Saturday Night- Bonfire and a Dip in the Yukon

It has been exactly two weeks since I last wrote about my adventure here. I had an eventful weekend after the Friday Welcoming Eskimo Dance. Then, the next school week was squished with lots of planning, challenges with adjusting to the cultural differences (especially in the classroom), upset stomachs from rushed schedules and new diets, an overload of meetings, our houseguest and Alaskan New Teacher Mentor Mary, less and less sleep, and meanwhile still trying to clean out and organize my classroom. It was a hard week. Then, came sickness the next week.

I’ll start back where I had left off. The Saturday after the Eskimo Dance, we all slept in. Most of us went straight to our classrooms. We were trying to use the first two days of school and take all the information we learned from our students temperaments and our informal assessments (our district or school doesn’t have any set formative assessments and their system for figuring out standards is especially difficult for us “newbies”) to start planning our first full week of instruction.

Besides the glorious late start from catching up on some sleep, Saturday was to be productive. However, when I got to the classroom and set up my laptop, my day was disrupted by a little wave of news. My mom emailed me that someone I knew had died. A very charismatic father of two kids (they were at a youth-camp that I would have been a counselor at that weekend) was on his way home when a car that swerved and killed him drove into his lane. He was my sister-in-law’s uncle and a very loud and loving part of many family functions. After finding this out, I wished I could be there at the funeral. I imagined how the atmosphere of the youth-camp might affect the popular Skit Night while each cabin performed their humorous play. I decided to read a letter I had picked up from the Post Office, but quickly learned about my dad flying to comfort his brother during mysterious health issues. How had so much happened in the Lower 48 in just a few days? My mind started racing with the silly “what ifs?” What if my father dies in a sudden car crash? What if my friends or family need me through emotional upset? What if I get hurt in an accident and I can’t get flown to a hospital that is hundreds of miles away in time? Why do I feel so far away.

The clock ticked on in my classroom. My first tears shed in Alakanuk cleared up so I could see a flicker of sun peek into my windows. The long swamp grass leaned heavily over the muddy boardwalks that run in front of the worn and weathered teacher trailers in the “ghetto side of teacher housing.” I realized I hadn’t gotten much accomplished as my tailbone started to hurt despite the cushioned chair. The clock kept ticking. The village ran on “brown power” which means the frequency changes frequently from 52 cycles per minute to 64 in any given moment. I had recently learned that any clock plugged-in would have to be reset constantly to have a semi-close-to-accurate time. The clock in my class hung by the battery on its back. I didn’t know how far the hands had moved as I sat there lost in my selfish thoughts.

Jumping up from my desk, I forced myself to move out of my negative dump and explore other teachers’ progress in their classrooms. By chopping most off my to-do list that day, I worked my way through a few tasks and called it a day. I had planned for a long time to watch Skit Night through Skype, an online video conferencing call. I felt elated to be able to watch the people I know back home living their every day lives, cracking their familiar jokes, and displaying their talents while performing some good skits. However, I wasn’t able to watch the rest of it because internet connection wasn’t great. The homesickness feeling—which I feel guilty to say I almost never have (because I am spoiled with the opportunity to travel and go back home occasionally)— was beginning to set into an uncomfortable place inside of me. I had to stop reflecting on the past and focus on the future (Except, wait. Both “past” and “future” make me homesick…). The quote, “Just one day at a time..” came to mind and I decided to focus on life in Alakanuk.

The teachers had already headed toward the dock for a Burn-your-moving-boxes-Bonfire. A twenty-minute walk doesn’t seem scary at 9:45 pm because it is completely daylight. However, I did have to walk by myself since everyone had left already. This village may be “dry,” but illegally there is a lot of moonshining and drinking occurring at any given moment—especially a Saturday night. There are no things such as drivers’ licenses up here, plus four-wheelers and dirt bikes are just more fun when you’re drunk (sarcastically, it is the ideal situation.) I knew that I had to be careful to avoid the drunks on the way.

With one hand on my cell phone and the other hand gripping a set of keys, I trudged through the mud to the bonfire. I had my guitar strapped to my back and my blonde hair tucked into a hat. It wasn’t 15 steps after I hopped the sewer pipe and walked up the ditch to the gravel road when two men on a four-wheeler slowed down to take a little look-see. One older man with dark wrinkled skin whistled his best through no teeth and a younger man just stared as they rolled by. I hadn’t gone anywhere without companionship and I started to wonder about walking alone. Luckily, I didn’t meet anyone else except for small kids digging with sticks in the mud or siblings crammed on a four-wheeler out on a little joyride through the dump.As soon as I got to the bonfire (which was now only smoke leftover from the insta-heat boxes), the conversations and warmth I felt from my newfound friends overcame any feelings of sadness I had been letting myself fall into. The damp logs held people I had yet to get to know. Although I took a leap and landed in the middle of nowhere— so did these other teachers. My roommate and I have similar values and we appreciate living with one another. The other teachers are adventurous, good natured, clever, fun, talented, and they share a passion for education.

Obviously there are a couple of us who are kooky and unique, but what group doesn’t have some characteristics to spice up life? It’s like a good warm burrito with some interesante picante sprinkled on top. When I prayed about life up here as a teacher, I prayed about a good staff, students, and community. But, the support system I feel from our diverse group and our unique qualities is not something I could have ever orchestrated.

At the end of the night, I can honestly say that I probably had just as much fun as I would have had in Washington. It even involved a dip in the Yukon. I had told myself in Anchorage that I wanted to swim in the Yukon River before it froze over. If splashing in refreshingly cold water in rubber boots isn’t fun, I’m not sure what is. Running an eighth mile into the incredibly shallow water until I was knee high and back-flopping in felt pretty good. With cold dripping wet hair, the sound of my feet squishing water in my boots, and a smile on my face, I walked out of the water—toward my new friends and home.
Little did I know how important those friends would prove to be in the next couple weeks.
More to be written! My hardest task when writing this is to try to find words to describe the culture shock. The differences are-- as someone else said tonight, "They wouldn't understand. They probably wouldn't even believe you!" As soon as my brain is able to process it more, I'll start writing about life in the village, the people, the way of life, village English, the Yup'ik language, the ideals, the amount of support from the community, the politics, the law (or lack of), and how it all plays into teaching my 4/5th grade classroom in Alakanuk, AK.