Posted by reneerose on May 6, 2010 in
random First thing this morning Beth and I went to the Band office to talk to one of the council members. We spoke about population, health issues, housing issues, what the council does and how it works and what the community is planning for its economic future.
Then the other community nurse came into the community from Fort Frances to give us a teaching session on EKGs. Since these things are are almost like reading an entirely foreign language (you know, with the exception that you’re ability to read and diagnose something from it is what could be the difference between someone living and dying). So the way I look at it, the more people who teach me pointers about reading them, and the more I practice trying to read them, the better I will get at actually being able to read them and hopefully prevent patients from dying, or at least, from getting worse.
Tomorrow Beth and I planning on going to Fort Frances, and we are staying the night at “La Place Rendez Vous”. Should be fun!!
Posted by reneerose on May 6, 2010 in
random Today Beth and I finally learned how to make Bannock! I had been waiting for this lesson since we got here… this is the cultural thing (other than tobacco) that seems to present at every function, almost every meal.
Bannock is a type of traditional bread. It only had three ingredients (although we were told that you can add a whole lot of extras if you like). The three ingredients are flour, water, and baking powder. The secret though is in the method, and it’s a very unique method at that! I felt so honoured being told how to make this bread. Not even all of the women of the community know how, only some. It seems to be almost like a special tradition present only in certain families. The women are taught by their grandmothers as young as 4 years of age, and keep on mastering the technique until they are an adult.
We were all pleasantly surprised that Beth and I were able to follow our teacher’s guidance and actually make some rather good Bannock (we had been told that the first time you make Bannock, it’s usually hard as rock… and white women usually make “weird” Bannock). Our teacher thought that we had done a good enough job to actually bring our Bannock to the elders for their lunch! I was very pleased with ourselves!
I can’t wait to try to make this bread again on my own for my family (hopefully I’ll be able to do so without rendering it into concrete).
After we delivered the Bannock to the elders, our teacher took us on car ride to some areas that we hadn’t seen before (she even stopped to show us an eagle nest… the thing was HUGE).
The rest of the day was spent doing work and relaxing… We managed to slip in a walk between the bouts of rain even!
Posted by reneerose on May 4, 2010 in
random Cedar bath ceremony day.
Part 1: Beth, Lisa and I went out to get out cedar. Now I need to build an image of how the three of us looked. Lisa was wearing jeans, sneakers and a light coat. Beth was wearing, legging with knee high socks, another pair of pants over this, as many shirts, rubber boots, coat, gloves, toque and coat. I had put on panty hose, socks, pants, a tank top tucked into the hose, a shirt, my rubber boots, my coat with the hood on and tied tight. All of this to prevent any ticks from getting on us. So we went to the area with the cedar, gave our tobacco donations, picked our cedar and came back home. Once home, I basically stripped down to my underwear and had Beth inspect he and my hair for ticks. I’m apparently am in the clear, although at the very moment I’m itchy in all sorts of spots, only because I’m thinking of ticks and I’m paranoid that there is one on me despite my militant efforts. (I have serious tick issues).
Part 2: Beth and I went and sat in the room that was being used for the ceremony. Beth went first. When it was my turn, I gave my gift and my tobacco tie to the healer. The helpers had already taken my cedar, added it to a big copper pot with boiling hot water and let it steep for 10 minutes. Then I got up on the table, and the two helpers covered me in a blanket. Then the healer took my glasses and placed my hair in the “right spot”. Then the healer and her two helpers began. First the healer healer took two wash clothes (by the way, all the wet wash clothes are coming from the basin with the cedar water, hence cedar bath). She washed my face and my hair. Then she held two balled wash clothes on my eyes (telling me that she was asking the grandmothers to the taken away any negative feelings/energies I’ve picked up from things I’ve seen in my life time). Then she put two on my ears (she took the other wash clothes off by the way) and it was basically the same idea as the eye thing, but this time it was dealing with things that I had heard. Then, after she took those two off, she put one on my forehead (my third eye), taking away any negativity that was in my soul. Then she took that off, and placed one cloth on my eyes for the rest of the ceremony. The helpers then placed like 9 wet washcloths on my chest, and the healer, with her hands on my shoulders, instructed me to breath deeply. With every deep breath out, the helpers moved the clothes down slowly down my body until they reached my feet… This is where I was asked to take a very deep breath and to exhale hard while the healer pushed on my shoulders (sort of pushing the badness out), while the helpers kind of cathartically pulled away all of the washcloths. Then one of the helpers smudged me (using the smoke from burning sage and sweet grass and fanning me with bird feathers…I think it was eagle). Then they all ran their hands over my body, but keeping them about 1/4 -1/2 away from actually touching me. This is how they sense underlying issues, they can somehow feel it. We went through this whole process one more time and then we were done. At the end, the healer told me that they sensed two areas with “problems” (this wasn’t her wording… she said it in a much better way)… anyhow, she basically indicated two problems that there’s no way she could have known about… not in a million years.
