One Month Already?!
Another amazing week in Salluit! Last week we enjoyed our second girl’s night full of baking (and eating) delicious cookies. We had a blast finishing up our smoking and alcohol lessons and we were very excited to have some students approach us about trying to quit smoking. It's nice to know that they can trust us and that they are listening to our lessons!
We celebrated a week of hard work last Sunday by going on a hike to a waterfall located near Salluit. We couldn't find the waterfall and ended up on a very wet, snowy 9 hour hike through the Tundra! Emmaline’s boots are STILL wet a week later. Luckily the tundra is beautiful so we were smiling even after a very long day, especially when we finally saw the town after 9 hours in the snow! We were lucky to see an arctic fox near the end of our hike as well. We were very happy to have the holiday Monday to recover from the long hike.
This week we taught safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases and puberty at Ikusik. Though the kids might have been a bit giggly at first, it served to be a fun and informative week of teaching. We are very appreciative of Mary, the guidance counselor and student mentor at Ikusik, for her support in these lessons. She helped to translate important messages into Inuktitut during each class and provided us with resources which were tri-lingual (Inuktitut, French and English). We were happy to have another successful girls night this Thursday deemed "Spa Night". We enjoyed facemasks and of course more nail painting. We definitely shared a few laughs over how alien-like we looked covered with goop on our faces!
We wrapped up another awesome week of teaching on Friday by teaching at the Boys’ Rehab Center in the morning. We were so impressed again by the boy’s questions, interest and manners. We were happy to be invited to play baseball with them after our lesson and got to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. In the afternoon we were lucky to M.C. the Salluit Spring 2014 Talent Show featuring so many talented students and teachers! A huge thank you to Barb, Alan and Geneviève who made the whole thing possible!
As we finished up our fourth week here by teaching students about the changes happening in their bodies, we are marveling at the changes happening around us in Salluit. Just a few weeks ago when we arrived, the town was buried in snow. Now the sun is shining and the snow is melting. In fact, we were shocked to see a 6-foot tall staircase that has suddenly appeared since the snow melted! We were also lucky that we saw the Northern Lights our first week here because it is officially 24 hours of light and therefore too bright to spot them again!
It's near impossible to believe that we have already been here for a month, and that we only have 2 weeks left. We have fallen in love with this town, these people and the adorable husky puppies that joined the community a few weeks ago. We are sad to be leaving so soon but we are excited to make the most out of our next two weeks with a class trip to the pool, a Boys-to-Man-athon, the Terry Fox Run and the Amazing Race: Salluit Style! Stay Tuned! :)
