I'm not there yet

Writing this on my word processor on my flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto. The past 24 hours have been all over the place, and I feel like I'm in the middle of some cosmic tornado and I could get whipped out anywhere at anytime.

On Tuesday we finished packing. Putting my new life into a bag is no easy task, especially for people like me, who hate packing all together. The worst part is were packing to leave, packing for Katimavik was exciting (even if mum did most of it), but there's nothing fun about packing to leave. I think this is because there really isn't much fun about leaving at all. Sioux Lookout really stole my heart, and the people who live there are so welcoming it's painful to leave. I suppose for Landen this was too painful because he has rejected his transport to stay and work in Sioux Lookout at the Travel Information Center. For the rest of us the packing was like a time of morning, each of us arranging our own caskets to return to what we ran from. Most of us are unsure about going back to where we came from, namely because we don't have fond memories of that lifestyle.

For me, I know, I felt like a leech in my house, sucking the life out of my mother, and giving nothing in return. I associate Vancouver with that lifestyle and I know it will only be painful if I come back and continue to be a leech. Going back is hard, but it's actually a little easier to go back a changed person. Thanks again Katimavik!

Another part of Tuesday was spent playing the game “Bigger, Better, Best” which is a trading style game, two teams are each given a paper clip, the mission is to go out into the community and trade up to find the best item. To set the standard the mattress upstairs in the Prince house was one of the end results. We made few trades but we made them well. We traded our paper clip to Lynne for a martini mixer, the martini mixer to Shooma for a tri-pod stool, the stool for a 12 pack of Kraft Dinner (I know what you're thinking), then the Kraft Dinner to Out of the Cold shelter, for .... get this ... a wheelchair. Yeah.

Tuesday was important for another big reason, the 19^th birthday of mister Cody Edmonton. Cody has been legal age to drink in Alberta for a year, and Quebec was no change, but he was a little disappointed when we arrived in Ontario, home of the 19 year old drinking limit. Cody had his first, and last (for now), drink at the 5^th avenue club on Tuesday night. For his birthday we made a 16$ (half of our budget that was left for food) fettuccine Alfredo, his favourite meal, for his big day. There were chicken wings and cake, and we watched the movie “One Week” on Codys laptop. If you haven't seen One Week, watch it and you'll realize how appropriate it is (it has the fish from Kenora!).

That night we were up incredibly late. Sarah was adding the final touches to what is sort of like a Katimayearbook, we all wrote letters to everyone in the group and Sarah made a booklet of them. They were given to us the next morning and we're expected to wait until we get home to read them, my is burning in the bag at my feet right now. Sharon also stopped by that night to give Fraancois and I the last of the pictures, and she had cards full of pictures for everyone else in the group. She also entrusted Francois and I with a Meno-Ya-Win T-shirt and her own personal cook book. Now that I have that cook book they'll be one less reason for me to be a leech and one more reason to start being a daughter to be proud of, a daughter who cooks. We all stayed at the Prince house for a sleep over thing on the floor so that we could get ready to go bright and early.

The airport was a sensitive area, since non of us had really been there since we arrived on that particularity dark night. The first night had been weird for us because not only were we unfamiliar with Sioux Lookout but we were separated into two house a significant, and at the time, complicated distance apart. Now we looked at the little airport with sad eyes to be leaving. Landen came along to wish us good bye, along with Anne, chamber of commerce work partner and Landen's new boss, who drove up some of our bags. The first heart ache was watching Tiffany go, her flight went to Red Lake followed y Winnipeg. A tearful goodbye for a wonderful friend, Then there was the good bye with our spunky PL, Sarah, Landen, and Anne. I didn't cry until I saw them from the plane waving at us. The plane went high and I saw that spectacular overhead view of Sioux Lookout. Coupled with the waving it broke my heart to be leaving the place I love.

Awaiting me at Toronto airport will be even more heart ache. Francois and Jessica will head on to Ottawa, Andrew will be picked up by his dad, Cody will board his flight to Edmonton, and Kyle will be about 7 rows ahead of me on our flight to Vancouver. I often hear Katimavik alumni talk about the last day as “bittersweet, because you want to go home, but you don't want to leave your friends”. This day has been anything but sweet. Even the Whitespot burger I will inevitably be eating shortly after I touch down in Vancouver at 6pm could not brighten this. As a group we discussed a reunion in 8 years, one for each competency, in Montreal with Val ad Marie-France of course.

It makes me wonder, in the 6 months of Katimavik, will I have grown more than the 8 years from now? Katimavik works it's magic quickly and then leaves you to fend for yourself. It only makes sense to apply the principle proudly advertised on Sharon's T-shirt.

“The Journey of life is not to arrive at your grave in a well preserved body, but to slide in sideways at the last minute yelling 'Holy shit, what a ride!'”

Winding Down

Friday was my last day at the Meno-Ya-Win and at the Extended Care Facility. Sharon, Courtney, and Margie presented me with a thank you crib board to remember all the times I got skunked while learning the game. The board had a special message on the bottom just for me. Sharon also gave me a card chalked full of all the pictures she'd taken during our time in Sioux Lookout. The BBQ at the Extended Care Facility was a great way to wrap things up, eating burgers outside with Sharon and Francois made me realize how much I'm gonna miss my workplace.

