Eskimo Dance

Friday night, we were invited to go to the Tribal Council for an Eskimo Dance to honor us new teachers. We piled in the van at 6:45 PM and drove through the pot holes to a tattered grange-hall type building. Not a soul was in sight and a padlock was on the front entrance. While we were waiting, we discussed how most of the buildings in the village are raised since many destructive floods had forced the village to relocate to the other side of town. This building had an interesting water-level sign I hadn't noticed while walking past it to Dave's Store. It showed the recommended building elevation, as well as markings of other local buildings. I was glad to see they had built the school two feet above the suggested level.
Finally, four-wheelers started puttering in and after awhile someone came with a key to let us in the T.C. Inside the large rectangular room, there were shallow bleachers on the left side and many bright blue circles hanging on the wall on the right side. There was a row of folding chairs around the perimeter. Our large staff group shuffled onto the cold metal bleachers. I took my muddy boots off to replace them with my Sketchers.
After a longer time, I asked a returning teacher how long it might be until they start-- hadn't they said 7? She replied that they were on local time. This meant it could be another hour before it started. However, to waste some time, I went with my principal, another teacher, and took one of my students to the local Annex store across the way.
My Sketchers suctioned to the thin mud with each step, as the routine of changing back and forth between mud boots and shoes is becoming more familiar. Luckily, I was able to avoid too much mud and walked around the plywood floor as others shopped for snacks. I can't justify spending lots of money, but I was in desperation for a caffeine fix after two days of teaching. So, at that point a $2.59 Coca-Cola seemed like an okay deal. However, my roommate's pop cost four dollars and some odd change for an expired Diet Pepsi.
When we got back, a row of men were sitting on the chairs opposite the bleachers, holding the blue circles. When the dance began, an elder started singing a Yup'ik simple melody. The others joined in. For the next few hours, all men beat on the drums and sung. Women and children wearing Guspaqs, bounced their knees and made motions with their hands as if they were berry-picking, mixing Aqutaq (Native ice cream made from berries, fat, and fish), and hunting. It was a night of serious, and even some silly, dancing. They even convinced me to go out there to fumble through the unfamiliar dance moves with, what I felt like, naked hands. All the ladies and girls had gloves or fans covering their hands. When they invited us new teachers to try dancing, I had to remember that they couldn't have expected us to bring the proper attire. Knee bobbing and air-berry picking was more difficult that it looked from the bleachers!
Afterward, the atmosphere of the room had changed from an ordinary cold rectangular room to an excited buzzing room full of hugs and handshakes as we left. It was after 11 P.M. and I was exhausted from two very draining days and excited from the prospect of sleeping in the next day. Many of us felt like walking home next to the river, in the chilly breeze, with the sun’s light still shining bright.

And quickly, the First Day is Done!

After a day of teaching and getting to know my students, I came to this. I had almost forgotten that while I was reaching for socks this morning, my drawers all started sliding forward. Next thing I knew, I had picture frames, drawers, and clothes that shot across the room and hit the opposite wall. Apparently my socks make the dresser top-heavy?? I could understand if I had both top drawers filled with jeans and had them both open, but this was somewhat comical. I can't pick it up because it's lodged into a sweet spot on top of the heater,suitcase, and tote. I was asked if an Alaskan earthquake hit this place while we were at school. I think I'll leave that there until I can get someone to help me.

Interesting facts I learned today from teaching in my 4th/5th grade classroom:

• No matter what my day was like, at least I went there with a smile and came home with a smile. That's good news. Because I have a few first-class doozies.
• I have so much to learn from my students.
  
