Canoe trips, piggy-back rides, dirty jokes, and black flies.

Hello Again!

Since our last posting, we’ve all settled into our project routines. Last Sunday, we went to the Hoffman’s early in the morning, and soon piled into canoes and headed off down the Albany River. As we paddled, some people sang Disney songs, some played games, and Roy fish while Lucie paddled along. At a small set of rapids, Roy caught a speckled trout, which he cleaned and saved for later. We enjoyed lunch and more fishing at July Falls and hung out around the fire while Roy continued to fish. We then paddled back up the river to the Hoffman’s, where Lucie fried up the trout for us. It was amazing.

On the weekends and after school all four of us spend much of our time at the Crolancia playground playing soccer, ‘grounders’, tag, and an assortment of other games with the kids. They seem happy to have new people to play with, and the older schoolgirls seem to be excited about having a Queen’s boy around.

Layla and Kirié have become a regular fixture at Crolancia’s Breakfast Club. There, we help dish out an assortment of healthy breakfast foods and make friends with all of the kids. With our first week almost done, we have taught almost all of the physical health lessons to all of the different classes. Each class has it’s charms and difficult things to work through. The kindergarten kids are absolutely adorable, and when asked “What’s a way that you can get hurt on the way to school?” their response is “Can you push me on the swings at recess?”. The grade 1/2 class is equally adorable and very busy. They’re great brain-stormers and get excited about our sticker reward system. The 3/4/5 class is very creative bunch! They always want to share their personal stories, even when they aren’t related to anything we’re talking about. The 6/7/8 class is wonderful. They’re the biggest group in the school, and while the teachers have trouble with their energy level, it works well with our lessons. They’re so curious, it’s funny to see how shocked they are when we answer their anonymous questions seriously. The 9/10 class was the hardest to deal with at first because of their reluctance to participate. As we learn how to relate to them and show them that we’re not here to preach at them, they seem to be slowly opening up.

We spend a lot of time with the kids. We try and go out for both morning and afternoon recess and eat lunch with them as well. The kids are full of questions about our lives, some more appropriate than others. We quickly learned that once we give one kid a piggy-back ride, we will be giving piggy-back rides for the next hour. The teachers and staff at Crolanica are all so welcoming and helpful. It’s nice to be able to chat with them between classes to maintain our sanity. The situation here is quite different than down South. We’re amazed and inspired to see that the staff at Crolanica can maintain such a high level of commitment and energy and ensure that there are after-school activities for the kids everyday of the week and that the classrooms maintain as welcoming and enriching as they can be. We’re exhausted after our first week, but in best way possible.

Meagan and Jamie’s first full day at Missabay consisted of helping out with garbage collection around the community. Throughout the day we got to see more of the reserve, while hanging out with the kids. Numerous piggybacks and a barbeque later, we felt fully welcomed into the school. The kids are full of energy and spunk and we couldn’t wait to begin our teaching the following Monday.

This week we have become fully integrated into the workings of the school and have begun to form strong bonds with both the teachers and the students. Each day this week we have taught all of the kids from grade senior kindergarten to grade 8 and have covered topics including Hygiene, Fitness, Nutrition and Diabetes. Each grade presents its own challenges, yet are continuously exciting and fun to teach.

On top of all the excitement at school we are busy planning numerous extracurricular activities. We have arranged a day of cultural learning for the grade 6, 7, and 8 kids, with an elder in the community. We are planning on taking the kids out to learn more about the importance of the land to the community and will learn skills such as setting up fishnets and trapping. We are also in the process of organizing a night for the girls of both Pickle Lake and Mishkeegogamang with the help of a local O.P.P officer, Diana, in order to discuss the importance of healthy relationships. Another project we are working on is setting up a meeting with elders in the community to discuss the effects and consequences of prevalent drugs in the community.

Having sifted through the dirty jokes, inappropriate comments, and accusations of QHO romances between the two of us, we have gotten to know most of the kids and are beginning to learn most of their 100 names. The next four weeks promise to be full of laughs, tears, and more inappropriate jokes, yet we cannot wait and are already beginning to wish we had more time at the school.

The four of us are all looking forward to getting a little bit of sleep and relaxation this weekend between playing with the kids, attending a teacher’s baby shower, and making a trip with Miles to a nearby ghost-town. The black flies have come out, but are not biting yet, so we’re trying to spend as much time outside as possible before the feasting begins.

Goodnight from the end of the highway!