LIfe in the North... Be ready for ANYTHING!

So, despite my desire and NEED to go to bed early last night, I didn't. At about 9:30 pm, I was reading some blogs and N's daughter caught me on MSN and asked if I was going to the community centre. I was wondering what was happening there, since it is usually just sports and I have never gone before. She said that there was something happening with Inuit games, sports and throatsinging.

Now this caused a bit of a dilemma, to go or not to go. Not knowing the size and importance of the gathering, I wasn't sure if it was something I should show my face at so that I would be seen as someone who makes an effort to integrate. OR could I get away with not going and resting, since these events are often until indescent hours of the night, and I was already dead from not being in perfect health. I decided I would go for a bit and read the situation.

It turned out they organized a celebration for 6-7 Latvian tourists who had just arrived via kayak from Schefferville. They had been kayaking up the George River and my guess is it takes a couple weeks minimum to make that trip. I guess some community members decided to throw together a little event to demonstrate some Inuit culture and just to get to know them a bit more.

When I got there, a few of the Latvian fellows were playing a three on three basketball game against a few of the boys that I taught my first year up north. After that there was a demonstration of the one foot high kick, a traditional Inuit game, that requires an immense amount of agility, strength and skill. It was pretty impressive what some of our boys can do! There was also a group who did a folk dance for everyone and a few youth that were playing the music.

At the end before everything was shut down, four of my secondary girls (who have learned how to do traditional drum dancing and throat singing in the last couple years in a school project), did a couple of drum dance songs and a few throatsinging demos. I was so proud of them and it really just dawned on my that the throatsinging/drum dancing group was such a good project since some of the girls who are in that group are some of our most shy girls and they have really become proud and outgoing in their t.s. and d.d. They were really glowing and were doing their songs without having the teacher supervisor there.

Those tourists really had a great show! Lucky cats! And I was most happy to see the comm. centre supervisor finish the event at a fairly decent hour, instead of after midnight it was 10:30 pm. Needless to say, a late night for me!