Ile-a-la-Crosse: Who we are and what we do

We spent the bulk of our first week in Ile meeting a variety of people in the community: from the mayor to elders to preschool children. Along with generic personal introductions we repeatedly had to tackle the task of explaining "making the links". Past "Linkers" had forewarned us that coming up with a definition of the program was all part of our initiation. Part of the beauty of MTL is that it follows a "create your own adventure" philosophy. Thus, in true MTL style there was no script to follow or generic blurb to spit out. The explanation we came up with went something like this:

"Hi I'm Dia, and I'm Desiree and there is another student, Dan, who will be here on thursday (sometimes we introduced Dan as our third partner in crime but we used our discression with that description, i.e. we left it out when we were talking to the RCMP)

After shaking hands and trying to remember another name to add to the growing list in our minds, we continued with: "We are first year medical students from the U of S who are going to be working in the community for the next six weeks. We are part of a program called Making the Links. What is Making the Links you ask?" Well, we usually didn't say that part because they usually didn't ask but the confused looks on their faced prompted us to explain the program. "More or less our aim is to help wherever we can and get a better understanding of how different aspects of the community affect health"

This seemed to satisfy most people. We then usually asked if there was anyway we could help or get involved with the organization. We were pleasantly surprised with the warm reception we received. Within minutes of meeting people they were signing us up to time keep at track and field trips, inviting us along on youth camping trips, and including us in on any projects they had going on.

Our description of about MTL was made up on the spot for the most part, but it didn't stop the people in Ile from welcoming our help with smiles. We still aren't quite sure if it's right or if our "choose your own adventure" is on track, but I guess that's the perk of the MTL though. It's all about the experience and trying our best (at least that's what we're hoping)

P.S. Check out the Ile-a-la-Crosse "tab" for some pictures of our latest adventures!