I expect all my blog readers including my french readers to be as curious as I am about the Inuit and their culture. Please share this interest with as many people as you can.
A few years ago, I travelled to Nunavik. It was an event that had a profound impact on my life.
Elders are perceived as role models
When I first met the Inuit, I was able to communicate with them almost immediately even if I did not speak Inuktitut. They came to me easily, maybe because they considered me an elder. In the Inuit culture, being an elder counts. “Elders” are considered culture-bearers. Respect is not only a matter of one’s chronological age: elders are perceived as role models who serve as advisors, philosophers and professors. I learned to respect their ways and to understand that they knew what their problems were. I met with their Justice committee and found that they were really trying to help their community. Quinuitaq is a value the Inuit have developed and it is an indicator of their resilience.
A lifetime of observations
Due to health reasons, I wasn't there as long as I thought I would be and it was a hard decision not to go back when I felt better. As I was later writing a yet unpublished book about my experience, it seemed like I packed a lifetime of observations. When I finished writing this very serious book, I decided to write a children's book. The girl in my book asks a lot of questions about what is happening to her community. For example, how come, when her little friend is abused, she has to go to court and the charge is rejected. From what Luisa understands, her friend is not smart (a psychiatric evaluation) enough to be trusted to say the truth. My book heroine cannot understand this logic provided the defense lawyer. This 12-year old has a privileged knowledge of her community, but it is mostly questions concerning her friends that bother her. What she does know is that everyone lives one on top of the other in small spaces and things do happen.
My project is around the problems she points to. Hopefully, Luisa’s generation will have taken the situation into their own hands so that their children will have another destiny. Overcrowding has an incidence on the issues of safety and protection.
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