Friends and acquaintances are posing a few questions that seem to recur. Here are our responses.
Are you enjoying yourself?
We are surrounded by an Emily Carr landscape. (Emily Carr was an artist who painted the British Columbia landscapes a century ago.) We get out to enjoy the forest every week. We take Granville the dog, and OrangePekoe the cat on our outings. So, yes, we are enjoying ourselves.
In the village, Nigel has fitted in like a hand in a glove. Fortunately, he met his pal, Tubby, early in our arrival in the village. They have become good buddies, sharing the workspace at the wood-working shed, and working on common projects.
Nigel is enjoying the wood-work. He helped make a security gate for the day-care centre. He’ll be working on the shelving for the culture centre. He has made furniture for our flat, including this lovely cedar bench.
There have been three deaths during the past month, and Nigel has been involved with building the burial boxes for ashes, and the coffin for a body. He has also been teaching basic woodworking to the secondary students. It’s been quite variable work, and he enjoys every day at the wood working shed.
I have been teaching elementary level pupils at Wanukv Qaquthaailas School. I have a group of Kindergarten and Grade 1 pupils, and a group of Grade 4 and 5 pupils. The gap in ages is awkward, because there is little overlap in skills and academics.
However, I am fortunate to have a Learning Assistant who likes to teach. Consequently, I’m able to give her some of the Kindergarten level skill learning activities – basic printing skills, basic number and letter recognition and sequencing, basic addition and subtraction, and initial letter phonics. She encourages all the children to participate in the cultural activities that we arrange, and actively participates as an instructor.
She also likes to address the social-emotional requirements in the classroom. That works best with one person acting as the anchor, so I leave that to her. It’s a wonderful, symbiotic learning situation that works well for the two of us, and for the eight learners.
There is an interesting program in BC that encourages physical education activity in these remote, indigenous schools. My Learning Assistant is trained in the approved approach, so she is developing a PE program for the elementary learners that includes preparation for a 5 km walk. It will extend to the secondary level as the children age up the levels. It’s all very thrilling.
Meanwhile, I work with the Junior level pupils (grades 4 & 5), helping them develop their reading skills (decoding as well as comprehension), basic arithmetic skills, and basic writing skills.
Plenty of academic instruction time is, as much as possible, melded to other activities (1 hour a day to PE, 1 hour a day to local language and culture, 1-1/2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays to an on-line tutoring program or to outdoor education, 1-1/2 hours on Wednesdays to cultural activities). The other activities are very important, and I’m glad we have them in the schedule.
Are we enjoying ourselves here? In a word, yes. Both Nigel and I are enjoying the climate, the sunrises,
and the sunsets, especially at the government wharf.
We enjoy our relaxed evenings and weekends watching sports and dramas on television.
I’m on a swinging pendulum that happens when we are nearing retirement from fulltime employment. I’ve gone from being busy all the time, to doing almost nothing. I think the pendulum will be swinging towards the middle of the arc, in which I’ll do bits and pieces, more recreational activities, and leave work at work until I leave outside employment entirely. Nigel has already reached that fine balance.
So, the question was are we enjoying ourselves? It’s a small place, we are both relaxing, we are enjoying our work, we are enjoying the landscape. Most definitely yes, we are enjoying ourselves.
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