Sleepovers, Sunsets and the NORTHERN LIGHTS

Hi friends!We have had the most incredible first week in Fort Providence and are absolutely loving everything that we have experienced so far! We made it through our first week of teaching and made some really great connections with many students! We are teaching in every classroom in the school at least twice a week and are really excited about getting to know all the kids better :)The teachers here are super welcoming and have really made us feel apart of the teaching team that is here! The classes are relatively small which makes it easier to have one on one time with our peers and really make the connections we are hoping to achieve. We have loved getting to know the Kindergarten/grade 1 class and the kids are super cute! We mainly play games with them and they have even taught us some words in Dene Zhatti (the traditional language of Fort Prov!)There were fiddle instructors visiting all week and taught some of the students how to play. We had a performance on Thursday afternoon to see all of their hard work and they did so well! We were both extremely impressed with the amount that some of the kids learned in such a short amount of time.On Friday we went to a sleepover at the school with the Jr. High and high school girls to honour the murdered and missing indigenous women of Canada. The school counsellor Bev gave a presentation about the statistics that currently exist in Canada and her experience with some of the murdered and missing individuals. Her husband Frank also came in and discussed his positioning with the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and his work with the federal government to give closure to many families of the victims that have lost their lives or have gone missing. We were both really moved by the discussions that we had as a group and were extremely thankful to have been invited to participate.Following the presentations, we made pizza and virgin strawberry daiquiri's which was really fun! We also had a spa night and it was really great to hang out with some of the older girls that were relatively close in age to us! We painted nails, did face masks and made some great memories!Yesterday we had a very relaxed day and slept in. We walked around the community and ran into one of the grade 3 boys that is full of energy! His name is Naazeh and he is very funny. Last week he came to the art room where we do our lesson planning and asked us if he could "hide from his teacher" because he "didn't want to learn" that day. He is super cute and really welcoming to us!Last night we saw the northern lights for the first time!!! We were about to go to sleep and peaked out the window to the lights dancing across the sky! They were green and blue and purple and white and were better than we could have ever imagined! We were both in awe of them and were very thankful to have had that experience! We are excited for the coming week and will check in again soon!!Chao for now!xoxo Chantal and Leah