01 November 2004
Fox Lake, the saga continues
The last email was well received. This one isn't as good because, well, all I've done for the past month is exist in Fox Lake. Anyway, read on...
This is a true multimedia email. The multiple mediums are written word and picture. My brother Jesse was kind enough to put the pictures on his website so I didn't have to email them to everyone.
Angie and I have been accepted as part of the 'young new teacher hang out posse'. Well, actually Angie has been accepted and I am a de facto member until I find work in the school and can contribute to the 'oh yeah? well one of my kids did THIS today!" conversations. 5 of the 7 teachers in this group are from Sherwood Park. One is from good old Vancouver Island and one from some part of northern BC. This posse congregates usually one or two nights a week and quite a lot on the weekend for dinners and movie watching. We are a versatile group and would do other things but there are no other things to do.
Goings on at Jean Baptiste Sewepagaham School continue to boggle the mind. Paul, the high school Social Studies teacher, told us there is a kid, well, student, in grade 10 who's 22. That's older than one of the teachers in our posse. On the weekend of October 16th, some people (might have been kids, might have been adults, the line is a grey one) broke into the school and smashed a bunch of stuff. They smashed every window in the elementary school wing's classroom doors. They dumped over desks and trashed the offices of the gym ! teacher and the principal. They didn't touch the vice principal's office so he's my number one suspect for now. Not only did they trash the principal's office, they also took all his keys. The principal sounds like an interesting guy. I have yet to meet him but in the posse gatherings his name is often used as a punch line to mean something between 'scatterbrained' and 'wholly incompetent'. Ang told me about his address to the older kids in the school at the assembly on the first day. He told them all it was very important they attend classes in the first month otherwise the school gets no funding for them. Then he did moose calls for ten minutes. Truly inspiring. One of the teachers in the posse, Jayne, told a story about one of her students showing up for class drunk (that's grade 6, at 9 in the morning if you're keeping score at home). She went to get the principal to deal with it. He came to the class, asked the kids what they were going to be for halloween, did some moose calls and left. He later told Jayne he didn't smell any booze. Of course, the kid was sitting at the back and Bill the wonder principal didn't even speak to him. I mention these stories because they make the next sentence easier to believe. He doesn't know what keys he had in his office before they were all stolen. He may well have had master keys to all the teacher's residences that were conveniently labeled. The day after it happened he wasn't sure what keys were in there but since then he's become "pretty sure" there weren't any teacher's keys in there. Very reassuring.
The Friday of that week the school was closed because an elder passed away on Thursday. That meant that this week, the 25th-29th was the first full week of school so far this year. And then next week we start a new streak of shortened weeks because Monday is a pseudo pro-D day. The administration figures that the day after Halloween no one will come so they are scrambling trying to find some D for the teachers to do that day.
Up as far as grade 8, there are three classes of each grade. After that, the number of kids per grade takes a dramatic downturn as it is at roughly this point they are legally allowed to drop out. The elementary classes are divided into A, B and C classes. When I first heard this I said, "Let me guess, the smart kids in A and the crazies in C". I was kidding but it turns out this is exactly right. I can't imagine it's good for a child's self esteem to know that they are in the low class. There are a handful of kids who are a bit too crazy for the C level classes so they are all in one class together: "Super Duper Remedial and Crazy" I think it's called. The teacher of this class, Becca, is one of our posse and she is truly amazing. These kids kick and punch and spit and throw rocks and hurl prodigiously colourful insults and threats that seem to be straight from The Silence of the Lambs at whoever is closest to them. Becca always has a smile on her face and is starting to make progress with these kids. Last week she happily reported they had their first punch free day of the year.
