Mish Week 6: Final Days, Parting Ways….Oh, and We’ve Changed Since May

Six weeks, over 70 lessons and close to 10 000 km later, the Queen’s Health Outreach Mishkeegogamang 2013 project has come to an end. We have since returned to our respective homes with many new remarkable memories, changed perspectives and lessons learned.Our final week in Mishkeegogamang was marked by the conclusion of our sexual health unit with the 7/8 class, the puberty unit with the 5 and 6 classes and the bullying unit with younger students. Unfortunately, the school was shut down for both Wednesday and Thursday due to a water issue, so we were not able to complete our planned final activities with the kids or hold the intercommunity soccer tournament. However, we were able to use this time to instead visit each of the smaller communities that comprise the Mishkeegogamang reserve. We first visited the Eric Lake community, followed by Ten Houses and finally, Main Reserve and Sandy Road. We spent a few hours in each community playing soccer, having snacks and doing crafts with the kids from Missabay Community School. This was an awesome opportunity to spend one last day with the kids and say our final goodbyes. We were very fortunate to be joined by individuals from the Youth Centre on Main Reserve who brought tons of food that the kids thoroughly enjoyed.We would just like to take a moment to thank everyone who made this QHO experience possible and welcomed us so graciously into their community. This project would not have been possible without the hard work of our Project Directors Maggie, Liz and Fabi or without the tremendous amount of help we received from the Missabay Community School and Crolancia Public School staff and principles. Also, we would like to thank our kind hosts at the Sweet Pickle Inn in Pickle Lake for putting up with our late hours and busy schedules and the many other Mish and Pickle community members who made our Northern experience so great. Finally, we would like to thank each and every sponsor who generously support Queen’s Health Outreach and make it’s many meaningful projects possible and you, our faithful blog readers.We have arrived back home not only with many great experiences and memories but also as more culturally aware and informed students. The project was truly a tremendous learning experience and has taught us much about our own country and province.    With gratitude and preemptive nostalgia,Nick & Heather  This week I thought I’d stray away from my monotonous list making and treat you with a special Before & After feature premier.