Luckily, fingers-crossed, there have been no more injuries or break-ins.
My new class is a mix of grade fives and sixes and while they like to test their boundaries they are slowly becoming a class.
My classroom is decorated and it took me 3-4 days to get it done to my satisfaction. I had never realized how much effort goes into putting a classroom together. Elementary teachers put a lot of love and time into the space that they create for their students.
On our first day as a working team, all of the teachers were taken to a camp called Kvai (pronounced Kway) on the mainland, about an hour boat-ride away. As we travelled to camp we saw a pod of Humpbacks surface and swim alongside us. Salmon are spawning and it is illegal to fish in certain areas along the coast where rivers start, as we pulled into Kvai we passed several illegal fishing boats. I'm not sure what is worse, the disrespect it shows to the First Nations people- whose area the fisher people were in, or the fact that it is illegal. One of the people fishing illegally was one of the local doctors...oops. Anyway, as we pulled into Kvai the Salmon, Coho, were jumping and it was really cool! The camp consists of a small longhouse on a beautiful sand beach, and three buildings up on a bluff. The camp also has two resident bear dogs to keep away the grizzlies and black bears, they are huge beautiful dogs that reek to high hell. *phew* I made friends with one of them, his name is Humsum and I love him.
When we landed on the beach we were greeted by the two gorgeous bear dogs, very happy to see us and excited for any possible treats we might be bringing. There was evidence of both sea wolves, and grizzlies on the beach in the way of footprints. There was a mature female grizzly and her two cubs on the beach early in the morning before we arrived so we were warned not to go too far away from the camp on our own. I have wanted to see bears since arriving in Bella Bella late last year so I was very excited! Still the grizzlies stayed away...sigh. We had a wonderful picnic at Kvai, complete with traditional beach salmon BBQ, that my Mother learned how to make with cedar sticks...very cool. When we left Humsum hopped into the boat with us and I was fully prepared to bring him home with me but I was out voted due to his lingering odour.
Apparently it is bear season because one of our students spotted a black bear behind the post office on Friday last week. We were all warned to stay well away. Wolves have been scarce around the village because of all the surplus food available along the shorelines. Still something sets my cat off every night when it prowls around our back porch...might just be raccoons.
This Saturday is Salmon Festival where villagers get free salmon, participate in all kinds of salmon processing, and just go to have a good time. I should be able to post some images. I will be volunteering to help pour the salmon into jars.
The weather here has been beautiful and it is difficult to keep the kids focused on school. On Tuesday I took my students outside to play with sidewalk chalk and they got so distracted by the idea of jumping off the dock I had to take them back inside again. The next morning one of them showed up with a terrific black eye, apparently when he jumped off the dock he hit someone's anchor or anchor chain, I wasn't too clear on the details.
Last but not least one of my students showed me footage of a 5-6 foot blue shark he had caught on his Father's boat last weekend. The shark was a good foot or two taller than my student!
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