3rd Annual Kawawachikamach Winter Carnival

The Carnival opened Wednesday afternoon with a parade.

The cars met at the Manikin (corner store) and paraded the duchesses through the town on the way to the NCC (Naskapi Community Center) where the activities were going to start.

Here are the duchesses with the Chief (in the brown) and Bonhomme (the Quebec winter carnival mascot). The duchesses are in a small competition... they sell tickets and the one that sells the greatest number becomes "queen". She wins cash (over 500$) and big prizes (like a flat screen tv).

The teachers came out in full numbers to show our support for the school duchess Susan (our secretary- in the green).

Here are some of the activities; each had a cash prize: the egg toss, snow shoe race and log sawing (100$ prize). It was -23 that afternoon, so after freezing my toes (because I forgot to wear wool socks) and smelling up my cloths with the tamarac smoke from the fire (about two hours worth) I went inside for some hot chocolate.

Activities go on into next week and include: hockey (last night my kids were up till 1am), a dance and feast, youth and adult poker (the youth win prizes like an ipod touch and flat screen tvs). Then members of the community place bets to guess who is dressed up as Bonhomme. Its a nice break from the monotony of the white winter.

Now some nice photos. Ashley and Dan in the wigwam. The teachers at lunch playing badminton. Some of the pups that we feed from the adult ed. window. And a photo of an adult ed. studnet and her very cute baby (me in the background researching guidance stuff for her).

The End Seems Near…

I love teaching secondary. Ends are on everyone’s mind. The end of school seems nearer with the last term beginning in March. Graduation seems to be nearing with fundraising started and staff and administration scrambling to calculate credits achieved and needed and conferencing with students to give them that final push.

For weeks I have tried to help one of my Sec. V English students apply for CEGEP (college/ pre-university), but thanks to Canada post not recognizing our postal code, and the on-line application not recognizing the school, we had a great deal of frustration. She opted to apply to Dawson College yesterday; sound familiar, and I had to reassure her that lightning rarely strikes twice. Only come to find out that she could apply to her preferred school at the same time.

Today we had a woman visit from the Sept Iles CEGEP. My students didn’t say much, or even feel comfortable enough to nod their heads in response to her open questions, but the moment she left we continued the conversation, using what I know about the students as examples, and think I got some of the gears turning. I’m making an effort to do some guidance counseling, considering that the school can’t find anyone willing to take the job up here, and think that I may have talked one person into applying for a music program.

Our other two unconfirmed graduates have applied to the military. They recently completed the second phase of the entrance requirements. I now want to talk to them about applying to do training through the armed forces, but first I have to do some research on the programs.

The students have really started to open up, and now I get to see some of their personalities. It makes things seem more worth it. Now if I can just continue to motivate them into coming and participating we may have four or more graduate.

P.S. still no reliable internet at home, going to try again this week and if it works I'll post some of my recent photos

Winter

Well, it’s that time of year. I'm sick of the cold, the snow, and just the winter season. The floors of the apartment are uncomfortably cool on occasion. The apartment door has a build-up of ice that has crept through the key holes. I hate hitting the wall of cold that separates me from my classroom heater. And mostly it is the white. Snow is everywhere. The benefit of living here is that it looks clean. There is no brown slush. The road (if you could call it a road) is made of ice that by now is certainly a foot thick. I walk outside my door and know that I'm at least 3 feet away from the soil because of the build-up of Styrofoam like snow.

I dream of sun and grass and the fresh smells of the changing season. I won’t get that here. The snow in the mountains will still be there when I leave for the summer. I won’t see grass till mid-May.

I look forward to the summer… I never have liked winter, just call me Sam McGee. I am making the most of the conditions with some talk of starting a teacher running club (inside on treadmills), playing badminton during lunch hours and the potential of attending a ptarmigan hunt.

Fingers still crossed that the global warming thing kicks in…

I little news...

Well, the internet is still not working properly, so this is actually the second time I have had to write this. The weather has been uncooperative- pushing past 40km/h. One of the windows in my living room cracked from the combination of cold on the outside, heat on the inside and the pressure of the wind.

Some good has come from the weather. Yesterday the wind was so strong that there was no visibility in the morning, so teachers did not have to go in until 11:30. Then the students didn’t have to come in at all. Today the weather was still bad, so I got an extra hour of sleep and the students didn’t have to come in until 12. And then they shut the water off in the community, so classes ended at 2:00.

Last week was exam week. I had to give two provincial exams in history and English. I had 2 students write the English exam, and 1 passed. I had 17 write the history exam, and 67% passed. That definitely beats the track record of the last two years. Only 30% passed last year, and on one passed the year before. So as a result I have been getting some positive comments. Now we wait to see how the ministry calculates the grades- I hear that they tend to make grade fit the curve, so some of the students may still fail (fingers crossed that that is not the case), I should know next week.

The new term has me teaching economics. My 3 students are starting a small business of making cupcakes. The profits will go towards graduation.

It's a little cold...

Today I experienced the coldest temperature so far... -50 with the wind chill.
The Sec. 4 and 5 exiting exams started today (hence a large reason why I have been a shut in). Because of the temperature, classes were delayed an hour for all students except those with exams. Today was French (am and pm) so the only class I would have had to have taught would have been Sec. 1 art, but afternoon classes were then canceled because the weather hadn't warmed up. But still the poor Secondary 4 and 5 students had to make their way back here to take their 5-7 minute French oral exam.

What this has actually meant is that I have the time I need to plan a new term of English and Economics (which includes learning economics). Things are going okay. My early worries lied with the fact the we are writing our exams a week behind the ministry. That means I have to mark 10 short answer and an essay for each history student, then record their grades on a scantron sheet with the answers to their multiple choice questions and send them in to be scanned and calculated. The English exams consist of two essays (total 1200 words) and a response, which also have to be marked by the end of the week and results sent in. There are no turn around days... so the new term starts Thursday, so classes and term plans have to me planned and ready to go.

The best news is that the temperatures are to be like this all week. I have to give the English exam tomorrow and history Wednesday (fingers crossed) I may get to finish planning.
TTFN

Christmas

The holidays are big in Kawawachikamach. In the first week of December one of the Naskapi teachers held her annual potluck dinner. The dishes that were brought periled in comparison to the dishes that were made by the host. It was a Chinese buffet of caribou meat. Caribou meat is very flexible- there were egg rolls, honey garlic ribs, spicy meat balls, and the light meat was used for "Hawaiian chicken". It was delicious! I love caribou.

The following day we had our staff x-mas party. Another potluck, the school had bought turkeys and had over 20 dishes to choose from. Needless to say it was easy to gain weight.

For the kids it was decided on the final Wednesday to have a sing along. Below are a few pictures of us at the NCC (Native Community Center), and a sample of the grade 3 singing the 12 days of Christmas in Naskapi (sorry there was very little light.

Then, on Thursday we had class parties. The kids came in at 10am for two hours. The sec 4 and 5's decided that we would play games... aka poker. The morning went well, we cleaned our rooms, moved the desks and chairs and left for the holidays (Dec. 14- Jan 7 (but we work several Saturdays and start early).

I'm HOME!!!

And so I'm going to try to take the time to write down some of my various experiences while I have access to a reliable internet connection.

First things first. From the moment I arrived I was taken aback by the many packs of dogs that wonder freely between Kawa and Schefferville.

The issues with the dogs has become bothersome, pulling on my heart strings as the temperatures drop and food becomes increasingly rare. The first photo shows Andy providing food scraps to one of the packs. One point of interest is that a husky is always the pack leader, you can tell as he pushes his way into the window after the last of the scraps.