Another of our posse, Nikki, is the grade 5A teacher. She is trying very hard to get me hired as her new TA so I like her very much. Her hopefully soon to be old TA did things like say "I didn't get much sleep last night so I'm going home" at 11 in the morning and then not come back for 2 days. Apparently this is common TA behaviour and many of them didn't graduate high school. Nikki's husband, Chris, is an electrician and spent a month and a half as a house husband like me before the people that run Public Works realized it might be handy having a licensed electrician on staff. He goes to homes and the school to do whatever wiring or repairing needs to be done. He says that it's a miracle more houses haven't burned down because nothing is up to code. He says he spends about 20% of his time actually working and the rest of the time looking for people to let him into places he needs to fix. In his second week on the job he spent three days searching the school and town for a guy who apparently had the one and only key to a certain panel in the school. Eventually he discovered the guy had moved away and for all Chris knows the key went along with him.
If you're not familiar with the Bob Dylan song 'everything is broken' you should be. I'm embarrassed to admit that I only learned about it after Kenny Wayne Sheppard covered it a few years back. I liked that version for the same reason I like any Bob Dylan cover, you can understand the lyrics. Anyway, I was listening to the song today and it occurred to me that I have witnessed instances of nearly every broken thing he names in the song in the month of been in Fox Lake. Let's run the list shall we?
Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken springs,
haven't seen any of the first four, but you can sense they are out there.
Broken idols, broken heads,
idols, check. there are very catholic crucifixes (crucifixi?) on the walls of every classroom in the school. I've seen two broken ones so far. It may well be sacrilegious to refer to them as 'idols' but I just don't care. heads, check. (I'll stay literal on this one as to do otherwise would mean pages and pages of typing.) Two things you can count on seeing in Fox Lake are women with black eyes, and kids with sores on their faces.
People sleeping in broken beds.
Sort of. Due to the strong catholic influence in the community and the monetary benefits that come with having many children, there are 3 bedroom houses with over 12 people living in them. I haven't inspected any of the beds but if there aren't broken ones there are certainly people without beds.
Ain't no use jiving
I wouldn't dare jive
Ain't no use joking
I wouldn't dare joke either
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
bottles, check. Despite the fact that this is a dry reserve I've seen broken bottles in great number. plates, check. I saw many pictures of the mess left after the break in, broken plates were amongst the wreckage in the kitchen.
Broken switches, broken gates,
switches, check. The light switch in the equipment room of the gym doesn't work. And though it isn't technically a switch (or is it?) our neighbour's smoke alarm doesn't work. gates, check. I'm going to count this to mean doors as Bob didn't mention them in the rest of the song. Saw about 12 of these in the photos of the apres-vanadal school. Also, our bathroom door doesn't shut properly or lock.
Broken dishes, broken parts,
dishes, check. In addition to the plates, mugs and bowls were smashed in the school. And to be honest, I dropped a glass while doing the dishes and broke it.
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
broken hearts, possibly. I don't have proof but according to the gossip machine, there are as many of these here as there are anywhere.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
broken words, debatable. I think there's a lot of this going around, especially considering the treatment my hero, Becca, gets from her students. Also, the good people of the catholic church urge teenagers not to use birth control so you have cases like the guy who's 20 with 3 children.
Everything is broken.
Bridge:
Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
This could be taken straight from the job description of my friend Chris the electrician.
Broken cutters, broken saws,
cutters, check. Ang and I searched the school for a deck of cards to 'borrow' a few weeks back. We didn't find any but in a drawer I found a box full of mangled scissor halves. saws, check. Funny story. Before Becca moved into her classroom with her violent, at risk kids at the start of the year, she was assured that anything that the kids could make use of as a weapon had been removed. Within 2 minutes of being in the classroom, she found a big, rusty, broken hand saw.
Broken buckles, broken laws,
buckles, check. Ang and I periodically go to the school's weight room, they have a couple of those weight lifter's belts and all the buckles are broken. laws, check. Where to start?
Broken bodies, broken bones,
bodies, check. Bubbles, the woman who's trailer exploded not only burned alive but also had an autopsy. bones, negative. Haven't seen any yet. I'll keep you posted.
Broken voices on broken phones.
voices/phones, not really, though my cell phone doesn't work here.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.
(harmonica solo)
Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
hands on ploughs, nope.
Broken treaties, broken vows,
treaties/vows, well.... I figure that living in a First Nations community I should keep my thoughts on broken treaties to myself.
