|
Back
to February, 2002 Archive Index
Columns
Nunani
February
1, 2002 - Vanished: Part three
February 8, 2002 - Of cabbages and kings: Part One
February 15, 2002 - Of cabbages and kings: Part
Two
February 22, 2002 - Of cabbages and kings: Part
Three
My Little
Corner of Canada
February
1, 2002 - The last Little Corner of Canada
SEX ED: WHAT YOU NEED TO
KNOW
March 8, 2002
Real men have vasectomies
The only permanent form
of birth control is sterilization. When and if you are certain beyond
a shadow of a doubt! that you do not ever want to have more babies, think
about it.
Considering a vasectomy
if you are a man ("getting clipped"), or a tubal ligation if you are
a woman ("getting your tubes tied") is appropriate.
For men, vasectomy is a
short, simple operation done under local aneasthesia. It is done through a small
incision in the scrotum (the bag) not the penis. You go home an hour later.
After you have two semen
(jiz, cum or whatever other term of endearment you use) samples that show no
sperm, you can have sex and not worry about your partner getting pregnant. The
failure rate is about 1 in a 1,000.
For women, having a tubal
ligation is a safe, frequently done operation but simple it is not. It
takes longer, requires a general anaesthetic, and there is a greater chance
of complications such as infection or bleeding. And, the failure rate is five
times higher (depending on the technique used), so 1 in 200 women will become
pregnant accidentally over one year.
As you all know, getting
"clipped" or "tied" does not protect you against sexually
transmitted diseases, so you still need to use a condom.
Studies show that when
married couples decide they have had enough kids, it is still more often the
woman who goes for a tubal ligation. As is usually the case in reproductive
health issues, the responsibility and the consequences of decisions often fall
into womens hands.
It takes two to tango.
Permanent birth control through sterilization is a perfect opportunity for making
decisions together. For men, the procedure is safer and more effective and thus,
I suggest to loving male partners: real men have vasectomies.
I hope 2002 has been good
to you all so far.
Im back and writing
again... As with all of these columns, this is an overview of the subject
speak to a nurse or doctor if you would like more information about birth control
choices.
Questions, comments? Write
to nunatsiaqsexed@hotmail.com
or send a letter to the Iqaluit office.
Next week: A Contraception
Summary
TOP
March 15, 2002
Preventing teen pregnancy
(or the birth control rap)
Sex is for procreation
and for pleasure. Adolescence is a time of experimentation and risk-taking.
Young folks often find
it hard to believe that it is possible to be responsible and have fun too
but it is. You owe it to yourself and your partner to learn about birth control
and use it when you are sexually active.
The least effective method
of all is to cross your fingers. This results in 85 per cent of women getting
pregnant in one year. The most effective method is total abstinence (no intercourse
ever) and not surprisingly, this gives women a zero per cent chance of becoming
pregnant.
For those who do choose
to be sexually active, there are a variety of ways to prevent pregnancy and
protect yourself from disease.
In the past seven columns,
we have covered condoms, the shot, the pill, the IUD, barriers, natural family
planning and sterilization.
Make an informed decision
about which will work for you and your partner. Some techniques are more or
less effective than others, and each has its pros and cons.
Teen pregnancy rates have
continued to increase steadily since 1987, with about half leading to live births
and the other half ending in abortion or miscarriage. In the United States,
where access to birth control and sexual health education is more limited, the
rates of teen pregnancy are nearly double.
Why are high teen pregnancy
rates not such a good thing?
Medically speaking, the
health risks are greater to both baby and mother. Pregnant young women have
higher rates of anemia, kidney problems, high blood pressure and depression.
All of these can take their toll on a developing fetus.
At least as important is
that getting pregnant in your teens usually gets in the way of your education.
Without education, the chances of living a life in poverty go up dramatically.
Whether or not you give your baby up for adoption, life changes in a big way.
In Canada there are more
than 40,000 teen pregnancies per year. Youth living in the north have higher
rates of teen pregnancy than other Canadians: while the national rate of pregnancy
in young women (aged 15 to 19) is 43 per 1000, in the NWT (1997 data, so thats
us too) it was 125 per 1000.
Why are there so many unplanned
pregnancies? Kids not getting the information they need is definitely part of
it.
Sexual health education
is about providing information in a way that gives people more power and control
over their sexual well-being. It neither encourages nor discourages kids to
go out and have sex. Its about helping people make good choices.