• Some students have immaculate hand-eye-coordination and can blow me out of the water with their ability to copy a complicated clapping-pattern.
• Many of the boys are very knowledgeable and interested in animals. They get so excited while talking about local animals and can identify them as mammals or not.
• There are three types of seals around here: Bearded, Spotted, and Harbor
• One boy in my class "caught" one last night.
• They know the Yup'ik tricks to taking Goose eggs without the mom chasing them.
• Waqaa means "hello/welcome"
• Quyana means "thank you"
• Many students will try to "help" establish a Do-not-cross-this-line! piece of masking tape in the teacher desk area by shouting "Jana, Jana, Jana! I'll hold this side. I can help. I will put the tape down." while trying to grab the tape from me and practically sitting in my lap and knocking my stuff of the desk.
• Those kids will hide anywhere. I tried to have them line up after basketball and saw two hiding. When I made them get in line, two more popped out behind the beams. An older teacher joked about them being ninjas. Now I understand.
• Many students struggle to raise their hand, stay in their seat, and listen to directions. They'll blatantly say, "Well, I wasn't listening. So?"
  
• They test out new teachers for a long time. Teachers come and go faster than a batch of fresh cookies. One kid asked a new teacher, "Are you going to make it past Christmas?" So when the 14th student purposely pokes the wall after I ask them to not touch it, I'll just .. ya. I don't have a plan, yet.
  
• The culture has many respectful values stressed, yet these kids grow up in a household where the mother has no say in what time they go to bed, let alone how they perform or behave in school. The Yup'ik culture teaches students to give respect without expecting anything in return-- yet they have limited intrinsic motivation unless there is a Brave Buck, or a sticker, or a piece of candy. My goal tomorrow is to develop a reward system that will be obtainable, and hopefully it won't give them more than they deserve. It's hard to know where to really lay my expectations when I'm new in this culture.
  
• It is a different world up here. It's different in respect to everything-- family values, education, expectations, bodily functions, religion, myths, traditions, food, climate, societal values, privacy, bed times, and even how the sun is on a different schedule. It will be light for at least another hour (It's 11pm now)!
  
• I have an awesome roommate who gives me valuable insight from similar experiences. She shares her living space, her powdered milk, and her laughter. She allows me to vent about not having technology to teach with and lets me think aloud through my classroom management issues. She has stories of student's seeing parents kill their loved ones or never knowing their parents at all.
• Sometimes the only solution is prayer.
• And to that-- cheers and good night!

The Night Before the First Day of My Career

I wrote in my planner for August 26, 2010, "First day of my career- no big deal." I can't believe after years of being a student, I'll finally be in charge of my own classroom. However, I'll admit I'm about 40% excited and 60% nervous. Instead of planning consequences for divergent behavior, or intricate community building lessons, or creating classroom jobs, or setting up the morning math calendar, I spent many hours every day for an entire week cleaning my classroom.
To put this into perspective without being too bias. Imagine a room being occupied by an older woman who would have technically qualified for the show called "Hoarders." They hired someone all summer to clean her classroom and her house after she left. Although it looked fairly clean, I realized how much I had to get out of the overstuffed file cabinets and shelves before I could even begin to organize the necessary curriculum and paperwork. In the process, I even found a butter-knife under files, a piece of wrapped gum in a bookshelf, and a moose bone with some meat still on it next to a dusty Rice-Krispy bar on top of another shelf. I'm leaving that there for good luck, good laughs, and possibly survival food.
I have some great people on my teaching team and we have many great plans. However, it sounds like the school and students need much reforming. This year we are hoping to introduce school rules for the first time to increase uniformity. I've witnessed some of the student behavior and am worried because respect seems to be low. Currently as part of the culture, it's expected that students will be destructive. I was walking to my house when I noticed a student on the hood of the school van (one of about 4 vehicles in the village) bending the windshield wipers. To make matters worse, two staff members were chatting near the van without even acknowledging the destructive behavior. So with my hesitant voice, I told him to stop bending them before they broke. The kid seemed shocked. The two staff members glanced up at me, back at him, and I didn't here them say anything to back me up. Three seconds later when I looked back, the boy had hoisted himself up to the very top of the van and was playing there. That boy is in my class.
It's also very much a part of the culture for the people to get something in return for having positive behavior. We are encouraged to have food or the parents won't come to Open House. Another teacher told me she gives the kids one piece of candy every day they make it through with good behavior. I'm worried because my philosophy is that good behavior is expected and exemplary behavior may or may not be rewarded. It will be my year-long goal to encourage their intrinsic motivation and create respect for others as well as themselves.