The weekend was spent at a cabin in Cedar Bay, the cabin was built in the 70's by the Sioux Lookout Katimavik group, and Katimavik groups continue to use the cabin to this day. Our Saturday to Monday was spent away from the community reflecting on the program and tying up the loose ends for us as a family. We had a series of activities to reflect and to commemorate the experience. We selected beads for each group member, each bead to describe the qualities of them, and strung them together as a charm of reminder. We shouted one word answers in unison to Sarah reflective questions, are  answers jumble into a cacophony of speech that rang out over the desolate lakes. We cried, we laughed, we talked, and we had fun.

While we weren't busy reflecting we were building fires, and playing in the woods, but the most popular activity was fighting off the 500 billion mosquitoes that rained their horror onto our camp site. My legs would suggest that I either have a skin disease, or that I am a heroin addict. These northwestern Ontario mosquitoes are the most barbaric mosquitoes I have encountered in my 18 year of intensive outdoor life style. That have no mercy, they never leave you ear drum, and there always ten of them in your sleeping bag.

Tuesday will be allocated to clean up, a couple games, and packing. I'm trying to shove all my memories into a bag that was full when I left. Advice for future Katimavik participants: pack a few things you don't mind leaving behind, or don't pack you bags full, you'll want to bring the memories home.

Wednesday will bring doom. Flight at 8:20. I'm flying to Thunder Bay, to Toronto, to Vancouver. I don't want to think about the time zones but I'm getting in at 6:30pm. Yuck! I don't want to leave.

Graduation of "The Katimavik Students"

'There's the Katimavik kids!"

"Those Katimavik volunteers are here."

"I didn't know you were with the Katimavik students!"


Kids, volunteers, students, whatever you want to refer to us as, we've made it a long way. This was a week of wrap up Sharon and I spent the bulk of the week preparing for the Health fair on Thursday. Time with the group was spent preparing for the final presentation.

When a Katimavik group is about to leave there is a reflection presentation good bye thing called a "Final Presentation". We had a round table discussion of ideas and my contribution was "So if were always being called "Katimavik Students" why don't we have a graduation. With hats, diplomas, and speeches ...and stuff" Well, they liked my idea.

Thursday was the great day. We started out by setting up tables, including a Katimavik table, and directing people to the right tables. We had tables from within the hospital, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Cancer Society, the Rec Center and more. In fact we had 24 tables of of fascinating information, neat free-bees and countless draw prizes. The Katimavik table was a hit because Francois, with help from Tiffany, was baking fresh bread in the hospital for people to try.

The elegant madness of the event was quite a marvel. Sharon was constantly up at at it, and her battery was fully charged all day (cause she joined us at the graduation later that day). We managed to bake bread, blend smoothies, keep the gift store open all day, and managed a hula hoop competition.


Of course it take a lot (an apocalypse?) to stop Sharon, so she obviously had her honourable duties to follow as a work partner. After a musical introduction (guess which Vitamin C song we played) we, the volunteers, were presented with dipolmas, and we, the volunteers, presented each work partner with a official Katimavik certificate. So here is Codys photo of me and Sharon.

Then Andrew and I presented the awards in hilariously British accents. Tiffany for Hardwork, Cody for Helpfulness, Landen as the Chatterbox, Francois for Leadership, Andrew for Philosopy, Kyle for Manliness, Jessica for Girliness, myself for Humour, and Sarah for Energy. After this Jessica, our valedictorian, made a heart warming speech. Francois presented the composter to the community. Kyle lead everyone in dance, and we finished by throwing our hats in the air.

But we weren't finished. Could there be any better way to finish things off than to jump in the lake? Those who know me may be familar with the my mantra featured on my necklace "Jump in the lake one more time." So the prophecy was fulfilled.

Things still coming up:
-Tomorrow is the last day of work, Francois and I will be attending a BBQ at the extended care facility.
-Dereif camp starts on Friday.
-The men finally receive their spirit names on Friday after work
-Wednsday is D-day

CCP: Chaotic Composter Plan

Last we left off I had entered my fourth and last time being house manager. This was by far the most difficult of the house managing dates, obviously we can't deny the time is running out so we have begun shutdown. Shutdown is the process of closing the Katimavik house (or in our case 'houses') in case there are no groups coming, or in case the house(s) is(are) sold. For me and Andrew this meant a total inventory of the two houses. Everything, everything, everything, must be listed and counted. This took about three days for the two houses, it really consumed our week. Of course it didn't stop us from making some amazing food, namely:
Monday: Andrew is an Italian from Toronto, so we made so Torontilinis
Tuesday: Niki is a resident of Lynn Valley, home of four Japanese restaurants within a kilometer of each other, so we made sushi.
Wednesday: We talked about it, we hadn't eaten it, we finally made ...Pad Thai
Thursday: Anne, our guardian angel, came over for dinner so we could thank her for helping us with the drive to Winnipeg. We didn't want to scare her off with anything too weird so we did a variety mini burger night, beef, chicken, shrimp, and veggie.
Friday: Relay for Life supplied dinner.
Saturday: Niki is always hungry for curry.
Sunday: Soups!

