August Adventures

     The beginning of year five in living in Alaska's bush has been nothing short of awesome! Me and my roommate Betsy spent a few days in Anchorage to stock up on meat for the semester (although we lost it all in when we realized our freezer went out... hopefully we can get some moose soon!) We met up with the new teacher Emily (5th and 6th grade) and her husband Josh. Then, at the airport in Bethel, we met Matt, the new 7th-12th science and social studies teacher. We finally made it to the village and hung out at school while they took all the boards off our houses. It was nice getting back a few days before work actually starts, because we had time to take care of some much needed household chores - refill our water tank with a hose from school, pack drinking and cooking water, rearrange furniture, hang a hammock swing I ordered, and de-stink the place in general. 

   

 Every Friday is poker/board game night at Paula's, and we've played volleyball at the school every Saturday. Kevin held his annual back-to-the-bush BBQ, and we watched football around their brand new flat screen TV! Me and Betsy often plan sneak prank attacks on our fellow colleagues throughout the year for the fun of it, so over the summer I bought a big water gun and Betsy bought water balloons, and we came up with a great plan to get Kevin while he was working outside - the logistics were beautifully organized. We went on the attack and drenched him good. He then joined in the offensive side and we lured Emily and Josh out of their house, and they got hosed down too! We had a blast, and I'm just glad they are all good sports to play along!

         

salmon berries

exposed permafrost

Saturday I went berry picking and had to walk a few miles to find enough to actually make something with them. I got to cross a few streams, walk through mushy fields, and lay in waist-high tundra grass. The beauty of this place draws me in closer every year. Grant always tells the new teachers some of my more extreme adventures, so Josh and Emily said they wanted to go exploring with me. We invited Matt along, and it was very exciting! I'm glad others are willing to go hiking with me! Kevin came along too, and we probably walked 3 miles down the river... we found all kinds of berries, tundra parsley, and tundra tea. We hopped down on the bank and watched big hunks of mud fall off, and literally saw the HUGE slab of permafrost exposed. It was icy cold, and although we know it's always there, something about actually seeing it and touching the ice that's been in the ground forever was seriously cool. We trudged through a field of sticky “quick-mud” and had to pull each other out. We crossed streams, wove through the endless fields of tundra grass, and watched ducks fly around us. It was a great day of exploration!

The newbies: Emily, Josh, and Matt

    That evening Grant texted Betsy a weird message about how he cleared out the gym so me and Betsy could exercise. Finding this really odd, we had a feeling he was filled in on the water-gun prank we pulled on them, so we got a bit suspicious, wondering if this was their payback. We called Kevin to go check it out, and then I snuck in the back of the school to peek in the gym, but all the lights were out. I ran back to our house and me, Betsy, and Kevin were officially on the defense... we had to come up with a strategy! So we grabbed the water gun and a bowl of flour, and we hysterically threw together a plan of action. It was the funniest thing... we had our secret knock worked out, created our home base, and went out in complete stealth mode. We snuck all around the outside of the school, and then into the school, crawling down the hallways and jumping at the slightest sounds. When we couldn't find the couple, we went back to our home base to regroup with a Plan B. After a long and tense search around the east side of the village around the teachers' houses, we retreated to the house and dropped our weapons, and Josh and Emily jumped out of our utility room and scared the living daylights out of us! Kevin was in on it the whole time, that traitor! Haha... he played his part well, convincing us to leave our house unlocked in case we had to run back to safety and didn't have time to mess with the keys. We should have known better! So that just means we need to come up with another plan to get back at Kevin. Good times lay ahead!