One of the best things about living in community is the rich diversity I experience. Over the years RareBirds Housing Cooperative has been home to people from a wide variety of places, cultures and experiences as well as ages and stages of life. It’s a common thing among people to gravitate to people who are similar to ourselves. We congregate in familiar circles of age, culture, interests and world views. This is comfortable and easy. No need to stretch ourselves to accommodate new ideas and explore the vast diversity the world has to offer.
No doubt this has always been so as we all seek the homogenous comfort of “our people”. In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly mobile world homogenous communities are being stretched to accommodate others. We see it everywhere: the intolerance, biases and skepticism. In much of my life I find myself in this comfort of “my people”. My social, and volunteer groups are spent with people much like me. I have come more to realize my privilege, having lived my life as a white middle class woman well inside the dominant Canadian culture. While I have friends and acquaintances and family from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, it here in my home that that I experience the uniqueness of cultural diversity. It is here that I am privy to the nuances of culture in the routines and rituals of every day life.
Over the years the RareBirds community has been home to people from India, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Iraq. We have also shared space for several days or weeks with travellers from around the world. We share meal preparation and household chores. Mealtimes can often bring rich conversations and unexpected learning. It is one of the best things Co-op living has to offer and something I have come to value.
No doubt this has always been so as we all seek the homogenous comfort of “our people”. In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly mobile world homogenous communities are being stretched to accommodate others. We see it everywhere: the intolerance, biases and skepticism. In much of my life I find myself in this comfort of “my people”. My social, and volunteer groups are spent with people much like me. I have come more to realize my privilege, having lived my life as a white middle class woman well inside the dominant Canadian culture. While I have friends and acquaintances and family from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, it here in my home that that I experience the uniqueness of cultural diversity. It is here that I am privy to the nuances of culture in the routines and rituals of every day life.
Over the years the RareBirds community has been home to people from India, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Iraq. We have also shared space for several days or weeks with travellers from around the world. We share meal preparation and household chores. Mealtimes can often bring rich conversations and unexpected learning. It is one of the best things Co-op living has to offer and something I have come to value.