I did, however, have a meeting with Sarah on Wednesday night: which changed everything. She asked me one pivotal question "Is there anything that you wanted to do in Katimavik that we haven't done yet?" I told her "Sarah, when we started Katimavik there was one thing I figured we do almost every day that we haven't done once. That is of course, themed dinners." Sarah was taken aback by this and the two of us immediately got to scheming. With the collective community project, shutdown, and the final presentation coming up our group was in not state to allocate anytime to fun things. So how do we get them to do a themed dinner without asking them? That's where Sarah comes in. Her and I planned a disability dinner for Tuesday night. The underside of everyones plate had instructions of what their disability is and .... ah well let me quote myself in our Katimavik blog:

"Today I had a little meeting with Sarah which ended with her question “Is there anything you feel you haven’t done in Katimavik so far, that you’d like to do?” I sighed and replied “There’s one thing i was really excited to do on Katimavik, that we haven’t done once. We have never had a themed dinner. Ever.” Sarah was shocked. Needless to say the two of us got to scheming and being house manager for the week I helped to arrange three themed dinners.
Tonight was the first of the three. It was a challenge dinner, after everyone had sat down Sarah and I explained that on the underside of everyone’s plate was their challenge. I was deaf, to recreate this I listened to Iron Butterfly’s “In the Gada da Vida” at maximum volume. Sarah to the right of me was blind folded. Talkative Andrew was silenced. Kyle had the use of one arm which helped to feed himself along with Jessica who had no mobility. Helpful Cody had no thumbs but still managed to assist in feeding Landen. Landen couldn’t move or speak, he sat there like a fish, mouth open, not moving. Tiffany abandoned her “no hands” to help feed Landen. While poor Francois had a neck injury and could turn his head. This may seem simple but tonights dinner was assemble your own sushi. CHAOS. Sarah got wasabi everywhere.
-Niki “Blue” Andresen"

The night of Pad Thai we had a wacky utensil dinner.

The night of the burgers, we had a toga dinner, even Anne joined in.

Friday night was particularly cool, it was Relay for Life. Which is one of those big events in Sioux Lookout. I was amazed by the turn out, but Sharon tells me there were more people last year. The idea of the event is a consistent walk throughout the night, each walking team get sponsors and proceeds go towards cancer research. To keep people entertained and awake is where the fun stuff comes in. Before the walk starts there's a dinner for all cancer survivors, and the Katimavikians got too be waiters and waitresses.

 The gang is positioned with the giant cake.

Afterwards we got to indulge in the leftovers of an amazingly cheesy lasagna, salad, and garlic bread.

Volunteering for me that night started with the design and construction of the plans for the Sioux Lookout Tower, the kids were game to help although I suspect we'll never see the full construction of the 2km high skyscraper. After this I got into the face painting with such a success after the Teddy Bear's Picnic, how could we not? The highlight had to be the little girl who wanted a Canucks logo on each cheek. Then we assisted in lighting the luminaries that kept the track alive. We assisted the high school students in their volunteer jobs. Helping with the Olympics which are a series of games for the kids in the middle of the night. Cody and I went around to relight the luminaries that had lost their fire. Then Sharon scooped me up to help make some smoothies for the  healthy bingo. I don't know what happened after because it was 3:30am when we decided to crawl to the Prince house and pass out on the floor. Sarah had adjusted our curfew for the night so we could actually help out. Typically, we should be at our respectful houses by 2:00am, but how could we volunteer at an all night event? Thank you, Sarah. However the biggest thank you, goes out to those who stayed all night, thank you, and wow.


Collective Community Project, or CCP had become the dark cloud looming over our fun. Deadlines, approval, paperwork, construction, meetings, supplies, and time, the words we feared.  In fact even squeezing in an information session on aboriginal med cine was difficult. Thursday was D-day, we met at Sioux Mountain School at 8:30am, today was gonna be hard work. We introduced ourselves to the grade one class and got down to safety rules. Measuring, sawing, games, piggy backs, measuring, drilling, playing soccer, and finally a finished product.

It was hard work for most of the day.

Then there she was, one of the two composters we built with the kids. This is only part on of our CCP. The composters will remain at Sioux Mountain School as a more environmentally friendly way to dispose of waste.



 The next day was part 2. This is the construction of a three bin composter for the community garden.

 Landen demonstrates his skills with the drill.

 Our supplies were donated from Home Hardware and McDiarmid. The power tools were courtesy of The Queen Elizabeth District Highschool.

Niki and Tiffany (Nikany) sit in the finished composter.

 

To the shock and surprise of the group, the composter actually fit in the Katimavan.

The week has been histerically fun, thanks in part to Chelsea! Sarah is planning on continueing on as a PL in Sioux Lookout and thus has to attend trraining. To fill in as PL in this difficuklt time we had the experience, wisdom, and generosity of Chelsea! She we be leaving us on Sunday. We salute you, Chelsea!

Awesome.