Africa in Chisasibi

(Gerald Coté and a Dogon dancer in a small village.)

Hello Everyone. Well, I'd say winter truelly has begun. It's -20 degrees celcius at the moment and the snow keeps coming. I tried my new mitts and they are just the trick. I took my hands out to adjust the volume on my discman while walking to work on the skidoo path and after a couple seconds it was beginning to get painful so I put them back into that oasis of sealskin warmth. The CD I was listening to was, ironically, an artist from Mali named Boubacar Traore. I have been listening to alot of West-African music lately. Anna and I went to see Fodé this weekend before he left for Mali. When we got there he was on the phone making his last preperations before leaving. Anna and I removed our whitened layers of clothing and sat down on the couch with a cup a Chinese gunpowder green tea that Fodé had made. He showed us a couple short documentaries. One was of the life and traditions of a small isolated town in Mali, much like the one Fodé himself grew-up in. The other was a documentation of the guitarist, Boubacar Traore, and his trip through Mali and Dogon villages explaining the huge importance between his music and traditions. At one point he visited his friend, the famous Ali Farka Toure, at a stage when he was very sick. The recordings of their improvisation together was the last before Farka Toure died. It just so happens that I saw Ali Farka Toure's son Vieux Farka Toure at the Ottawa folk fest this summer. Ali Farka Toure forbade his son to play because the life of a musician was so hard, but Vieux took his father's records and a guitar and learned what he could in secret, and I'm sure glad he did.


(Janie Head teaching Garret how to brade the yarn for the mitten strings. It's quite a trick and none of us figured it out so Janie had to make them all for us.)







After the movies we talked alot about travel and music and some West African culture. I felt a thousand times wiser walking out into the snow in the evening after half a day of conversation (in French I might add). It seems many of the non-native inhabitants of Chisasibi have done some very interesting travels and there is always so much to learn. The new occupational therapist in town, Frederick, came to give us one of our workshops and he told us alot about his work in Senegal. He was doing the same sort of occupational therapy, but also completely different. He worked with the few resources available to come up with devices and methods to improve the lives of people with dissabilities. Everything from prosthetics to cutting boards for women without hands so they can still cook outside on the ground. He explained how lots of parts were scrounged from perfectly good equipment that was left in a heep in the back of hospitals. So many charities send machines and equipment that may not be relevent or compatible with the needs of the village and so they end-up rusting in a pile. Watch out were those charity fund-raising dollars are going!
Another link to Africa in Chisasibi is the school's music teacher, Gerald Coté. Gerald is an anthropologist and musicologist and a damned interesting guy to talk to. A few years back he travelled with a couple other teachers and a group of kids from the school to West Africa. The NFB made a short documentary on their trip. We watched this on the weekend. It was so neet to see because we know the teachers, a couple of the kids, and we've really grown to know Chisasibi, so it really felt personal. The kids went to very remote villages and witnessed the music and traditions of a culture so different from theirs, but in a way, very similar. When they saw the sacrifice of a goat, the boys commented, «Well it's pretty much the same way we skin our animals».
Outside the dreams of exotic Africa there is a different exotic in the air, the snow is caked to the sides of buildings and the sun sets before I head home from work. I'm really looking forward to the winter holidays. We went to a staff christmas party at the school the other night. After the turkey, caribou stew, bannick, and most of the white people went home, the games began. Popping balloons with parteners, pin the nose on the snowman, Chinese gift exchange. This was funny! Present after present was opened, until one woman said «I can smell it!» before she unwrapped it. It turned out to be a pair of moose-hide slippers. Everyone seems to have a pair here, and everyone seems to be able to make them, yet still it was the top present that everyone was steeling. The smell really is nice. There are more of these festivities all through the holidays along with dancing, (which we attempted but were pretty bad at). I was invited to play at a talent show after Christmas. I may very well be playing with a couple guys who used to jam with Bob Robb back on Fort George, what a thing that would be! Anyhow, I have been staying up too late these days so I should really head to bead early. I wish you all the best and stay in contact. It's always nice to hear from you all.








(Charles and two girls who play neer our house. This photo was taken in November so the snow is not nearly what it is now.)