The doorbell rang; Leana let herself in and came back to the kitchen to join us. Bonnie made a fresh pot of tea as we caught Leana up on our conversation. "lets just really frustrating to meet women with such damaged self-esteem, trying so hard to do a good job of raising their families with so many odds against them," Bonnie said, putting a plate of fresh cake on the table. We talked about the difficulties all women face in the 1990's - wanting to give our best to our jobs and needing at the same time to be emotionally and physically available to our own families. We looked at our own situations; our roles as women in the literacy field and our need for support from our families.

"I identify with the women who are working in the field," Bonnie said, "and the women who are the victims of illiteracy. I think," Bonnie said, choosing her words carefully, "that working in literacy has made me more of a feminist."

Leana and I didn't talk for the first little while on the drive back to Medicine Hat. I closed my eyes and laid my head back on the headrest in an effort to let go of the day. But I couldn't. I asked Leana, "Why is it that literacy workers do so much and care so much? Is it because it's mostly women who work in the field? Why don't we have a better idea of when to stop, when to care more about ourselves?"

Leana seemed to be thinking about the same thing. We talked about how full we fill our plates and how when we finally say "no" and have an empty spot on our plates we panic and think we have to take on something new to fill that spot. Leana pointed out that we seem to need the emotional involvement of our jobs because the enthusiasm and passion for our work couldn't exist without it.

"I used to work for a newspaper," Leana told me. "Very cut and dried and union. You started by the buzzer and you quit by the buzzer and there was nothing else to it. It was way more money and the job has opened up twice since I've been a coordinator (and I was offered the job both times) but I couldn't even imagine myself going back to a job like that. I think it's because there's absolutely no thought, there's no emotion. There's no contact with people in that job."

It was getting dark. I saw the glow of Medicine Hat long before we neared the city limits - the prairie is so flat it is hard to judge distance. To help pass the time, I turned on my tape recorder and asked Leana if she could recall some early memories of working in the trailer. She told me this story:

"I remember just after I was hired as the coordinator, I interviewed a new student at night. Back then, there was just an open field beside the trailer. It was a really spooky place at night."

"I didn't know much about the student. He worked for a furniture store and his boss had encouraged him to come. He was a big guy, really tall with masses of hair. Something about him was really scary, almost mean looking. It seemed like there was something wrong with his mouth, so that when he spoke he sort of grunted. He wanted to read better to be able to work with order and delivery forms at the furniture store."

"We worked together for a while and I could see that he had limited skills but I told him I would find him a tutor and would try to get him started in lessons right away."

"I locked the door of the trailer after he left. Then all of a sudden I heard all this noise outside like someone hooting and hollering. I looked out the window and saw the student running across the field beside the trailer jumping up in the air like the 'oh, what a feeling' Toyota commercials. He kept jumping up and down and yelling really loud! I could hardly believe it; he hadn't said more than five words during our interview. At first I thought he was upset and then I realized that he was... happy. He was happy that he was going to learn to read."