Living, learning for the future By: Niigaan Sinclair Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 21, 2020

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2020 (1842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OPASKWAYAK CREE NATION — I’m up north, visiting family, when my favourite event happens: visiting.

When I was a child, my mom would pile all of us in the car after dinner and we would go visiting — ending up at some friend or relative’s house, drinking tea and eating whatever they had in their pantry.

Nowadays, this still happens, but less and less often as satellite TV, smartphones, and computers enter our lives.

Visiting, however, is Manitoba’s first — and best — internet.

Visiting is like enacting government, watching a movie and playing video games at the same time.

It’s where negotiations take place, decisions are made, and information (often gossip) is shared. Visiting is like enacting government, watching a movie and playing video games at the same time.

Tonight’s session begins when a couple we haven’t seen for years arrives. Then, the neighbours “drop in.” At some point, we call in some relatives from Vancouver via a laptop computer.

Pretty soon, everything is on the table — literally. Cookies. Cheese. Ham. A huge pot of tea. And, of course, conversation.

We talk about chief and council, the mosquitoes, and share copies of funeral programs for people who recently died.

Then, the discussion circles around to the COVID-19 pandemic. We cover U.S. President Donald Trump, a possible vaccine, and cancelled ceremonies. A debate ensues about whether conferences should be held in the community, and if elders should attend.

Talk expectedly turns to the most important topic: children.

Talk expectedly turns to the most important topic: children. Questions fly about sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, and babies. Answers come with stories, photographs, and calls to the children playing in the next room.

As each child is accounted for, it’s hard to keep track of the laughter, smiles, and even a few tears. Then, as if in turn, everyone shares similar (and often embarrassing) stories of our own childhood.

Discussions about children is where visiting almost always ends up in Indigenous communities. It’s easy to think of this as just proud parents and grandparents, but this is really a discussion about the future.

In Indigenous communities, the role of children are to carry forward culture, language, and history; everyone else’s job is to share this with them. The more they learn, the more the future as a people is secure.

This makes the protection of our children the most important job of our lifetime. In fact, a community that considered children in all decisions was said to “own itself” — the Cree concept of dibenimiisowin.

Children are, and always have been, the centre of an Indigenous future. This is why Canada tried so desperately to control such children in the residential school system.

So, tonight, the discussion arrives to what’s coming in a few weeks: school.

Indigenous families are used to school being an unsafe place, but the COVID-19 pandemic makes this event particularly triggering.

This week, the province mandated masks for all students in Manitoba schools. Most First Nations schools, though, don’t fall under provincial authorities. This means not only do First Nations educational authorities have to make their own health decisions, but fund safety equipment on their own — taking away from other resources.

This makes for some hard decisions. Some are considering delaying start dates; others are teaching only online. Some have no infrastructure, bandwidth, and therefore no choice.

If the novel coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything, First Nations likely will choose stricter health protections over less (look at how local highway COVID-19 checkpoints have not stopped, for example), but this still all adds up to stress and worry for Indigenous communities.

For people like my daughter (who is going to school in the city), this decision is out of my hands. She will have to wear a mask all day, in a reduced class size and in-person schedule, and we pray she will be OK.

Indigenous families are used to school being an unsafe place, but the COVID-19 pandemic makes this event particularly triggering.

First Nations, however, don’t have this luxury. On-reserve students face chronic underfunding challenges and federal policies that create poverty, health issues, and apathy — so even with the best health choices and stringent checkpoints, they are at the mercy of others.

Just like wearing face masks, the virus is only defeated if we all play our part. We all wear them or we all suffer the consequences.

By this point in the visiting, the laughter has given way to seriousness. Parallels are made with how our parents must have felt sending children to dangerous institutions, away from our protection.

Anxiety leads to silence between each speaker.

My daughter’s grandmother reminds us all we used to teach our children on the land, outside, often on the trapline. While there, children learned everything from math to science to story to song.

“And we got by as a people,” she says. “In fact, we were healthy and strong. Education is about our children living and learning about our lives.”

This is when I realize that it’s been happening already, all night.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Niigaan Sinclair
Columnist

Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe and is a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press.

   Read full biography