People keep giving me a sympathetic look whenever I tell them I work at the Centre. I'm working in a facility for young offenders, so yeah, my students aren't the most willing to work or even generally going to listen to a word I say. Regardless, I've really been enjoying it; I know I'm not the greatest teacher since I'm not qualified and so in a way I'm sort of learning along with the students. But every now and then I'll have a lesson where one of the students shows even a tiny bit of interest and it all feels worthwhile. It's all about those tiny moments! My most difficult student right now is The Charmer (no names since these are young offenders...). She draws swastikas on everything, she regularly steps into my path to try to intimidate me, she swears at me, I'll give her a hand-out and she will just slide it right onto the floor and will often act like being alive is just a monumental task. Today one of my other students wanted to learn how to draw faces and I showed them how to split up the face and draw a grid etc. to get proportions and placement correct, and suddenly The Charmer was participating and talking and just being a regular kid! It was awesome.
Other than that, things are just generally good. Still enjoying it here and trying to find things. Some of the buildings in town are very mysterious; they're commercial looking buildings but sometimes there's just no sign out front to tell you what it is! One small problem; there is ONE bank in the entire village and it's Desjardin. I have CIBC and can't make deposits at Desjardins, and the school paid me with a check instead of direct deposit for whatever reason. Tis a small town indeed! The closest CIBC is in Chibougamau which is over an hours drive and I have no mode of transportation. But that's alright; if that's the biggest obstacle here, I can handle it.
The last couple days have been unseasonably warm; today it was above freezing and was even raining as I walked back to work after lunch. But it's supposed to go back down to around -20 again tomorrow in time for our planned walk to Murray's Lodge, which is about 10km outside of town. Apparently many go to the lodge every weekend for traditional Cree craft-making and foods, so we've been wanting to check it out! Hoping to try some goose and beaver meat!
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