Know and respect your body
treat it like a temple. Lets not talk about sex in whispers.
Learn what to expect from
a good relationship. Parenting is probably the most important thing youll
ever do. Be ready and make it an active choice, rather than an "oops."
The cross-your-fingers
method is not good enough. Understand the birth control options before you need
them, and know where to get help!
Thats it for birth
control options. Next week well start on sexually transmitted diseases,
infertility, unplanned pregnancies, gay and lesbian health, sex and smoking,
sexuality in disabled folks, and more.
If you have questions or
comments or would like a specific topic covered, send an e-mail to nunatsiaqsexed@hotmail.com
or a letter to the Nunatsiaq News office.
Dr. Madeleine Cole is a
physician at Baffin Regional Hospital.
TOP
March 22, 2002
STDs: A reality check
I would love to write columns
that say that sex is all good, with no "bad," but that wouldnt
be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) can cause both short-term and lifelong problems, so understanding and
limiting the risks is essential.
Two of the most important
STDs are chlamydia and HIV (the virus that causes AIDS). Others that I will
cover in future weeks are HPV (the virus that causes genital warts and cancer
of the cervix), hepatitis B, herpes, gonorrhea, and syphilis.
Your best protections from
these diseases are using condoms and limiting the number of sex partners you
are with. Having a condom between your skin and your partners greatly
reduces your chances of sharing more than a fun time. The term "safer sex"
reflects the fact that it is safer with "the glove," although a small
risk still exists.
When you have intercourse
with someone without a condom, in more ways than one you have just slept with
every person they ever slept with before you. Thats why limiting the number
of partners you have also increases your chances of staying healthy and avoiding
STDs.
Its not about whats
right and wrong, hip or not so hip, or what other people think of you
its about the mathematics: fewer bodies coming together leads to fewer
shared infections.
It is particularly worrisome
to know that rates of chlamydia and HIV infection, especially in youth, are
on the rise. It is a myth that STDs dont happen up here and that they
are a big-city problem.
The fact is, STDs are very
prevalent in the north and, indeed, in most communities with lower incomes.
Why is this? Lack of knowledge
about these diseases and how they are spread, lack of access to condoms, not
getting the infections diagnosed, power imbalances in relationships that prevent
people from "negotiating" safer sex
. These are some of the challenges.
Sex is no business deal,
but contract principles should apply. So no deal unless both people agree
to whats happening and how to minimize risks. Whatever it takes to make
condom use the norm is what needs to happen.
Myths: Some folks figure
that a "healthy looking" person cant have an infection and will
make a safe sexual partner.
No such luck. Many men
and women with STDs have no symptoms early on, but are still infectious. For
example, with HIV the disease can be silent for years in a fit-looking body
but all the while the virus may be replicating like crazy.
Dont make dangerous
assumptions. In steamy situations, some young, healthy people feel invincible
and think "it couldnt happen to me." A seize-the-day, sex-now-consequences-later
attitude can kill.
Reality: You are too valuable
and the consequences of some of these infections can be devastating. STDs can
cause problems ranging from unsightly warts to painful ulcers, chronic pain,
infertility, cancers and even death. Its no laughing matter.
So now that nobody ever
wants to have sex again... Make good choices, use condoms, have fun and if you
are a woman, book that pap smear now!
Dr. Madeleine Cole is a
physician at Baffin Regional Hospital.
Confidential questions
or comments? Send an e-mail to nunatsiaqsexed@hotmail.com
or drop a note by the news office.
Next week: Chlamydia
TOP
March 29, 2002
Chlamydia: Just the facts
Chlamydia is one of the
most common sexually transmitted diseases in Nunavut and Nunavik (and indeed
in all of Canada).
In the hospital and health
centers we see it way too much. Sexually active people between 15 and 30 get
the greatest number of infections and chlamydia is diagnosed about four times
more often in women than in men. This is because women are more easily infected
and may also go to get checked more frequently.
Chlamydia is an infection
that should be taken very seriously. In women, it can cause severe infections
in the uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes the whole baby making apparatus!
This can lead to scarring
and problems trying to get pregnant later on. The risk of having a tubal pregnancy
is also increased in girls and women who have had chlamydia.
Babies born to infected
women can have dangerous eye, ear or lung infections. In men, the infection
can spread to the testicles and disrupt the sperm-making department so that
they may also have trouble trying to have children later on.