Broken pipes, broken tools,
pipes, not yet. Though apparently the school closes two or three times each winter due to burst water pipes. tools, check. The pump in the gym equipment room is broken as is every photocopier in the school.
People bending broken rules.
bending broken rules, check. People bootleg alcohol in here, it's $100 for a 12 pack of beer. That's wrong for so many reasons.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
hound dog howling, check. Well, not actually hound dogs but there were lots of random dogs running around, chasing cars and barking a lot. I say were because a dog catcher was recently hired and he's been collecting dogs on the loose and shooting them. Note I said "dogs on the loose" and not "strays". One of the teacher's dogs got shot the other day. bull frogs croakin', no bull frogs, it's too cold.
Everything is broken.
So that's what's going on in Fox Lake, if you care to read it, another update is in the works. Sorry this one took so long but it's very cold so to type is to risk frostbite.
PS To make this something of a cliff-hanger type email, know that I have applied for a job at the school. They are hiring a number of TAs. None of the other applicants finished high school. Stay tuned for the exciting results.
This is a true multimedia email. The multiple mediums are written word and picture. My brother Jesse was kind enough to put the pictures on his website so I didn't have to email them to everyone.
The first picture you see is the high school entrance of the school. This was taken on a Friday there was no school due to a death in the community. Note the flags at half mast. This part of the school sort of looks like my Grandma Rita's former house.
The next two pictures were taken from our kitchen window in early October. I was doing dishes and I looked up and there were many many horses. By the time I got my camera I got only the straggling youngter being harassed by it's parent to keep up and the very very pregnant (I hope) one. Note the dish soap artistically reflected in the second image.
The next picture is a shot of our trailer. Well, the close end of it is ours while the other half belongs to another teacher. The horses were on the far side just past the ugly blue car. (Interesting story about that car. It belongs to one of the youth workers at the school, he's a native guy from John D'or. He owns a really nice SUV but it got stranded on the other side of the river when barge stopped running. He needed a car so he bought this one for $200. Of course, it didn't have a windshield. So he went to the dump and found a car that! did have a windshield, removed it and duct taped it onto his own car.)
The next two are interior shots of our place. The second of the two was taken from our door and the second from the bedroom door. These show our place slightly messier than it usually is (I was able to successfully put off cleaning by taking pictures)
The next shot is the sign which proudly displays the school's name.
And finally, our toaster, which I think you'll agree, is very cool. Note: If whoever bought us the toaster we registered for is reading this, know that we exchanged it because this one was on sale and, well, looks cooler.
That's all for the pictures. Read on for more media enjoyment.
The scary, evil cold I mentioned in my last email has turned its eye on us and is on its way here. The last 3 weeks have been mostly subzero with the occasional stalagmite of 1 degree and, of course, an intense stalactite of -23. It snowed slowly but steadily for the first week adding up to probably 5 inches of snow. theweathernetwork.com has a neat feature that lets you check the weather for any date in the last 3 years. The data for Fox Lake is not inspiring. I refer you here. Check out November 4th 2003 or any day in January 2004. If you're a sadistic person who enjoys a good laugh or a sympathetic person who is happiest dishing out only the precise amount of sympathy a situation deserves, you should download the Desktop Weather Eye thing and tell it you live in Fox Lake. That way you'll always now how cold it is here.
Angie and I have been accepted as part of the 'young new teacher hang out posse'. Well, actually Angie has been accepted and I am a de facto member until I find work in the school and can contribute to the 'oh yeah? well one of my kids did THIS today!" conversations. 5 of the 7 teachers in this group are from Sherwood Park. One is from good old Vancouver Island and one from some part of northern BC. This posse congregates usually one or two nights a week and quite a lot on the weekend for dinners and movie watching. We are a versatile group and would do other things but there are no other things to do.
