Learn More

• Listen to a CBC interview with Quebec MP Romeo Saganash, who currently represents this riding.
  
  
• Watch the documentary 8th Fire, also from CBC
  
  
• Check out the website that Youth Fusion set up for Waswanipi. Some of the Secondary 4 and 5 students are jamming!
  

Why?

I've refrained from blogging about the school system as a whole. Having been here for less than 2 weeks, I've seen things I never knew would happen.

You can walk down the hallway and see full knapsacks, full of textbooks, untouched. The books are not carried home and sometimes not every brought to class. The backpacks can sit there for days or even weeks without having budged.

Students here do not have 'spares' as truancy is a huge issue here.

The school becomes a ghost town on Fridays and teachers tell me, "Don't bother teaching today. It's Friday. You won't get anything done."

Feel free to ask me for personal insights - for obvious reasons, I have decided to limit some of my opinions from this blog.

Day Trip to Chibougamou

We drove out to Chibougamou; I felt like a happy dog, going out for a car ride. I made the 1.5 hour drive out, mostly a straight rode with giant curves and the occasional blast of a few snowmobiles racing 100 meters parallel to the rode. I do miss driving and I hope to eventually try out a snowmobile!

The computer stores weren't helpful in Chibougamou. There was no technician on site at one and the second was closed on the weekend. For now it seems to be working - I suspect there's a loose cable.

Anywho, we ate at the cutest little cafe called Cafe Brulot. It's a co-op with paintings for sale inside, very modern with lots of beer on tap and Trivia Pursuit cards - en francias, bien sur - on each table. They even made their own beer. I got 2 eggs floretine with an amazing Hollandaise sauce and les fruits on the side. I've been a bit more confident interacting with cashiers in French now. They usually can tell I'm Anglophone though!

We went to a small mall, which basically had 12 stores. Dropped into the Bijou and a few clothing stores; Bench is really really popular here - all the kids of Bench jackets, hoodies, t-shirts. H. got a long, blue-green Bench jacket for $50, down from $150! We spent the most time at Zellars - getting games and chocolates. I bought Blokus at Zellars ($35) and am going to donate it to the school when I leave here in 2 weeks. I also got 2 $4 puzzles - after we drove back, it took C. and I 4 hours to finish all 750 pieces of just one!!

Yes, it was a wild night in Waswanipi.

Laptop screen busted

My screen is giving out on me! At least I finished my AQ assignment on Thursday for the Friday assignment before that happened...

Going to bring it into Chibougamou today to see if anything can be done.

Lego Coming Together

Here is the mat for the FIRST Lego League that is happening in mid-March. About 10 of the Grade 6s are going to Montreal. We've set up the pieces of the course (stuck on with handy 3M Dual Lock) and H. is trying to figure out if it's in the place.

I took these picture for Yan Yan to see what the elementary competitions are like, since she was the first female robot driver at our high school!

Quiet Day

Got a lot of prep done today. The afternoon was ridiculously quiet - all the teachers and students went to the Youth Centre for a suicide prevention lecture. Unfortunately, no one came back to the school afterward and we didn't have any students show up at 3:45 pm. There were other reasons - boys' and girls' basketball tryouts were happening and a few of the boys had to go to Waskaganish to perform at a church. Well, at least I did a lot of photocopy and prepped for Chapter 5. Here are the posters I made today.

Pizza Party

Went to the science class and helped out students - I'm starting to see where they are at and how far behind they are on language and math. Even calculating the number of electrons, they struggled to give me an answer as I wrote:

chlorine has 17 electrons = 2 + 8 + ___?

They are very receptive to me and you can see their attitude change when I start working with them. They want to learn but they don't want to sit around being berated by their teacher.

Had a pizza party to draw in the Sec 4s and 5s. It was fun to chitchat with them, learn their names. Tease them and laugh. Four pizzas cost us $116. ACK. Good thing we can put it under the work expenses. I didn't have any since there was pepperoni on everything. We had ordered one with just cheese on it but I think they had messed up.

