March break begins

The spring break begins today. The students are not in school but the teachers are in to do some prep work till noon. Those teachers going south for the holiday leave mid afternoon. I am staying North to see the sites of my adopted territory. Spring has sprung here and it is the best of weather. More snow has fallen so people are heading out of the community to hunt and fish. The land is so b eautiful this time of year.

Everyone is wearing sunglasses... even the babes peeking over their mothers' shoulders wear sunglasses. The sun beats down on the snow and then is reflected back up.. sort of a double dose of sun... which we deserve after the long dark winter. Many of the Inuit have their spring dark face on already. One day out on the land in such strong sunlight darkens the skin right up. The forehead stays white as it is protected by a hat, and there are a white rings around the eyes from the sunglasses. The face patterns are very interesting.

Although it is warmer out I am still bundled up from head to toe. I am suffereing with another lung infection and am on antibiotics. Not fun at all. Many people are sick in the community. One member of staff is being tested for TB. I just finished reading The Constant Gardener that deals with multinational companies sending poorly developed drugs to Africa to combat TB... and on the news there is the incident in Britian where drug testing went badly wrong. You can imagine what I am thinking every time I swallow my pills.

Yesterday , in class, we did several St. Patrick's Day activities. The first thing we did was make wonderful Irish crowns. It was so much fun. I love dressing the part. Once we were wearing our crowns we were ready to learn all about Ireland. I gave the kids all Irish names. They made a name tag and then after that they only answered to their new name. We did terrible Irish accents. It is the best way to learn. We went to the map of the world to find Ireland, Dublin and the Wicklow Hills. We will be doing video conferencing with The Bray School in Wicklow after the March break. My cousin Julie is on the other end of this adventure.

Usually we do several days on Ireland but with the march break starting we only had one day this year.

We had shocking news in the teaching community last night. One of the longest serving teachers here has been given notice that there is no job for him next year. There has been a reorganization of the school and his job is gone. It has upset us all. It brings home to us that the white teaching staff is here at the pleasure of the community. There is not much point in us thinking too far ahead and making plans for our students. Things must change at times, but this was a real shock. The north is changing and teaching must change but some changes are more difficult than others.

In yesterday's mail I had two wonderful post cards. Jacques, Leslie's youngest boy sent one. His Mum did the writing for him... it was a cute, wonderful and loving note. The other card was from my friends Bob and Marion Greene now living in Calgary. They are visiting New Zealand. A wonderful photo of 40 million sheep. I was their waitress in Lake Louise in the late 60's. We have kept in touch all these years. Bob is an Anglican priest and his long suffering wife Marion is one of the greatest women I have ever met. She helped organize a soup kitchen/food bank in Toronto many many years ago. It was so impressive that Mother Theresa visited it. Bob had his picture taken with the holy mother . No photo of Marion. They are a great funny couple. They want me to visit the family cottage north of Toronto this summer.. a very tempting invite.

I wonder what to-day's mail will bring?