Chlamydia is caused by
nasty little bacteria and can spread from one person to another by vaginal,
oral or rectal sex. Symptoms of chlamydia can take two to six weeks to develop
and many people carry the infection without even knowing it.
Women may find that they
have pain or bleeding during intercourse, more vaginal discharge than normal,
pain when they pee or a sore lower belly. Men may have pain in the testicles
(thatd be the balls), discharge from the penis, a need to pee more often
or discomfort when going to the bathroom.
Now for some good news.
Unlike HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), herpes and some other STDs, chlamydia
can be cured. Once you and your partner have both finished all your pills as
directed, you can have sex again with a condom every time.
So how do you know when
you have it? If you have had intercourse or oral sex without a condom, or have
any of the symptoms described above, go to your health center or hospital and
get checked.
In Baffin, we are fortunate
to have technology that can find infection in a urine sample. Swabs done from
the tip of the penis (or the chimney sweep as one patient called it) are no
longer done in Nunavut.
Urine testing is a private,
comfortable and reliable way of doing it. For women, it is routine to test for
STDs during an annual pap smear.
If you do have the infection,
all the people you have had sex with in the past three months should get tested
and treated. Public health nurses can help notify your past partners without
using your name so confidentiality is maintained.
And how do you minimize
your risk of getting chlamydia? Being intimate without genital contact is one
option. Limiting the number of partners you have is another. In responsible
relationships, both partners should get the "all-clear" for STDs before
choosing to have sex.
And for every sexual encounter
you do choose to have, use condoms. As the new Lifesavers condom packages say,
"If he covers his dick, you wont get sick." Its about
respect for yourself and for your partner.
Next week: HPV (the virus
that causes cervical cancer and genital warts).
Confidential questions
or comments? Send an e-mail to nunatsiaqsexed@hotmail.com
or drop a note by the news office.
Madeleine Cole is a physician
at Baffin Regional Hospital.
TOP
Nunani
February
1, 2002
Vanished: Part three
RACHEL
ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
The European style of "vanishing
community" story is similar to the Inuit in that both involve the threat
to a lone traveller of becoming ensnared during his stay in an unknown community.
The implication is that a traveller who indulges in the hospitality of a strange
people for too long takes on something of their essence or nature (thus the
threat in the European tales of eating faerie food, ingesting something of the
faerie nature).
Once the travellers
nature is altered, the process is irreversible, and he can never again return
to the lands of normal humanity. The Inuit version especially the version
involving cannibalism is simply a reverse-style of the European, in that
the strange people are trying to actually consume the traveller himself, instead
of trying to trick the traveller into consuming food from their world.
My own feeling is that,
when we view the Inuit vanishing community tale, we are viewing something that
might eventually have evolved into the European style of tale. The European
tale derives from the Occidental fear of being overtaken by a hostile, foreign
people. This was a genuine Occidental concern, since much of the distribution
of nations we know today from the "Old World" is a result of tribal
peoples becoming displaced by larger, more aggressive cultures (such as Rome,
or the Huns), in turn displacing others in their path.
In England alone, we can
view a history involving many waves of displacements that formed the ethnic
fabric of the nation invading Picts, Britons, Celts, Saxons, Danes, and
Normans. In light of such history, it is only natural that European (especially
British) folklore would touch upon anxieties about the usually unpleasant encounters
between alien cultures.
Inuit were also possessed
of such anxiety, although not nearly to the degree that other cultures were.
The primary "monstrous" people, to Inuit, were Indian peoples, who
were largely thought of as cannibals who launched raids from the treeline. The
truth, however, seems to be that Inuit and Indians pretty much raided each other
at will, and many Inuit tales tell of various raids, massacres, and revenge
killings (sometimes even of the adoption of Indian orphans by Inuit).
The Inuit vanishing community
tale is something different, however. Such tales never involve a traveller stumbling
across an Indian community. The community is, strangely, always Inuit. They
are interesting in that they are not actually monsters, but simply an exceptionally
treacherous people. So we have to ask ourselves: is this incidental, or is there
an underlying meaning here?
I lean toward the latter
opinion. It is very important to have the strange community as being Inuit.
It is the very fact that the murderous strangers are Inuit that makes the tale
a didactic one, shifting the emphasis of the tale away from a simple story cautioning
listeners to "be wary of monsters out on the land," and moving it
closer to a statement concerning social behaviour and proper living. In other
words: the stories are not really about lost travellers, but about human communities
themselves.