Goings on at Jean Baptiste Sewepagaham School continue to boggle the mind. Paul, the high school Social Studies teacher, told us there is a kid, well, student, in grade 10 who's 22. That's older than one of the teachers in our posse. On the weekend of October 16th, some people (might have been kids, might have been adults, the line is a grey one) broke into the school and smashed a bunch of stuff. They smashed every window in the elementary school wing's classroom doors. They dumped over desks and trashed the offices of the gym ! teacher and the principal. They didn't touch the vice principal's office so he's my number one suspect for now. Not only did they trash the principal's office, they also took all his keys. The principal sounds like an interesting guy. I have yet to meet him but in the posse gatherings his name is often used as a punch line to mean something between 'scatterbrained' and 'wholly incompetent'. Ang told me about his address to the older kids in the school at the assembly on the first day. He told them all it was very important they attend classes in the first month otherwise the school gets no funding for them. Then he did moose calls for ten minutes. Truly inspiring. One of the teachers in the posse, Jayne, told a story about one of her students showing up for class drunk (that's grade 6, at 9 in the morning if you're keeping score at home). She went to get the principal to deal with it. He came to the class, asked the kids what they were going to be for halloween, did some moose calls and left. He later told Jayne he didn't smell any booze. Of course, the kid was sitting at the back and Bill the wonder principal didn't even speak to him. I mention these stories because they make the next sentence easier to believe. He doesn't know what keys he had in his office before they were all stolen. He may well have had master keys to all the teacher's residences that were conveniently labeled. The day after it happened he wasn't sure what keys were in there but since then he's become "pretty sure" there weren't any teacher's keys in there. Very reassuring.
The Friday of that week the school was closed because an elder passed away on Thursday. That meant that this week, the 25th-29th was the first full week of school so far this year. And then next week we start a new streak of shortened weeks because Monday is a pseudo pro-D day. The administration figures that the day after Halloween no one will come so they are scrambling trying to find some D for the teachers to do that day.
Up as far as grade 8, there are three classes of each grade. After that, the number of kids per grade takes a dramatic downturn as it is at roughly this point they are legally allowed to drop out. The elementary classes are divided into A, B and C classes. When I first heard this I said, "Let me guess, the smart kids in A and the crazies in C". I was kidding but it turns out this is exactly right. I can't imagine it's good for a child's self esteem to know that they are in the low class. There are a handful of kids who are a bit too crazy for the C level classes so they are all in one class together: "Super Duper Remedial and Crazy" I think it's called. The teacher of this class, Becca, is one of our posse and she is truly amazing. These kids kick and punch and spit and throw rocks and hurl prodigiously colourful insults and threats that seem to be straight from The Silence of the Lambs at whoever is closest to them. Becca always has a smile on her face and is starting to make progress with these kids. Last week she happily reported they had their first punch free day of the year.
Another of our posse, Nikki, is the grade 5A teacher. She is trying very hard to get me hired as her new TA so I like her very much. Her hopefully soon to be old TA did things like say "I didn't get much sleep last night so I'm going home" at 11 in the morning and then not come back for 2 days. Apparently this is common TA behaviour and many of them didn't graduate high school. Nikki's husband, Chris, is an electrician and spent a month and a half as a house husband like me before the people that run Public Works realized it might be handy having a licensed electrician on staff. He goes to homes and the school to do whatever wiring or repairing needs to be done. He says that it's a miracle more houses haven't burned down because nothing is up to code. He says he spends about 20% of his time actually working and the rest of the time looking for people to let him into places he needs to fix. In his second week on the job he spent three days searching the school and town for a guy who apparently had the one and only key to a certain panel in the school. Eventually he discovered the guy had moved away and for all Chris knows the key went along with him.
If you're not familiar with the Bob Dylan song 'everything is broken' you should be. I'm embarrassed to admit that I only learned about it after Kenny Wayne Sheppard covered it a few years back. I liked that version for the same reason I like any Bob Dylan cover, you can understand the lyrics. Anyway, I was listening to the song today and it occurred to me that I have witnessed instances of nearly every broken thing he names in the song in the month of been in Fox Lake. Let's run the list shall we?
Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken springs,
haven't seen any of the first four, but you can sense they are out there.