It was pretty fantastic experience actually. After I was done, I felt relaxed and a little lighter even… but then one of the helpers told that this feeling shouldn’t last too long and that I would end up feeling heavy and tired… and I certainly did. In the end Beth and I couldn’t stay in the cedar bath past 1pm (the other people in the room stay and play shakers with the music and chant).. but with all of the smoke in that room, I ended up just needing to take the rest of the day off of cedar bathing… They continued on for another 4 hours, we’d been at it since 8:30 ourselves.
I wasn’t too sure what to expect… but I went into it with an open mind, and in the end I was really rather surprised and impressed. They were spot on, even with Beth too (I feel being the new outsiders, that we were good test subjects in that they did not know very much about us). It’s quite interesting, and totally unexplainable by any science I know, but I guess it offered me some personal proof that there is a place in life for spirituality (what ever it may be)… and you just need to find what is meaningful to you. I needed to come to peace with myself about that. This cedar bath ceremony taught me this, and the fact that there’s a reason that traditional medicine has lasted so long… because it seems to work!
I am so glad I ended up going to NOSM and going on this placement.
Posted by reneerose on May 3, 2010 in
random Well today has been off to a good start… Beth and I got up at 7:30 because we had a teleconference at 7:30 (yup, we got up at the time to get on… it’s wonderful). We had some breakfast and watched an episode of House, after which we went and did some school work).
After lunch we met with an elder. He works in the clinic, and he used to be the chief! We spoke with him for 3 and half hours. He revealed to us some interesting bits of the community’s history. We even covered some heavier topics, which kind of took both Beth and I a bit by surprise, but I was glad that we did. He encouraged questions, saying that none would be inappropriate. It was a great experience! He also invited us to participate in a sweat lodge before we leave. Can’t wait for that!
After this Beth and I returned to work. Tomorrow morning we are going to be getting up early to go and get our cedar branches for our cedar bath ceremony. I am really excited for this, I can’t wait to see what it’s like.
I love you all!
Posted by reneerose on May 2, 2010 in
random this is for may 2.
Things today were rather similar to yesterday. Plenty of down time, which still very much appeals to both Beth and I at this moment. The rain has pretty much kept us indoors, but we’ve gotten quite a bit of school work done and we finished the first season of House!
Although I’m quite happy here… I’m starting to look forward to going home. It will be almost 6 months since I’ve seen my parents and Bazil in person, and it’s always weird not having my other half near me. It doesn’t help that I just keep on thinking about how much fun we’re going to have this summer, and so, I’m getting more and more excited (kind of like Christmas). I can’t wait!
Tomorrow we are meeting with one of locals for stories about he community’s heritage. This particular person is the former chief of the community. I have so many questions to ask him. Plus, his wife is the healer that will be performing the cedar bath ceremony on tuesday.
So I’m off to bed (at a reasonable hour tonight)… let’s see what kind of adventures tomorrow will bring!
I love all of you!
Posted by reneerose on May 2, 2010 in
random This is for May 1. I can’t believe it’s already May!!
OK so this time, I entirely forgot to write my blog yesterday… It’s most likely from the lack of excitement, which was good.
Basically we got up late in the day, made a nice breakfast and then did homework until 7-8pm. Then we had dinner and watched quite a few episodes of house while we did our knitting. We are expecting to do much of the same today.
We found out that the cedar bath that we were going to do on Thursday has been rescheduled from tuesday, so we’re pretty darned excited for that.
