What am I Doing Here?

Only when you fly from Timmins to Fort Albany, or more specifically from Moosonee to Albany, do you get a sense of how isolated we are. I was thinking about isolation today as I walked home for lunch. You fly over miles and miles of nothing. Other than Kash - about 20 kms up the river - there is nothing for hundreds of kilometres. No civilization.

I’ve been here 16 months now and I have never enjoyed myself more than I am now. It could have something to do with the life-changing experience of becoming a father. I am surviving on adreneline - surely a person shouldn’t feel this excited about life on so little sleep. When this adreneline wears off, who knows what will happen?

One thing I know for sure is that this has been an incredible learning experience. I am challenged everyday to question my own values and beliefs. I have learned that the human soul is full of complexity and that people who have steel exteriors often break like glass on the inside. I have to fight the urge to try and make everything alright for people - I’m talking about my students here. I realized with my last class that it’s easier to get dragged under than it is to rise above. You see, I am dealing with 10 students who are more like me than you can possibly know. What is important to them is important to me: family, friends, security, living in a place they feel comfortable. I’ve come to be really humbled by what I have. How much did I do to deserve all my blessings? It’s hard to say. I was born in a great country, to great parents, who provided me everything I need. I learned to read and write. I was never hungry or cold.

If I have been successful in life it’s because I seized the opportunities I was given. The people in Fort Albany do the same. They do the best they have with what they’re given. Maybe I’ve developed a case of white guilt, but I feel anything but superior to the community members of Fort Albany. In many ways I feel inferior because I haven’t taken better advantage of my opportunities. I often wonder whether I could still become anything I want to. Maybe I could go back and upgrade my high school marks - maybe throw myself into calculus, chemistry, biology, physics. Maybe I have it within myself to become a doctor, or an engineer, or someone who actually has a body of knowledge. Yes, I guess I have a body of knowledge. Yet I feel like I know a bit about everything when I would rather know everything about one thing.

Well, I have started to ramble on here. Not sure where I’m going with this, so I will go and see what Jonas thinks about this.