A New Home

It was a quiet walk from the airport to the house. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was even talking or attempting to listen, but I don't remember the conversation. Theresa, my roommate, was patient with my video-taking as the plane sputtered off over the low green trees. The four-wheeler that had picked up the other passengers on the plane was long gone and we were the only two people around. I pocketed my camera and inspected the scene around me as we walked.
Rocks with quartz and pink and blue minerals were lodged in the dry dirt road. My winter jacket seemed stuffy in comparison to the crisp air and blue open skies. Down through the thick brush on one side of the road, bright specks reflected off some water back through the dark contrast of the branch's silhouettes. Although the trees are short, they were dense and blocked my view around me. Luckily, I had Theresa leading me towards our new home. Not knowing which direction my house was in, let alone what was around the corner was unnerving. Theresa pointed to my right towards the dump and explained that she liked to walk her dog a place on the river they call the "Dock." It got its name because it used to have boats launch from there (I'm not sure if it's still used as that today).
We chose to take a common back-route and "hop the pipe" to get to the housing complex. I wasn't expecting to see such long unkempt grass bordering the wooden boardwalks, but I'm told it'll be covered soon once the snow comes. The duplex is much nicer, newer, and more spacious than I expected.
After unpacking a bit and sharing a meal at a couple's house who are returning teachers, we all went for a walk towards the dock. My roommate warned me of a couple good village rules: 1) Always get as far off the road as you can, no matter what time of day-- they could be drunk. (It's a dry village, thus the bootlegging and drunks during the day.) 2) Never stop while walking through the dump. (It is-- SMELLY.) Good thing I had mud boots on. The dump is really just a large uncontrolled area where people literally just drop off their trash. There are usually small fires going to contain some of the volume, but recycling here doesn't exist.


Just past the dump, around the middle of the mosquito swarm (no joke), a Yup'ik woman was driving toward us with some driftwood dragging behind her and the biggest smile on her face. She stopped the engine and jumped off to give a returning teacher a warm hug. Her tears of joy made me realize just a little bit of how difficult it must be to live in such a small village and living with the unknown. No one knows which person will leave and never come back. So the return is quite powerful for those relationships that were so strong. I didn't ask what made the reunion seem so intimate and vulnerable, but I have a feeling I'll learn more in time.

We finished walking to the dock, which is a beautiful spot at the edge of the Yukon. A vast and powerful river. A source for food, peace, travel, income, and fear. I have so much to learn and experience here. And how different it will look when the trees lose their leaves and the river freezes over! The walk back was again, somewhat quiet. Or maybe, again, I was just lost in my own thoughts.

I am not in the least bit settled into my new place, as boxes keep arriving at the post office. This is good, since no boxes started arriving until yesterday afternoon. Now they're coming in great abundance.
The post office experience is definitely different from anywhere else I've lived. Alakanuk has one of the best postmasters in the world I'm sure. First off, everyone has her phone number. Everyone knows when and how many planes come into the village. And once one person knows there are packages for the teachers, we come flocking equipped with the pick-up to load them all up. After eating pilot crackers (a popular plain cracker) and bagged tuna, we get pretty excited thinking our food might actually be getting here.
Yesterday, I got two boxes from Costco. It's so exciting to open up the boxes and to load the contents into the white glaringly empty pantry. This afternoon, we got even more boxes. Everyone was helping each other take boxes off the truck, load them on a dolly, and carry them into the housing. As I pulled the dolly back from my house, I wish I had a camera to take a picture of at least ten staff members surrounding the pick-up and a mountain of boxes. But, what I really wanted to capture was their smiling faces as they acted like it was Christmas.
Before tonight, I have never ran next door to ask if my friends if they wanted to view my growing collection in the pantry. What's exciting is that they can understand my excitement for the new food. However, I guess it's interesting how I feel as if I have "fresh" veggies, when in reality it's a can of off-brand green beans. Or how I had to drink two celebratory glasses of Soy Milk and gaze longingly at my powdered eggs, feeling like an honorary Dairy Princess. I've still got at least a month before real meat. Who knows what kind of a party I'll throw then!