We also found out that the exam take up session will be happening this week! So that means we should be getting our results within week or two after the take up session. I’m excited at the much more reasonable wait time this time around (although it’s already been 4 weeks).
So that was pretty much the excitement for yesterday.
Posted by reneerose on May 1, 2010 in
random This is for April 30th (I’ve got to start posting these earlier in the day)
Oh wow, was today ever interesting!
So this morning Beth and I got up early to go the school to meet up with someone from the community who was going to teach us Ojibwe. As we made our way over to the school, we realized that the school was locked… We thought that this was weird, but we thought we should wait. Well, it turned out the the school was closed today and we were kind of stood up (I figure it’s a simple case of forgetting…no biggy). So since it was raining, we decided that we should go have an adventure into town (Fort Frances).
It was our first time a) driving down this particular road on our won and b) going to Fort Frances. In total, it took us 3 hours. We decided to check our tires before leaving the Lac La Croix road and getting onto the highway.. they seemed fine (when we came in, on our first day, the person that was “escorting” us in told us that this road had bad rocks, and that it didn’t look like we had good tires for it… this becomes important later).
We made into town fine… It’s quite nice actually (just a little smelly from the pulp mill). We had lunch, and then went and did a bit of shopping. On our way back to car from our second last stop, Beth noticed that the two tires on the passenger side were low. I walked over and stood there admiring our tires that were now only 2-3 inches away from being entirely flat. So we went into a store and asked a lady where we could go to get our tires fixed. We headed to this store, explained our story and sat down in the waiting room. Then to our surprise, a couple from the reserve came into the shop. They addressed to guy at the counter by his first name, and he responded to them with their first names as well. They too had a flat tire from the road. They sat down with us and we started chatting and laughing… then another reserve local came in, he too with a flat from the road. And then, another guy from the reserve came in, road got his tires too. And just when you start thinking “no, there can’t possibly be another person from that reserve with a flat tire from that road”, another one came in. Six people in total came into the tire store with a flat from that darn road in the span of the hour that Beth and I were there. SIX!! This road is in serious need for an intervention I’m telling you.
Turns out that when they were making this road in (because originally, Lac La Croix was a fly in community only… They got a road about 10 years ago I think ). Anyhow, the road was made up of crushed stone from the big rocks that they blasted out of the way. Well turns out this was a terribly idea, because these rocks remain very very sharp and basically spear/skewer/murder (however you want to describe it really) tires. Apparently every year they add more gravel to the top of the road, but since they grate it like every week, it just brings up the sharp spear-like rocks. Hence Lac La Croix is single handedly keeping this tire business alive! Oh and the owner gave Beth and I and 3 minute tutorial on how to change our own tires too! (we’re bringing him a coffee next weekend when we go back to Fort Frances and we end up with another flat).
So we got our tires fixed, and we went to do our groceries… but then as we were leaving the grocery store, our tires began to make an awful sound… so we called the tire place (despite the fact that they were closed) and they told us to come in. Turns out this particular road of our is notorious also for crap getting like into the wheel well (i guess that’s what its called) so we might hear this sound once and a while… it’s apparently the sound of grinding a rock between two pieced of metal… totally harmless… he then told us that we are probably also going to experience violent shaking of the vehicle eventually (also due to this mud in weird places in our wheels)… he told us that was normal too.
Now I skipped a part… While we were in the grocery store, we me another Lac La Croix resident (weird huh?)… and she told us to be careful because the highway between Fort and the Lac La Croix road is renown to be covered in deer (I’m thinking “great.. what else”)… So we got onto the highway, new tires, watching for deer, but it’s crappy lighting out because it’s raining… and then it decides that a torrential downpour would be fun… the entire rest of the way! Well, that’s not entirely true… it’s began to drizzle when we were about 15 minutes away from the reserve. Oh, and we did see deer and bear on/next to the highway…
but alas we made him alive. Beth and I were both a little frazzled from our day’s adventure… we ate dinner at 9pm and watched City Slickers with our knitting. I’m feeling much better now (I apoligize to my father and Keith whom I kinda shat on when I called them… I made the mistake of calling them as soon as I came in the door because it was 10 their time… I think I should have taken 5 minutes to “regroup”… good thing they love me)
I’m counting on tomorrow being a quiet, slow day, involving only homework. Off to bed.