Broken idols, broken heads,
idols, check. there are very catholic crucifixes (crucifixi?) on the walls of every classroom in the school. I've seen two broken ones so far. It may well be sacrilegious to refer to them as 'idols' but I just don't care. heads, check. (I'll stay literal on this one as to do otherwise would mean pages and pages of typing.) Two things you can count on seeing in Fox Lake are women with black eyes, and kids with sores on their faces.
People sleeping in broken beds.
Sort of. Due to the strong catholic influence in the community and the monetary benefits that come with having many children, there are 3 bedroom houses with over 12 people living in them. I haven't inspected any of the beds but if there aren't broken ones there are certainly people without beds.
Ain't no use jiving
I wouldn't dare jive
Ain't no use joking
I wouldn't dare joke either
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
bottles, check. Despite the fact that this is a dry reserve I've seen broken bottles in great number. plates, check. I saw many pictures of the mess left after the break in, broken plates were amongst the wreckage in the kitchen.
Broken switches, broken gates,
switches, check. The light switch in the equipment room of the gym doesn't work. And though it isn't technically a switch (or is it?) our neighbour's smoke alarm doesn't work. gates, check. I'm going to count this to mean doors as Bob didn't mention them in the rest of the song. Saw about 12 of these in the photos of the apres-vanadal school. Also, our bathroom door doesn't shut properly or lock.
Broken dishes, broken parts,
dishes, check. In addition to the plates, mugs and bowls were smashed in the school. And to be honest, I dropped a glass while doing the dishes and broke it.
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
broken hearts, possibly. I don't have proof but according to the gossip machine, there are as many of these here as there are anywhere.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
broken words, debatable. I think there's a lot of this going around, especially considering the treatment my hero, Becca, gets from her students. Also, the good people of the catholic church urge teenagers not to use birth control so you have cases like the guy who's 20 with 3 children.
Everything is broken.
Bridge:
Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
This could be taken straight from the job description of my friend Chris the electrician.
Broken cutters, broken saws,
cutters, check. Ang and I searched the school for a deck of cards to 'borrow' a few weeks back. We didn't find any but in a drawer I found a box full of mangled scissor halves. saws, check. Funny story. Before Becca moved into her classroom with her violent, at risk kids at the start of the year, she was assured that anything that the kids could make use of as a weapon had been removed. Within 2 minutes of being in the classroom, she found a big, rusty, broken hand saw.
Broken buckles, broken laws,
buckles, check. Ang and I periodically go to the school's weight room, they have a couple of those weight lifter's belts and all the buckles are broken. laws, check. Where to start?
Broken bodies, broken bones,
bodies, check. Bubbles, the woman who's trailer exploded not only burned alive but also had an autopsy. bones, negative. Haven't seen any yet. I'll keep you posted.
Broken voices on broken phones.
voices/phones, not really, though my cell phone doesn't work here.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.
(harmonica solo)
Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
hands on ploughs, nope.
Broken treaties, broken vows,
treaties/vows, well.... I figure that living in a First Nations community I should keep my thoughts on broken treaties to myself.
Broken pipes, broken tools,
pipes, not yet. Though apparently the school closes two or three times each winter due to burst water pipes. tools, check. The pump in the gym equipment room is broken as is every photocopier in the school.
People bending broken rules.
bending broken rules, check. People bootleg alcohol in here, it's $100 for a 12 pack of beer. That's wrong for so many reasons.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
hound dog howling, check. Well, not actually hound dogs but there were lots of random dogs running around, chasing cars and barking a lot. I say were because a dog catcher was recently hired and he's been collecting dogs on the loose and shooting them. Note I said "dogs on the loose" and not "strays". One of the teacher's dogs got shot the other day. bull frogs croakin', no bull frogs, it's too cold.
Everything is broken.
So that's what's going on in Fox Lake, if you care to read it, another update is in the works. Sorry this one took so long but it's very cold so to type is to risk frostbite.
PS To make this something of a cliff-hanger type email, know that I have applied for a job at the school. They are hiring a number of TAs. None of the other applicants finished high school. Stay tuned for the exciting results.
