Week 1 in the books!

Greetings from Webequie!After a bittersweet goodbye to John and Laura, we began our final leg of the journey and boarded our plane to Webequie. We can't wait to her all about the great things they experience in Pickle/Mish! We stopped in Kasabonika Lake, then in Souix Lookout, and finally landed at the Webequie airport, where we were greeted by our pickup. We couldn’t keep our eyes off the beautiful landscape during the flight! After moving our things into our accommodations the principle of the community’s school, Simon Jacob Memorial Education Centre, gave us a tour. By the time we came back to the house, there was already a group of kids, and a few dogs, out and ready to play – so welcoming and amazing!We were fortunate to arrive during Webequie’s Cultural Week, where community members and the school students participate in a number of cultural workshops and games. Some of our favorites included trying bannock and wieners with the grade 1's, learning survival skills with the grades 5, 6, and 7's building lean-to shelters and fires, and listening to an elder tell traditional Ojibway legends in Oji-Cree. We also got to have our first taste of tea porridge and try our hand at some traditional games. To wrap up the week, we joined all of the school’s students and teachers as well as community members in a large and delicious picnic! Cooked over an open fire, we tried goose for the first time, and one of our new favorites, fried bannock!We’ve been playing after school and after dinner with a group of kids for the past few days – showing us their play spots and places to go in the community. Just like the past Webequie PE's Amy and Kersh told us, “EVER” is used all the time. Ever cold, ever yummy and ever funny – it’ll be permanently integrated into our vocab in no time!We held our first movie night yesterday, hot popcorn and all! Can’t wait to see how our next few events in the coming weeks play out. The school has been incredibly welcoming with teachers allowing us to join in on their gym classes throughout the week to play some hockey, handball, and dodge ball. We both agree we have to work on our hockey skills, some of these grade 6/7's play like the next number one draft picks.Our mornings have been filled with lesson planning and brainstorming ideas for afterschool activities and theme nights. It’s making us so excited to begin teaching tomorrow, we cannot wait to get into the classrooms to share our QHO knowledge. We’ve already learned so much from the kids and we’re super excited for the next few weeks!Until next time,Katie and Meg xoxo