Posted by reneerose on Apr 30, 2010 in
random This post is for April 29th (I still have 30 minutes before midnight here)
To prove that things here are unpredictable, all of the activities we had planned for today were cancelled (and the day was going to be packed to the brim).
Luckily though, all of the activities have been rescheduled for next week! So today is just going to be one of those days.. It’s raining out, so we’re staying in and getting some work done. We ended up doing about 6-8 hours of school work which was good. Lisa, the nurse, returned home for the weekend. Tomorrow morning we are going to the school to learn to speak some Objibwe. I’ve already learned a few things, I’ve made sure to ask a few new words here and there. So far I know how to say “hello”, “pig”, “thank you”, “white person”, “medicine”, and “nurse”. I’m hoping to add a few more to that tomorrow.
Also we’ve heard that our drumming lesson that was supposed to take place today might rescheduled for tomorrow… but we will just have to wait and see I guess.
On saturday or Sunday, Beth and I plan on going into town (Fort Frances)… We certainly don’t need any groceries (man were we ever prepared!!) but there are few things that we need to get, namely some hand soap and white cloth to redo our tobacco ties (we found out that red tobacco ties signify that they are cursed by some kind of spirit… OOPS!!). If nothing else, it’s just a reason to go on an adventure… It should take us about 3 hours to get to Fort Frances (kinda shitty when you think about the fact that this is basically the closest town to the locals of Lac La Croix).
p.s. (selfish moment) feel free to write comment on my posts… I have no other way of knowing that you’re reading them, and it’s kind of nice (selfish moment done)
Posted by reneerose on Apr 28, 2010 in
random OK so I have some pictures here… now there are a few things I need to say..
1) I’m not sure if they will work, if they don’t… I’m sorry.
2) I am unable to edit them now, and there are some that need to edited/deleted… but now that they are uploaded I do not want to tempt fate and start tinkering.
3) I can’t add captions to the pictures, so you’ll kind of have to figure them out on your own… again sorry.
I keep on trying to be able to fix these problems, but the internet connection is not really enjoying this amount of work, so I will fix them when I get back home in a month.
Cheers
Oh click here to see the pictures!
Posted by reneerose on Apr 28, 2010 in
random Click on this link to see a Pow-Wow that was held here in Lac La Croix. I believe they have one of these every year click here to see it.
Today certainly made up for yesterday’s slower day. First thing in the morning Beth and I phoned into our small group session. We finished early so we were hoping to go and get some school work done… and we did for about 10 minutes. Then the fun began!!
Joanne, the other nurse (who doesn’t live here) came to teach us about wound care. You know whatever you’re going to learn is going to be fun, when the person teaching brings a bag of goodies to play with… and man did she ever have goodies to play with!! It was really interesting and super informative… more interestingly though is that everything I was taught in nursing just 2 years ago with regards to wound care is totally moot! She had such amazing products with her that were totally revolutionary! Funnily enough, hospitals still don’t carry these products because rather than costing 86 cents a product, they cots 12 dollars a product. But as Joanne very very clearly showed to us today, these products SIGNIFICANTLY cut down healing time (I’m talking cutting healing time in a quarter!! even for scary stuff like flesh eating!!). So you end up using way less of the product and in the end would save the hospital money… I think what makes it stand out is that a very poorly funded Aboriginal Community Nurse group buys the expensive products rather then the cheap ones.
After our session with Joanne, we had a potluck lunch with 10-12 people. It was all very good (and luckily Beth and I found out early enough to be able to make something to contribute as well!).
After lunch, Beth and I were taught how to bead on leather and how to make pouches. My fingers are killing me (i bled all over my pouch while I was making it… sewing leather is hard freaking work!!). But I am very proud of my pouch (i’ll try to add a picture soon… I’ve been having a really hard time posting pictures in general, mostly because of the internet connection).
So tonight, I’m going to take some time to relax and enjoy some down time.
Until tomorrow!! (p.s. I can’t believe I’ve actually been writing a blog EVERY SINGLE DAY… this is all for you guys!)
