Happy Mother's Day, a Mish Update
Hi there!We’re alive and well, not to mention we’ve finished off week 2 of teaching at Missabay Community School, and we’re just starting week 3. Every day is not only an amazing learning experience, but we’re getting to know the kids better and better. In the past week, we focused on nutrition and hygiene lessons, two very relevant and fun topics to teach! Not to knock the teaching, but the highlight of our days this week has been the after school activities. Monday to Wednesday we run a Sports’ Club at the local community center on the main reserve after school. Playing hockey, basketball, and large group games with the kids outside of school is a blast and has been a great way to get to know them in a different setting. We rounded off the week with our first Girls’ Night on Thursday after school. Between bracelets, Aaron getting his nails done, cupcake decorating, group games, and watching Frozen, it was a busy but successful day. Huge shout-out to the Missabay Community School staff and bus-driver for helping make this event possible. Not to mention Aaron’s mad skills cooking for 18 grades 1-4 girls and the staff supervisors.After a busy week, we finished with teaching a volleyball gym class to the grade 8s. We’re hoping to run a volleyball tournament between Pickle Lake’s school Crolancia and Missabay in the next couple of weeks, which we are super excited about. After coming home on Friday, we also visited Crolancia to help with their Girls’ Night which was an equally fun time and definitely worth eating spaghetti and meat sauce two nights in a row! On our first free weekend in Pickle Lake, we decided to take a break and take a short, 4-hour road trip. We passed through Sioux Lookout and headed to a bustling metropolis of 8,000 people, otherwise known as Dryden. Besides dropping a considerable amount of the budget on delicious food (shout out to both teaching and putting our nutrition knowledge to work), we really enjoyed spending down-time together. After returning to Pickle Lake, Elaine and Jenna baby-sat for a Crolancia teacher, Brent, while John and Aaron DJ’d one of the town’s famous dances.
We conveniently found Aaron's new home-away-from-home on the way to Dryden.
On Sunday (PS, Happy Mother’s Day mom!), after our classic morning routine of a work-out and late breakfast, our power went off and stayed off for the next 28-hours! Although scrabble and cards were entertaining for a while, we quickly realized we would need to figure out the whole food situation. Luckily, our pal Brent hooked us up with a camp stove and a great dinner, not to mention breakfast the next day since school was cancelled. In return for the hospitality, free labor was gladly given. We spent Monday constructing a DIY-bonfire pit as well as helping another Canadian Ranger move out of his house. Honestly, we could not be more thankful for having such great contacts and new friends in Pickle Lake who have been nothing but incredibly kind to us.Although the unexpected long weekend was a blast, one of the best moments thus far on project has been the news we’ve been anxiously anticipating and finally received today. We are so excited to continue our progress with project but relieved to know for sure that Aaron will be attending medical school at University of Toronto next fall. Thanks to everyone for the continued love and support, check in with us soon!Signing off,Your future health care providers, Elaine and Aaron