The key to the lesson is
the vanishing itself. We must remember that there is no stated reason for an
entire community to vanish into thin air (as has happened, in such tales, whenever
a party of people returns to investigate the murderous community). Vanishing
is the ability of certain supernatural creatures, but obviously not of Inuit.
Similarly, traditional Inuit had no belief in an avenging spirit such
as the Old Testament Jehovah to safeguard morality, punishing communities
of the wicked. The closest thing might be Nuliajuk, who could withdraw her sea
mammals if taboos were broken, but there are no tales of her swallowing up whole
communities of wicked people.
This tells us that the
vanishing community story is neither a tale of judgement, nor a tale of ethnic
anxiety. In light of the fact that traditional Inuit were so socially aware,
my belief is that this story is a lifestyle statement. It is a way by which
the teller implies to the listeners the fate of a community whose structure
is breaking down, a community wherein man preys upon his fellow man. To a people
such as Inuit, whose very existence once depended upon mutual respect and social
harmony, the ultimate fate of a predatory community is, inevitably, extinction.
Pijariiqpunga.
TOP
February
8, 2002
Of cabbages and kings:
Part One
RACHEL
ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
"The time has come,"
the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:"
from "The Walrus
and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carroll
It was a perfect night
for it. The moon hung coldly in the sky, a veil of shifting, charcoal clouds
caressing its face. It was perfect for a game of amaruujaq "playing
wolf."
The wolf awaits at his
post, waits for the villagers to meet their hideous fate. He howls menacingly,
approaching the innocent victims. Most escape, barely, but some are not so lucky.
Theyve been touched by the wolf, and have themselves been transformed,
to feed on flesh and bone.
But this game of amaruujaq
is not set in the windswept, frozen ice-cove of my childhood. Instead, it takes
place at a modern day Army Cadet camp sponsored by the First Hussars, a militia
regiment of Ontario. And the faces of those players are not the smiling, bronze,
wind-burnt faces of Inuit children. They are the children of non-Inuit cultures
the little descendants of a post-colonial Canada. Only the moon seems
one and the same. Well, the moon, and the players enthusiasm for the game
itself.
The explanation of how
I ended up playing amaruujaq with a bunch of Army Cadets begins with my father-in-law,
who asked a favour of me. He happens to be the Commanding Officer ("CO")
of the local cadet corps (the whole reason Im stuck in the South at all
is because my husbands relatives live there). My father-in-law happens
luckily to be proud of the fact that he has an Inuit daughter-in-law,
something special for a southerner, I guess. Consequently, he asked me to lecture
about Inuit to his cadets. This was last year, and I guess the cadets got a
kick out of it, because I was asked back again, as a volunteer speaker on cold
and the Arctic in general.
Well, this next volunteer
stint was to take place at a winter camp out in the country-side, over a few
days, on the edge of a wooded, semi-wilderness area. The whole thing was like
herding cats, as a handful of adult officers tried to organize some 40 cadets
of ages ranging from 10 to 16 years old making sure they were safe, fed,
and issued proper "kit." Such kit included a sleeping bag and useless,
self-inflatable mattress something we all slept upon, on the floor, together,
with females on the kitchen floor and males in the main hall. It was lights
out at 2200 (10:00 p.m.), and up at 0530 (5:30 a.m.). It was army ration packs
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No showers. One bathroom.
In other words, it was
fantastic. Here I was camping again!
I was scheduled to do my
"Inuit" thing, as all the officers called it, on the evening of the
second day, and the cadets would be mine for several hours a couple of
senior cadets keeping the rowdy, smaller ones in line. I admit I was experiencing
some anxiety, since no one could tell me exactly what they wanted me to do.
So I had to mostly wing it, and hope the cadets were responsive. I gathered
that I was expected to talk about extreme cold, to impart some Inuit tricks
for getting around it, since this trip was technically called "Winter Indoctrination,"
and the theme was winter survival. That wasnt a problem, but I decided
to spice things up a bit tell some old stories, teach the kids some ajajaaq
(string games), and show them how to play amaruujaq.
To me, this was all consistent
with the survival theme. I wanted them to understand that Inuit have not simply
survived for their millennia in the Arctic because of a few "cold weather
tricks," but because they have shaped their entire culture, the way they
relate to one another, to suit such conditions. Inuit culture has not thrived
because we can make emergency drinking water by melting snow in skins on our
backs; or because we can read natiruviat, snaking snow-drift lines that can
determine wind direction and help one get home.