Two of the teachers went to Mistissini for Thursday and Friday. I get a bed for the next two nights!! H. and I made pancakes for dinner, had a class of wine and a slice of Camembert, then we watched Twilight. Chatted with Dave, shower and off to bed!

Lego Lego Lego

NOTE: There was a picture of me here but I don't like it, so I deleted it!

There was a science fair happening, so the classes were disrupted and a lot of elementary students were wandering around the school. Can't really say much except that we played with Lego most of the day.

First, we coloured some posters for the pizza party tomorrow.

After that, C. and I prepped a few pieces for the FIRST Lego League. In the afternoon, we helped students build robots with the Lego sets.



We didn't share meals tonight. I just made some tofu stirfry with a lettuce, bean and barely soup with soya nuggets. Shared some of my fairtrade Camino chocolate with L. and C.

First Day at Work

Went in first thing at 8:45 am, met the vice-principal and got a room to set up in. Over the day, we slowly got ourselves organized - went to buy markers at the convenience store, printed out posters, coloured them in and walked around, chatted with a few teachers here and there. We are suppose to work with Sec 4s and 5s (the equivalent of Grade 10 and 11) but mostly the younger kids, Sec 2s and 3s, poked their noses in.

After 4 pm, we came home. There was a Family Day festival happening so we put on our snowpants and went tobogganing. The firefighters had set up a giant snowhill and monitored the kids (and adults). It's been so many years since I last took a crazy carpet! I got a good sweat out of pulling a few of them up the hill (as they sat on their toboggans). Here is a picture H. and I tobogganing together.

On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store because L. wanted a bag of coffee. The selection for fresh vegetables is really tiny. There were two large baskets of orange and yellow onions, but in the fridge, there were probably in total 5 peppers and 4 tomatoes. As we left, we saw Max, one of the dogs. All the dogs run around the town and they are very playful - both with each other and people. There are no leashes, no tags. They wander up and down the street, sometimes accompanying their owner's young children to school and back. Max came up to me and wanted to sniff me - he gave me a good crash in the nose and it hurt a little.

We got home, took off our wet clothing and made a pot of Japanese curry with peppers, onions, mushrooms, carrots and sweet potatoes. I also cut up panfried 2 Tofurkey sausages for everyone. There is still rice left over. Everyone enjoyed it - had a salad to go with it and we chitchatted. Everyone is just chilling now. I am off to shower.

New Home

Today, I drove a Dodge Caravan from Amos to Waswanipi, QC the long way around; in total, about 340 km. We took our time in Val-d'Or, a retirement town of 32,000. There, two teachers and I did groceries*, helped one of them buy a laptop at Le Source and wandered the mall. Then off to Senneterre for a late lunch of grilled cheese, fries and tomatoes and tomato soup. My French, c'est terrible. I could barely order a tea verte. I need to be more bold and practice more.

Everywhere there are Ski-doos. Vroom vroom vroom, sometimes you see them driving next to the road. We saw several over a lake next to an ice hut, where people cut a hole to go fishing. I wasn't tired driving, it was peaceful. We got to our home around 5:30 pm, while it was still light. Unpacked and had dinner of pasta and broccoli and salad.

Here is the kitchen. The back patio is covered in snow. I can get wifi! Other teachers are watching Gremlins. Occasional distractions of snowballs at our windows and kids curious and wanting to come in.

There is one less mattress so I am literally couchsurfing for now. You have to be flexible, I've learned. Okay, look over the textbooks and go over AQ homework now. Tomorrow we want to go to school for the 8:45 am start.



*Lots of blueberries, strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes and a tub of yogurt to go with granola

First Day

Had dinner with five other teachers as we converged in Amos, QC. Everyone is nice and I am learning a lot. It's rare that so many teachers are in the same place, so it was a special treat to have everyone having fun and laughing together.

After dinner, we got into our bathing suits and slipped into the outdoor hot tub at the motel. I've never had to walk across ice and snow to get into a hot tub!

Into bed at 11:30 pm.

Departure

Dave dropped me off in Barrie this morning. This is the other teacher, R. who is driving me up to transfer me at Amos, QC.

Goodbye Party