I’m back from my nice week-long break from teaching and bush life. I had such a great time in Anchorage! I met some really cool people from all over Alaska, teaching in other bush villages of different tribes, people from bush hubs, and from cities. A group of us really hit it off and had a blast going out on the town. They are bush teachers, too – not in my district, but still in that general area. It was funny because all the bush teachers came with empty suitcases and left with groceries and necessities, something we’ve just had to get use to doing. So we didn’t bring lots of clothes (especially “nice” clothes) – therefore we were labeled as “the bush teachers,” with our hiking boots on, rugged jeans, and t-shirts. Hey, that’s my style!
I came back Saturday morning and was pleased I didn’t get weathered in. Newtok actually had a blizzard while I was gone. At the airport in Bethel I walked out on the snow-covered “parking lot” for the planes to the Cessna caravan. The pilot opened the door for me (the handle being 6 feet off the ground) and dropped the (2 foot) “hanging step down” so I could climb into the seat. I had to laugh because only out here would they expect you to pull yourself into a plane. This caravan is the biggest plane they have. It was loaded with cargo packed in up to the cockpit, so I was the only passenger and sat in the copilot’s seat. The mail needed to go to Chefornak (another bush village) so we stopped there first. The pilot and some men from the village unloaded the boxes onto sleds tied to snowmachines while I sat there and watched a gorgeous sunrise. I must say, I really wanted to be a pilot in that moment to be able to see this every day.
When we arrived in Newtok it was snowing pretty hard, but it wasn’t extremely cold, which was nice. A guy with a sled graciously offered to ride my luggage down for me, and another guy gave me a lift on his snowmachine. When I got off he said “do you want me to bring your snowmachine to you?” I was so excited! I’ve been waiting for this ever since I bought it in January. It’s used, and I got it for a good price (me and my roommate are actually splitting it.) I didn’t know how to drive it but figured it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. So I ran inside to drop my stuff off and realized the heat wasn’t on – it was FREEZING! But I was too excited to worry about that then. So I took off and boy, did I have fun! That thing is powerful and FAST! I bought ski goggles at REI in Anchorage just for this occasion, and I’m glad I did, because it was snowing and cold once you’re going really fast. I also had the ski mask on so I was pretty comfortable. I rode out on the frozen river and went pretty far out on the tundra – I saw some amazing landscape out there! I’ll take pictures and post them. There were green-blue ice walls as tall as I am!
So eventually I came back home and had to deal with the freezing cold house. It was so cold I could see my breath and some water in the sink turned to ice. I laid my keychain thermometer out and it was 30 degrees. Carol (my mentor) talked to Naomi and apparently the heat had been out 4 days, but Naomi has been in Bethel for the most part. This happened to some other teachers a few weeks ago and they wound up sleeping at the school. So anyway, I just bundled up and (naturally) put on a Christmas movie to just go along with it :-). But thankfully after a few hours someone came to see about it and it’s fixed now.
Well apparently yall got tons of snow! I’m so happy! I hope everyone is enjoying it!!! Stay warm, and have a great week!
Kim
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