Our culture has thrived
because of the way we train the minds of our children. And this begins with
the manual dexterity learned from the shapes called forth from a simple string,
or with the team work learned from a game such as amaruujaq.
(Continued next week.)
February
15, 2002
Of cabbages and kings:
Part two
RACHEL
ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
The army cadets started
off the first day going out to do "fire building," starting a fire
with a single match (in rather soggy, windy weather), heat a can of beans with
it, then put the fire out safely.
The adult officers who
were supervising, asked me if I would like to contribute, but they were going
to fire-build in the woods and what did I know about woodlands? Sure,
I knew what made good kindling in the Arctic; even little kids could start fires
where I grew up. But I felt that I wasnt qualified when it came to trees
and brush. I agreed to come along, but just as an observer.
I didnt remain an
observer for long.
The instructing officers
quickly became frustrated with the cadets, who barely grasped any aspect of
fire-building. Despite better advice, they chose the most crazy fire-sites
high ground, where wind scattered their sites every few seconds, or boggy areas
where sites were instantly saturated with ice-water. One kid tried to start
his fire in the crook of some tree-roots, it obviously not occurring to him
that if he ever got it blazing it would burn a tree down. The
Commanding Officer (CO) leaned toward me and whispered,
"Dont stop them.
They need to learn for themselves why their sites suck. And dont worry
about the kid at the tree there hes never going to get his fire
started like that, so the tree is in no danger."
The more I watched, the
more I became convinced that something was wrong with these kids, but I couldnt
place my finger on it. For one thing, they wouldnt use the natural tools
around them, such as sticks or rocks. The officers explained time and again
all about tinder and how to light a fire with it; but still, the kids would
go from nodding at the lesson examples, even repeating back what they had been
told, to wandering about as though lost and confused.
After a while, I couldnt
stand it any more, and started taking an active part in the fire instruction.
I stopped a boy who was dragging a dripping log over to his non-existent fire-site.
"Wait! Wait! Where
are you going with that?"
He directed a stunned sort
of look toward me, saying,
"Fire."
"Turn it over,"
I said.
He did so, revealing that
the log was soaking wet.
"What do you see?"
I asked him.
"Wet."
"So you remember what
the CO was saying earlier, right? Is it good or bad for burning?"
He looked like he just
wanted me to tell him the right answer, so that he could repeat it back properly,
so that I would get out of his hair.
Another cadet, at another
time, was emitting a lot of "ooches" and "ows" because he
kept shifting his burning tinder around with his fingers, when there was a perfectly
good stick sitting next to him. Not one cadet thought to ring any rocks, which
were numerous in the area, around their fire. One boy thought he would be clever,
and actually sat there rubbing two sticks together futilely later explaining
that he had seen this done on TV.
And I just about screamed
when I saw two girls shivering as they used their bare hands to scoop icy water
into a bowl instead of just scooping the water up with the bowl itself.
Not one cadet ever thought
to use their bean can label as kindling.
It came to me in a flash:
Inuit have it much better than southerners. Inuit children are taught critical
thinking all their lives. Classic Inuit education means teaching a child how
to treat the world like a universal tool an object can take on any use
you can think of for it, as long as it makes you live.
These army cadets, conversely,
were struggling because they had always been taught to cough up specific, pre-set
answers to specific, pre-set questions. Every object or action had its designated
place. A bowl was something that one put things into, never a scoop, because
no one had ever "authorized" them to use it as such.
As any hunter could tell
you, imagination is crucial to survival. But because survival had never before
been important to these cadets, imagination had never become important, either.
(Continued next week.)
TOP
February
22, 2002
Of cabbages and kings:
Part three
RACHEL
ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
Dealing with these southern
army cadets was as illuminating as any cross-cultural workshop, if not more
so. I learned as much as I taught.
It occurred to me, while
witnessing their unfortunate attempts at building a fire with a single match
(they could have multiple tries, but they were only allowed to use one match
at a time), that they were having difficulty not because fire-building is hard,
but simply because they were approaching it as though it were a school project.
In my mind, one word summed
these kids up: Suburbia. They were too used to their specific environment. It
was obvious that much of their energy went into keeping adults along
with adult concerns off their backs, to the point where they approached
every learning experience as though it were an equation, a process with distinct
steps.
