home care

Hi everyone,
For the beginning of this week, I was doing home care with the RN who coordinates it for the 20 patients in Kugluktuk. Most of what I was doing was assessments, which involved going to the patient's home and asking a series of health and ability questions. The home care program here has a nurse as well as several community care workers who provide housekeeping. This week has been very interesting as I have had the chance to meet many of the elders in the community. A lot of them speak only Innuinaqtun (which you have probably not heard of since it's mostly spoken in this area only) so I had to take one of the community care workers with me to translate. It has been really interesting to see these homes, and of course the foods there! I have been seeing the classic dried meats (assuming the ribs everywhere are from caribou???) but today I saw a dead seal on a piece of cardboard outside of someone's home. Not something you see everyday in Hamilton...
The other most fantastic thing about this week has been the weather! (don't laugh!) It has been amazingly sunny and warm. When I was discussing this with a community member, she said it was because an elder had just died and that there was always good weather and hunting thanks to the elder's gift. I got out for a walk last night and saw that people are still out on the snowmobiles on the ice (which is starting to break up now!) so hopefully we have just the right amount of warm weather for them to get their machines in safely!
see you soon,
kirsten in kugluktuk