The Skownan Adventure

After a long day of morning practice and back to back classes, our 4 vehicles of packed food, sleeping gear and tired but anxious girls embarked, with a brave coaching staff, on a 3.5 hour trek 'up north'. 5 hours later - after 2 pee breaks and one 'snack' break - we arrived in Skownan First Nations 2 hours behind schedule. Now to put everything into perspective this is my 6th trip up to the community and I have coached some of the kids numerous times in the city so for me it was pure excitement to see old friends again, but for the first timers I'm sure there was a lot of unanswered questions running through there heads as we drove up to the school. Expectations are always a tough concept in these situations because going in I have learned not to have any, other than to be open minded and truly authentic in spirit because these kids expected nothing from you other than that. So driving up to the school 2 hours late, to see kids running from the gym to say hi or they were too busy play ball to leave the gym, set the trip up for success right off the hop.
Thursday we just finished off the day by playing with the kids for a bit and headed to bed early. Friday we spent all day at school - we went in and out of classrooms just helping out in anyway - math problems, gym class, recess, crafts, reading, etc. The best part of the day was when there bottled water arrived, everyone helped unload and you could truly see the excitement on their faces! (picture below) Friday we had a drop in session at night for the kids to play outside, participate in basketball practice and parents got an info session. As a team we ended with a campfire and off course a board game!
Differently from past years this trip was a little shorter and we did have to use some time to prep for our first games coming up this week, but all in all I think it was a very valuable cultural experience as always. Not only for our team but for their community as well.
I could tell endless stories about my trips up there but I will save you from reading an even longer post haha. I'm working on a video for the program we run up there so I will post it as soon as I finish it up!

"Good sport can make a great difference!" True Sport
Mich