A) An adult proposes a
project (eg., "Today were going to learn X.")
B) The adult asks perfunctory
questions concerning the projects nature (eg., "Anyone know how X
works?")
C) The kids wait for the
right answer ("right" meaning whatever the instructor wants to hear),
faithfully jotting it down.
D) The kids regurgitate
whatever the instructor wants to hear.
E) The lesson ends and
the kids are free from temporary bondage, so that they can get on with their
real lives.
Inuktitut teaching is completely
different, because it is not about lessons or programs. It is about tapping
the childrens natural talents, encouraging them to use their minds in
an expansive, alternative way.
An Inuk child would not
be taught to make a kamotik, for example, by being told one day, "A sled
is made of the following materials... the pieces are set together in the following
manner..." Instead, he or she would assist in the construction of a kamotik
and participate in its use, so that the child can develop his or her personal
sense of what makes a sled functional.
I once saw some hunters
substitute caribou legs and frozen fish for slats in the kamotik. The fact that
they didnt have enough wood didnt stop them. They were thinking
in an expansive, adaptable way, instead of giving up because they didnt
have the parts that were "needed" for a sled.
Without the tenuous web
of infrastructure that keeps an urban environment going, such expansive thinking
is the difference between life and death. Its what pulled our species
out of an Ice Age, while most species around us went extinct. Think that cities
are impervious to nature? Ask those residents of Quebec and eastern Ontario
who endured the ice storm a few years ago if they feel that way.
So when it was my turn
to have the cadets for the evening, to lecture them on cold weather survival,
I decided that we had to start at the beginning to alter their thinking.
I had to dig down through the urban bull, and awaken their instincts, the animal
part of the brain that is infinitely flexible, because its priority is staying
alive.
Oh sure, I ran them through
the standard tricks, such as finding water, conserving heat and eating proper
foods. But I really wanted to re-orient their thinking toward survivalism, as
in an experiment I once heard of. Some scientists had trained lab rats to run
a series of mazes with cheese at the end. The rats got quite good at it, and
the scientists wanted to see how a wild rat would stack up.
They were shocked when,
instead of running the maze, the wild rat simply smelled the direction the cheese
lay in, and chewed right through the maze walls to get it. I wanted these city
kids, spawn of a southern metropolis, to break out of the lab. I wanted to be
a wild rat (figuratively speaking, of course) teaching the lab rats how to chew
through the maze.
So I spent a night on an
uncomfortable, airless air-mattress, planning my lesson. Up to this point, I
had been unsure of what to do, what I was going to instruct. But here I was,
sleepless on a cold camp-kitchen floor, with the shockingly loud snores of little
girls all around me (I hadnt known that little girls snored), and some
ideas began to come to me.
They wouldnt be rats
they would be wolves. That, and I needed some string.
(Continued next week.)
TOP
My
Little Corner of Canada
February
22, 2002
The last Little Corner
of Canada
As regular visitors to
these pages will have noticed, my writing engine has been sputtering for the
past year. The words no longer come as easily as they once did.
Rather than try to run
on less than all cylinders, it is time to turn off the engine and rest it a
while. This will be the last of the Little Corner of Canada.
I have lost count of the
years I have been writing this column but its been fun, and I have enjoyed
it very much. If I have put a smile on the faces of my regular visitors over
the years, then I am very satisfied.
I like to think that This
Little Corner observed a historic period of our people. We have settled our
land claims. We have created our own territory and government. From colonial
subjects, we are a people struggling back onto our feet. The first Inuk has
been drafted by an NHL team. Our film-makers are winning national and international
awards.
This is not to say that
things are okay and that we have licked all our troubles. Far from it.
Too many of our people
still drink and smoke too much. There is too much self-inflicted pain and suffering.
There are too many school drop-outs. Most of our so-called leaders are inept
and weak. The stench of corruption fouls the air around some of our organizations.
There are still government
promises that remain broken. This little corner remembers very well being told
that the government would always provide housing for us and that the rent would
never be more than $67 per month. Why did the government massacre our dogs?
That question remains unanswered.
I want to thank the loyal
regular visitors to this corner. Thank you for your encouragement and your kind
comments. Thank you to the editors and owners of this paper. Thank you to the
people who translated these renderings.
Now that I no longer have
to worry about deadlines, I will redirect this energy to beating Hilary in Scrabble.
TOP
|