Students from Quebec experience Manitoba

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Published on Thursday, February 11, 2016

Photos by Kira Paterson. Most people from Quebec have never had perogies. The Sevec participants learned how to make them before getting a taste. 

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

From Wednesday, Feb. 3 to Tuesday, Feb. 9, the Neepawa Area Collegiate (NACI) Grade 9 French class hosted a group of students from the Quebec school Collège des Hautes Sommets. They are taking part in the Sevec program, which is a two week exchange meant to help English speaking students practice their French and French speaking students practice their English. 

The Quebec class spent a week with the NACI students here, then in the spring, the NACI class will go to Quebec to spend a week with the group that came here. Each participant is “twinned” with a student from the class of the other province to stay with during the week. The exchange not only immerses participants in another language, it also exposes them to another culture. 

While in Manitoba, the group was kept busy with numerous activities planned by NACI French teacher, Nora Heschuk. They visited a Hutterite colony, attended a presentation put on by Neepawa and Area Immigrant Settlement Services where they learned about some of the cultures represented in Neepawa and got a chance to try some Filipino cuisine, went skating at the flats and learned how to make perogies; and that was all just in the first day! Then they went to Brandon and visited the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum and watched a Wheat Kings hockey game. The group also spent a few days in Winnipeg. They got to take a tour of the Museum of Human Rights and explore the Forks, and they even got some shopping and laser tag in the mix. 

They got to see presentations made by the different cultures represented in Neepawa, including traditional Filipino dances.

The week didn’t always go according to the jam-packed schedule, however. They had planned to leave for Winnipeg on Sunday at 11:30 am, but their bus arrived late due to the poor driving conditions to the east. They figured that since the bus made it here, they’d be able to make it to Winnipeg, so they left Neepawa at around 1 pm. They got just east of Portage la Prairie when they came to a closed road. The visibility was so poor due to blowing snow that traffic was stopped on the highway for hours. The group ended up being storm stayed for about 17 hours and had to spend the night on the bus. They were able to get food from a nearby gas station restaurant that kindly cooked them 41 orders of chicken nuggets and French fries. The weather cleared up Monday morning and they were able to get back on the road by about 7:30 am. Fortunately, the only thing the group lost was a day of activities. It wouldn’t be the full Manitoba experience without the Manitoba winter driving conditions being a part of the visit.

The class from NACI will be flying out to continue the adventure on April 5. Their “twins” are from a rural area called Saint Tite des Caps, which is about 40 minutes northeast of Quebec City.

This spring, the Grade 9 NACI French class will go to Quebec to meet up with their Sevec twins.