Breakfast Party at noon at Theresa and my place.

Conqueror of Alakanuk Mountain. The one, the only, the highest elevation.
A.K.A. The dirt pile at the dock.

We picked Fireweed, the purple flowers, to have Mel teach us how to make Fireweed Jelly!

Alakanuk at last!

Four-wheelers rumble by on the gravel road outside my window, dogs bark and howl without a break of silence, as little bugs fly in my face. Yet, I'm finally in my new Alakanuk abode. (Yes! I also just finally squashed the bug who acted like a stalker to my glasses.)

My journey started up again, as my bags were loaded into the cars going to the Anchorage airport. We were expected to find our way to the village-- which meant dealing with Grant Airlines. This is a place difficult to describe. When I called to make a reservation, I was asked for my name. But, when I asked if they wanted me to spell that and they replied, "No." I wasn't sure quite what to expect.

Our day of flying was incredibly sunny and blissful as we left Anchorage. Our Alaskan New Teacher Mentor, Mary, took us to see this sight of Denali before we pulled into the airport.

We first flew on Alaska Airlines to Bethel. Bethel was a tiny airport, but Grant airlines was small and definitely had more character. Since they don't have a website, we called them many times to remind them we were on the 2:30pm plane to Alakanuk. Their entire airport consisted of one little building and an entire crew of people who ... had illegible handwriting (which caused me to "LOSE" my reservation--THREE times). An untrained customer service (which means filling out a receipt for a plane ticket took 30 minutes each). And terrible phone etiquette ("Hello? Uh. Can you call back?" Click.) Not to mention, after she weighed us and our luggage, she asked us where we were going. Then she turned around, looked at a sloppy board behind her, and faced us again to state, "We don't have that on the board."

Through what I'd like to call some "Flexible-Not-gonna-care" mentality, mixed with "PowerPrayer," and a couple hours to do so, our name was called off a list to get on the next plane. He was a scruffy younger person I thought may be a mechanic based on his flannel shirt and unkempt appearance. He led us out the double doors out to an eight passenger plane and hopped into the pilots seat.

I was excited to be able to be close enough to the dials and to be able to see out on such a warm, clear day. Suddenly, I realized he wasn't able to turn on the propeller on the right side of the plane. With a putt, and a sputter, the engine struggled with its idle. Slowly he turned on the left one. By this time, my roommate and a returning teacher from Emmonak were giving each other nervous looks. My face winced as I looked out the window and tried not to appear as if I was listening to the revolutions of the engine. The pilot adjusted the throttle open and closed. We finally started moving the plane to the runway.

The back end of the plane felt like it was hydroplaning and drifting on the runway and even in the air. With a small plane you could feel turbulence pretty easily. Small little clouds are like hard white opaque rainstorms to fly through.

I put my headphones in to block out some of the droning engines. The terrain from Bethel to Alakanuk was drastically different from Anchorage to Bethel. It is much flatter. Surprisingly, I was able to match up our village from Google Maps. It was almost like zooming into the actual satellite map.
When we landed among green shrubbery, short trees, and Fireweed, we already knew our luggage hadn't made it. It felt weird to hop off the plane with no luggage, but we had been promised our luggage would be on the next plane that came in. (That was hard for my roommate because she paid seat fare for her dog and he didn't even make it on the flight with us.) No one was there to pick us up, but my roommate knew where our house was. I was surprised at how green everything was as we walked past tall green bushes to teacher housing along a rough gravel road.

This is the little engine that could take me to Alakanuk! It's leaving the Alakanuk airport towards Emmonak to drop off the rest of the passengers.

The left side of that duplex is where I live.
All housing faces each other with boardwalks running to each of them because it's technically a swamp.

Sorry if you're reading this, but I'm going to go ahead and publish what I've got. It's 12:51AM, and I'm beat. (By the way, it has only been dark for about 45 minutes. Although it doesn't look much more North on a globe, we are!) Good night!

