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LETTER FROM CANADA
On Hiawatha Road, the virus has stung neighbors into a network that exchanges food and homemade products.
By Catherine Porter
The car on Jennifer Ois’ porch is a symbol of the positive side of the coronavirus. It is red and wooden, with black rubber wheels that fell once, when Ms. Ois towed her first child and a frozen turkey from a shop many years ago.
These days, the wagon is full of homemade products such as fermented turmeric soft drinks, kefir water with spice berries, lemongrass ice cream and brand new lawn lettuce, all waiting to be picked up by a neighbor.
“Now it has a total purpose, ” said Ms. Ois. It’s about bringing kindness to your street.
Since I visited your neighborhood on Hiawatha Road a few weeks ago, I’ve turned several times in my mind. I find it comforting. It reminds me that, despite the darkness of the virus, it presented some enlightenment: a slowdown in time and a return to the essentials of life. The other people on this street have used this time to gain outdated skills such as fermentation and vegetable cultivation, and in doing so, they have a community.
They were also fortunate: while some on the street lost their jobs due to the virus, this component of the city was free of infections and deaths in Covid-19.
The street is vintage east of Toronto: 3 long blocks huddled together, to warm up. It was once part of a 600-acre farm owned by the Ashbridges, a circle of English Quaker relatives from Pennsylvania who fled to Canada as loyal after the American Revolution. It remained an outdoor farm outside the city limits for more than a century, until the land was fragmented and sold, for deficient immigrant huts and planned subdivisions.
As you walk down the street, you can see the symptoms of this story in architecture: old working-class bungalows next to two-story gentrified brick houses. You can also see the population settling in a way that Sarah Ashbridge, the matriarch of Quaker settlers, would recognize.
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