Five Months of Bushin' It

Well, I’m grateful to have survived another year in Alaska’s bush. It’s been a wild ride and I wouldn’t change a thing - and I’m looking forward to many more adventures in the years to come. 

Last weekend was prom and graduation. We didn’t plan on having both of these big events on the same weekend - especially because there are only 4 teachers that usually stay and help with extra events - but we didn’t have a choice. The prom decorations weren’t able to get here sooner because of weather conditions, and as you know, when planes don’t fly, our village is cut off from everything! We had the senior class (a whopping 6 kids) around to help too.

Friday afternoon we built the prom set in the gym - the theme was “A Night in France.” We built a 17 foot Eiffel Tower completely out of cardboard and Christmas lights, along with benches, trees, lamp posts, etc. It turned out nice, but we were exhausted! I guess we got done around 10:30, but we were back at the school the next morning at 9:00 to start cooking for prom that night. The next morning we cleaned the gym up and began it all over again for the graduation ceremony, which was just in a few hours. Everything went smoothly and we had fun - one of the things I enjoy about teaching in such a small village is I get to be involved in everything. The school isn’t just a place I work - It’s just as much a home to me as where I sleep. I spend just as much time here - if not more - than I do at home.

One day last week our staff of 8 got a surprise for Teacher Appreciation Day - the district had flown in pizza from Anchorage for us! It was a take and bake pizza joint, so it had to be cooked - it was no Pizza Hut, but just knowing it was flown over 400 miles on 2 planes just to get to us made it special. :) I can’t even remember the last time I ate pizza. 

I’ve been in the bush for 5 straight months and I’ve loved it. Yeah, sometimes I miss stores and restaurants, and I definitely miss fresh food like veggies, fruit, and milk, and my mama’s cooking! - but I know I can do without. You don’t really know what you can do unless you try yourself, and living up here in such an isolated place definitely is one way to get that challenge. I’ve loved it, and now I’m looking forward to eating Mexican food and diet dr. pepper!

We had our annual whacky olympics day yesterday. Me and Naomi were in charge, coming up with games for the whole school that lasts all day. For lunch, Kevin and Grant grilled hot dogs and burgers for all the kids and teachers, plus the elders in the village. We’re flying out today on the afternoon charter, spending the night in Bethel, and flying out tomorrow morning. I’ll arrive close to midnight Saturday, and summer begins!

Irrcinraq

Break-Up

Alaska skips over spring time. Instead we have break-up, when the ice breaks and everything thaws. It’s that time of the year again, like in the fall, when kids have several days of excused absences due to hunting demands on their subsistence lifestyles. Ptarmigan, crane, and geese are the talk of break-up season, and when you walk through the village, you’ll see birds strung out and hung up on cabins to dry in the sun before they eat them. Since most of the houses are still heated the old fashioned way - by wood - they use the sun to cook most of their food. 

Kids using a sled as a boat for all the melted snow

When I first moved here someone told me if I ever have empty cardboard boxes I don’t need, to put them out on the porch, and they’ll be gone the next morning. It’s sad that they have to use any and everything they can to keep their houses warm during these brutal Alaskan winters. But they’ve lived this way for centuries, and I’ve never heard them complain about it.

Just a few miles from the village, where the river runs into the Bering Sea, there were some beluga whale sightings. Several men from the village took off in that direction to try and harpoon one - can you imagine how long that food would last!? They asked if I wanted some and I said yes! I can now say I’m a fan of eating whale. 

The snow is finally started to melt, which creates small ponds everywhere. It’s fun to watch the kids create their own kind of fun with the ponds - teenagers will risk snow-machining across the water - you have to keep it at 30 mph or you’ll sink - and several have sunk! Kids take the family sled out, find some sticks to use as paddles, and kayak through the water. 

One of the many sets of snow steps in the village.
This was taken back in April.

So there are ponds now, but there are still snow drifts - actually, now it’s slush. It’s a hassle to walk anywhere in it because you sink down to your waist with every step. I can manage, but I felt bad for the other teachers who don’t like to roll around in the snow like me :) So I’ve spent a lot of time shoveling paths from their house to the school, which is quite enjoyable. I’ll make curvy walkways, ramps, and steps in the snow, with walls of snow on either side of you. It’s pretty cool to walk them - even though it will probably all be gone in a few days. 

The sun sets around midnight now, and stays up longer every day. You can see how one might never go to bed, because who wants to feel old, going to sleep when the sun is still out? The kids who are not out hunting are in school trying to stay awake. Or rather, we’re trying to make them stay awake - they don’t mind the least bit crawling up in a corner and sleeping. 

The pre-school had their graduation ceremony yesterday. It was absolutely adorable to see them walk in with their little robes on, holding a fake rose and trying to stay in line. As each of them walked by, Grant announced what each kid wanted to be when they grew up. Here are a few that stuck in my mind: strong, a princess, spider man, barbie, a bingo caller like her mom, and a pilot.

Speaking of graduations, here’s a shout out to my sister Audrey who’s graduating from Baylor University this Saturday! Proud of you Auj! 