Home Stretch

The in-service training is now completed. It's a good feeling, because this week and a half in Anchorage required a very intense concentration. With only included two days off, my trip consisted of mainly classes, staff meals, and multiple trips to stores, DMV, phone company, and post offices. However, I did have some good touring pictures.

I'm now in the lobby of the Hilton. My ride is here. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go! Love you all.

Anchorage

When the weekend came, I wanted to take hold of the opportunities and go explore this place everyone knows as the beautiful Anchorage. A couple who taught their last year in Alakanuk this past school year, picked up a few of us to go for a late evening drive. We rode in their van past Cook Inlet and old houses abandoned after the tantalizing earthquake in 1964. On our way back, we stopped at a beautiful wood lodge in Girdwood. Music spilled out of the building into the peaceful surrounding of scientifically labeled gardens and fountains. A tram led people down from the restaurant at the top of a hill, thousands of feet in the air. We wanted to ride it, but tickets were sold for the night and the clock was ticking close to midnight.
Just before returning to Anchorage, we went to the base of Flat Top mountain to take in the sparkling lights of the cityscape. The waning moon led our way as we walked along these log fences back to our car.
This display is in the main entry for the Girdwood lodge. Although Polar bears aren't too common all over Alaska, we did hear that two ended up near our village. I never got to see the picture, but two polars bears floated on a piece of ice down the Yukon all the way down to a little place by Emmonak and Alakanuk.

The next day, my friend, Amy and I, took a bus/boat tour to see Portage Glacier. We got to ride down the Seward Highway again in daylight. We spent the day with seven other older people on an over-sized tour bus. I learned that glaciers are blue because they're made of snowflakes that are undergo extreme pressure for at least 10 years. Then, they are able to absorb all wavelengths of light except blue. I was also intrigued how the Glacier silt blocks out ALL light, meaning there is sometimes no life in the lakes Glaciers feed into. Our driver let us stop wherever we wanted-- even to take a picture of mountain goats and a video of a mama moose eating Alder leaves! Our eyes were heavy by the time that seven hour tour pulled back into the Hilton.






Wind tried to keep us from climbing the hill to get a good look at these goats, but we didn't back down from being so close!

Pictures-- worth a thousand words.

On Wednesday, everyone took a break from our conferences. Our Alakanuk teachers hopped into the big white Dodge van on a trip to the DMV to get ID cards. We ended up lacking sufficient necessary documentation, so we went on to Costco to make the best out of our trip. I decided I had enough food to last me a lifetime (or more likely a couple months). For some reason, I was being very frugal and literally had 1/8 of a cart full until I realized how crazy I was being. Food for the year is not going to come from 1/8th of a cart at Wal-mart! Finally I started going around grabbing things like tomatoes and mushrooms and pineapples and pasta and rice... things I'd eat for at least a few months. When we were done, the Alakanuk group and I went back to the hotel for lunch.

After lunch, I was more than ready to escape the confining walls of the hotel and/or shopping centers. So, instead of taking a nap I've been needing for weeks, I had the opportunity to go hiking with some of the staff of the district! Please enjoy pictures. I've got plenty of new things to share about my training, my fellow staff, and my experiences so far in Anchorage, but that will have to wait until I have more down time- AKA the village (at the rate I'm going)!











One interesting tidbit of information is the price of Moose tags. If I wanted to go out and shoot a moose this year, it'd be $5000. That is word on the streets (or Hilton hallways). I spotted this moose on our way back down from Flat Top. She didn't have a baby with her, but I got this picture through the lens of binoculars.
I'll hold off on the hunting, since I didn't grow up with any hunters in the family. (Sorry, Dad. I know you're excited to come up to hunt and fish and I'm sure you're very good at it. We just didn't ever do it while I was growing up!) I'll stick to shooting moose with my camera. Once I get residency, I'll be able to buy a fishing license for $24!
More training tomorrow. I want to sleep in this weekend, but how many times am I in a place like Anchorage? I'll probably go to the DMV, shopping for gear still, and hopefully some tourist attractions!