Field of Dreams…

I am going to start at the end…Today was a great day for me…I was able to recapture a past time of my youth, and with it, the associated glory. I am of course talking about baseball. Tonight I spent a good portion of two hours playing baseball with about 18 guys from Fort Hope. I managed to borrow a glove from one of the recreation coordinators and got myself right into the game. I was told playfully by the other team’s pitcher, to fear for my life because I was a white guy! I was fortunately able to dodge getting hit by any pitches, and even managed myself a double and a single (all pretty lucky hits). The guys were pretty skeptical when I joined in at first, but when I opened up with my cannon of an arm to nail a runner trying to go ‘first to third’ I was instantly accepted into the fold. I’m pretty pumped, because maybe, just maybe, if I keep paying my dues I will be able to join the Fort Hope team in their quest to beat Webequie in the annual August baseball tournament. I’m a little rusty though…I made the unfortunate discovery that over the years my baseball skills have deteriorated significantly…I guess the majors is out of the question…:(

The bugs were out in full force tonight let me tell you! I was actually losing body mass because of it…I think I’m about 1-2 pounds of skin lighter than I was at the start of the day because of all the chunks the blackflies took from me!

I’ll give you the quick rundown on the day…

I got to spend all of this morning working with Nanajean and the younger kids. The numbers in the 7-9 class were low enough that I was able to stay with my little friends! It was a great day for us. We read a bunch of stories, drew a couple of pictures (mine was pretty good I might add) and played a really successful game of Doggie Doggie Where’s Your Bone? This game worked way better than the last time I tried it…The kids were scared to sing so I just had them say the words (they were much more excited about that). As the game went on they all began singing without even noticing…I didn’t clue them in on it, so we’ll see if they figure it out! The kids were incredibly cute during this game. The doggies were sniffing all around the classroom for clues and everyone was giggling and laughing (including me on occasion!).

This afternoon we had a strong afternoon with our 10 & 11s. Our most notable activity of the day was introducing them to a bit of politics! This was fun for me, because I’m a super nerd and like politics! I was pleasantly surprised with how many people knew about Stephen Harper, and even more shocked to find out that the majority of them know who Elizabeth May is. A handful knew Michael Ignatieff, a large number knew Jack Layton (no one knew Gilles Duceppe or Dalton McGuinty…) but overall Elizabeth May was the best known. Weird, I thought…We also made sure that the kids knew the members of their band council. We presented this activity in the form of a matching excercise with pictures, names and titles of all of the politicians. Surprisingly this held their attention for about 30 minutes!

After camp we ran our first series of evening community activities. Tonight’s activity was girls broomball. The turnout was relatively low, but the ones that came had a great time. You’ve got to start somewhere I suppose! After broomball the girls didn’t want to leave so Courtney and Jenette took them back to one of the classrooms and they spent another hour and a half beading. It was a great evening to get to really know some of the kids…A little sidenote…It appears that I may start giving a couple of kids piano lessons on the horrendously out of tune piano at the school…

Tomorrow night I begin my first ‘music night’. We’re going to be learning ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus, which I’m hoping will go over well. I also need to come up with a decent backup song that will be interesting for kids of all ages…I’m trying to come up with one right now, but I can’t decide…

Also, today we made our first trip to ‘Mike’s’. At ‘Mike’s’ you can order hamburgers, hotdogs and the best fries ever! I may wake up with food poisoning tomorrow, but man did it taste good. I’ll just pray for no food poisoning!

Anyway, I should probably head off to bed so that I can wake up early tomorrow and start itching all of my bug bites!

–Be kind to each other and don’t fall down