One more week here and I’ll be back home in Texas. Thanks for reading-and I hope you have a safe weekend.

esKIMo

Kwethluk

trees! some of the kids had never seen them before!

Last Tuesday I was asked if I wanted to chaperone the Yuraq (Eskimo Dance) trip to the village of Kwethluk on Wednesday. It would last until Saturday, and I thought it sounded like fun, so I agreed. I wrote my sub plans for the rest of the week, went home and packed, and we headed out. There were 15 Newtok kids (ages 13-18) traveling, along with a Yupik male chaperone and myself. It was an hour plane ride south of us - and quite warm! It was probably 40 degees when we arrived there at 3:00. Kwethluk is bigger than Newtok - actually, I doubt it’s even considered a village - even though you still can’t get there by road. There are around 800 Eskimos in Kwethluk and we were so excited when we got off that plane for 2 reasons: 1) They had trees! Not very tall, but still... and 2) most of their snow had melted. So when a teacher drove down (yep, they even had their own road system) to take us to the school, we were in no rush to get there. So we grabbed our luggage and started walking the 1.4 miles up to the “city.” 

Overall, the Yuraq was fun. During the school day we could sign up for different cultural crafts - like making Eskimo drums, beading, making gloves from fur, etc. I wanted to make a drum, so I went to the gym to begin. We sanded like crazy all morning, did some sawing, and put it away until the next day. After lunch the dancing began and didn’t stop until almost midnight. The kids had fun, and I enjoyed watching them, but after hours of sitting in a crowded gym, you need to move around. They sing all in Yupik so I also am pretty lost. But some of the songs you could tell what they’re singing about - the dances are more of an act. The boys/men traditionally kneel on the floor, as they would be the one who just got back from a hunting trip, while the girls/women stand. I could tell what some of the songs were about when they would pretend to be shooting, or cutting food, or fishing. 

Typically the school gives the kids midnight snacks, which is sugary and therefore they stay up way late. They hang out with kids from other villages for a couple of hours, then it’s lights out. But then I have to wake everyone up at 7:00 so we can get the classroom in order for the students who have school. After a few days the lack of sleep caught up to us. 

We really enjoyed getting outside and taking walks in the warm weather. The kids had a blast climbing trees, which is something some of them have never had a chance to do. I talked to Grant in Newtok, and they still had 10 feet of snow, but they got some rain and now the whole village was slushy. The runway was a mess too, and a pilot got stuck in the mud. So they estimated it would be an additional 2 days to clean it up, which meant we were stuck in Kwethluk. All the other schools left Saturday around noon, and we were left in an empty school. It wasn’t too bad - they played lots of basketball, we watched movies, and messed around on the internet. 

trying to pass the time

The school didn’t have enough food for all of us, so the villagers were very generous. They brought us moose stew and akudaq (Eskimo ice cream that’s not really ice cream at all), and Sunday they made us fish soup with King Salmon and pilot bread. Yum! It sure beat the school food we’d been given. A teacher graciously bought us boxed milk for cereal in the mornings, too. The school lunches were barely edible and in general they were very small servings.

Sunday afternoon we were bored though, so we all went outside to explore. We climbed trees, threw rocks, went down to the river and watched the ice thaw, and then walked down to the airport. We weren’t use to this hot weather and lack of snow, and I was pretty excited about it! I thought it would be a lot of fun to get a jump start on summer so I decided to take a dip in a small pond about a mile from the village. The kids thought I was crazy so they took out their phones and cameras to get it on video. The water was still freezing - the layer of ice that use to be on top was now near the bottom, and ice chunks were all through the pond. It took my breath away and after swimming it my entire body was numb! I could barely crawl out of it, and when I did I just had to lay there until I could pick myself up. It was a lot of fun... I walked the mile back to the school and took a shower in the staff bathroom.

No one brought enough clothes, of course, so by the end of the weekend we were tired, hungry, and filthy. Adventuring is a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. :)

yay! finally going home after 6 long days

We spent Sunday night again, hoping we’d make it back Monday morning, but no luck. The airstrip had finally been cleaned, but there was a dense fog over Newtok. So the kids, worn out from the weekend and from staying up all night Sunday, slept it off in the school library while Kwethluk’s school continued on. After lunch, Grant gave me the phone call I’d been waiting to hear: the plane is on it’s way! So we loaded up and headed down to the runway. I was exhausted - I had only gotten a few hours of sleep and had been chaperoning and sleeping on a hard floor for 6 straight days. But it didn’t end there... we arrived in Newtok and had to go directly to the school, and I had to teach the rest of the day. Yuk! All I wanted to do was go home and sleep! But that’s the way it is in the bush. 

At the end of the day I was chatting with my colleagues and finally was about to go home. When I headed for the front doors, Grant was there locking them, and he told me I couldn’t leave, to go back in with the rest of the teachers. There was a young, angry teenage boy outside shooting a gun. He apparently had a really bad day at school and he wasn’t managing his anger very well! So us teachers had a lock down in the school for about 30 minutes until the kid was restrained. 

All seems to be well by now, though. The kid is better, I finally got some sleep, and there’s only 2 more weeks left of school. :)