cranes and we will give these out in exchange for donations.
Fiddleheads and Covered Bridges
So today as we rolled into Perth-Andover for lunch we figured that there is no time like the present to write a post about the last few days. On Thursday we woke up nice and early and took the ferry to St. John, and then spent the afternoon at a table set up for us by Maureen in the market. Our next day wasn't quite as peachy, we biked from St. John to Fredricton, a grand total of 120 kms in the rain. The day improved when we dropped by an old friend of my dad's, Ilkay, and she fed us a delicious and unexpected meal. Fredricton continued to surprise us when we went to the market the next day and found out that we weren't allowed to set up our banner anywhere. The last surprise was when we dropped into Savage's bike shop and Matt Savage gave our bikes a check-up free of charge, which mainly involved new sets of brakes for both of our bikes. We thought that our trip was doomed after we almost hit a black cat that ran across the road infront of us. Turned out to be quite the opposite, we got a free campsite in Hartland and an awesome picture of this car inside the bridge. And today we had a lovely morning biking up the St. John river valley to PA.
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