Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (July 18/01) - As the music died and the last of the dancers wiped their sweat-drenched brows, someone picked up the microphone and in a stream of Inuktitut bade goodbye to Carla Villafana, for 18 years a teacher in Rankin Inlet.

Carla Villafana and her children -- Karyna, 12, Brendan, 11, and Adrian, 17 -- in front of their home in Rankin Inlet. - Jorge Barrera/NNSL photo

She danced her last square dance last week in this community on the shores of the Hudson Bay.

There was clapping and "goodbye Carla" from the 100 or so people sitting around the perimeter of the dance floor in plastic chairs as Carla Villafana took the microphone and said she wished she would have learned more Inuktitut.

It was a whirlwind of visits for the family since the news spread throughout the community that Villafana was leaving.

She left yesterday but her thumbprints remain on the lives of the hundreds of children she taught.

"The one thing that will stay with me is standing at Leu Ussak school, looking across William-son Lake and seeing the inukshuk at sunset," said Villafana in a separate interview.

"That's Rankin Inlet for me."

Fate is simply stumbling across a wish and fate led Villafana to the North.

After teaching for seven years in northern Manitoba and taking a four-month trip to India, Villafana found her self substitute-teaching in Winnipeg. One less-than-pleasant day she went for a walk through her neighbourhood. She passed the Marlboro Hotel and noticed the bustle of people and signs on the doors.

"The signs were inviting people to come to the North," said Villafana.

"I walked in and met Lavinia Brown (now Rankin Inlet's deputy mayor) and I stuck around and filled out some forms," she said.

Visiting friends in Lynn, Man., she received a phone call while in the shower. She was hired sitting on the bathroom floor.

"I had always wanted to know about (Inuit)," said Villafana.

"I read about them and there was something about it I wanted to know," she recalled. "Little did I know my children would be Inuit."

She met her husband in Arviat during her first teaching stint, which lasted a year and then moved to Rankin Inlet.

While in Arviat Villafana became pregnant and thought she would lose her job because she wasn't married.

"I wrote up this letter and I read it to the board, I was so nervous. I thought I would get canned but the board thought I was leaving," she said. "We were all relieved."

"It just shows you I was thinking in that old-school, white mentality," she said.

Her husband left her with three children 10 years ago. He ended up in Winnipeg and went to prison in British Columbia.

Villafana mainly taught elementary grades in Rankin Inlet and she said one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching in a small community is seeing students grow and make it.

"Now I rely on some of my students for services," said Villafana. "I've developed friendships with some of them," she said.

Villafana, unlike many teachers who come to the North, stuck with it. She made Rankin Inlet her home and cultivated friendships that developed almost family bonds.

The first years were the most difficult because she had to gain the trust of parents.

"Parents are protective of their children because some had bad experiences in the system and some children are raised by elders who don't understand the system," said Villafana.

"You have to develop trust," she said. "I think some of the children I taught who now have families understand the system better."

Villafana left Rankin Inlet because of a breakdown in inter-personal relationships at Maani Ulujuk Ilinniarvik school.

"It wasn't the teaching. When I teach everything else disappears," she said. "I don't know if I had changed or if the system changed, it just seemed so much more was expected," she said. "I just needed a break."

But this is still home for Villafana. "Rankin Inlet is just a direct flight away," she said, adding that she suspects she'll be back one day.

Last Thursday her three children -- Adrian, 17, Karyna, 12, and Brendan, 11 -- had the stereo blasting and their friends dancing and eating hotdogs.

Villafana was scampering around town, saying last-minute goodbyes and seeing newborn babies.

The living room piled high with 60 some boxes, their lives taped up in cardboard, waiting for the unpacking in Brandon, Man., and a new life away from home.