It's February...already!
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2011
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12
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Trip End
Ongoing
Tasiilaq, Greenland
Monday, February 6, 2012
The week started with a message from Trine (we teach together in grade 8) that she was ill and I should teach the class alone. In some lessons here, there are two teachers, because the classes are so wild or because there are children which need special support. I was a bit excited, cause the kids can be really difficult.
During a PE class, they once pulled out some eyelashes of another colleague. Hence, there has been a permanent change of teachers in that class, since nobody wants to keep them. But some measures have been taken, and it seems to work a little better now. I was really surprised that they worked so well last Monday. Even the normal troublemakers were working. That was kind of a success.
Since I had finished my Danish book the week before, I went to the library to get a new one. I found a novel set in Greenland, but written by a Danish author. The title is "ímaqa" – maybe. Though, here in East Greenland, one says uppa and not imaqa, that word is really handy. I love it. So I thought it’s the perfect book for me. I hope the content will be as promising as the title and description!
This week, I didn’t go to the knitting club. However, I continued knitting at home a bit. It’s not really a huge advancement, but step by step it grows bigger. You can see the current “achievement” on a picture.
The great news of the week were that our shop had a sale on summer shoes. When I heard about it, I thought it wouldn’t be worth going there, since Greenlanders are so small, and hence I didn’t expect any shoes in size 41. Moreover, I didn’t see a point in buying summer shoes here. But my roommates told me there would especially be many shoes in 41, since they are the one nobody needs here, and each pair was just 10DKK. So I went there during some free lessons and I bought 3 pairs of shoes. I think it was the first time in my life that I was really happy to have big feed! While there were hardly any shoes in small sizes, there were so many in 41. The best thing was that each pair of shoes was only a little more than 1€. So, all in all, I paid 4€ for 3 pairs of shoes. And they were set down from about 50€. Amazing! Please don’t ask me what I’m going to do with summer shoes here in Greenland, but I just had to buy them. There was no way to say no to such an offer!
Friday afternoon, we watched a movie about the American school system in school. The movie is called “Waiting for Superman” and dates from 2010. It was really interesting, but also sad. I learn a lot of new things. Bo, the colleague of mine who was stuck in Iceland with me, was there, too. We started to talk about instruments, since he teaches the recorder at school and know also how to play the trumpet. When I told him that I used to play the flute, he told me to wait and came back with a flute. That was so nice! The only problem is that it is a small flute and not a big one. I’ve never played on that one before and I first have to learn how to use it, but it should be fine. I’ll get some notes soon, and then I can get started!
In the evening, I was invited to have dinner at another colleague’s place. We were about 12 people and Niels had prepared reindeer meat for us. It was really delicious! I had also baked some German cake, which everybody seemed to like a lot. Since, there had been some problems with the electricity, we had the starter as sort of midnight snack – crabs. Strangely, but true…I am kind of used to eating crabs by now. They are really not bad! We also had mattak (that whale skin stuff) again. My colleagues (I was only among Greenlanders) were convinced that I cannot be a normal Central European, since I do actually like it and can eat it without problems. They declared be already half-Greenlandic. After dinner, 2 colleagues were playing the guitar and everybody was singing Greenlandic songs. We had such a great evening!
Tinka, one of the girls from Nuuk living here with me, turned 25 on Saturday, which meant that we were invited to another great kaffemik. Although Tinka studies in Nuuk, she originally is from Tasiilaq, and thus she has a lot of family and friends here. That’s why she had booked the school hall for her kaffemik. There was great warm food and masses of cakes- as always! At some point, Tinka read out her birthday cards loud. It seems to be a tradition, and it was actually really nice. Then, there was still a firework. Greenlanders really love fireworks, and whenever there is an important happening, there is a small firework.
There was a local football match in the gym on Sunday, which I went to see. Well, actually there were a lot of small matches. First the women played. There were only three teams participating: the school, the supermarket, and the boarding school girls. Each team had to play against each other for always only 6 minutes. Paornánguak’ was part of the school team and they won. Then the men played. There were 9 teams (school 1 and 2, boarding school boys 1 and 2, supermarket, children’s home, post…) playing in two groups. Both of our school teams qualified for the semi-final, but then they had bad luck…after penalty shootout they played against each other for place 3 and 4. The children’s home won, which made most of the spectators really happy. Although there might not be really big event here in town, there is always something happening, and that’s really nice!
Some sad news this week were that, with February beginning, one man died and another lies in coma in our hospital. For many people, a new month means new money and thus beer again. Some of them still drive by snow mobile / car, although they are completely drunk…and that’s how it ends. Really sad! Maybe it’s because there is only one “big” supermarket here, but at the weekend you see people buying and transporting beer in masses, especially now with the new month starting. On Friday, I also saw a pallet transporter transporting pallets of beer across the town. It was crazy!
