Good morning, everyone! Happy Birthday to Me! It’s about 9:30 Alaska time, and it’s my birthday today! It seems so long ago that I wrote in an email that I would be spending this birthday in the village where I would be living for the next nine months, knowing no one. What an inaccurate statement that is turning out to be!
I am still going to follow up with my web page to log my thoughts, but today I am simply going to write here in Word in the interest of time. I am learning quickly that I will want to write in a timely manner because so much is happening so quickly that if I don’t write often, I will lose some of the things I experience and feel, at least in terms of sharing them with you.
Getting ready to live somewhere for nine months is quite a challenging experience – especially with a move thrown in just for fun – but I’ve done it, such as it is!. Of course, I already have a list of things that I want to have sent to me from my belongings back home, and I expect that I will have a running list going at all times. But I can get many things I need right here in the village at an inflated cost. A trade off, I guess!
Flying into Anchorage went off just fine. When I got there, however, I was expecting a ride from the airport to the Sheraton in Anchorage, but I could find no one. So, I took a cab. But I got there! Tired as all get out, but where I needed to be. I tried to read each night while in Anchorage, but my eyes closed before I wanted to close my brain.
The next morning, Wednesday, was the first day of orientation. I have to give the district a lot of credit because our meals were all really good, so it was really nice that first morning to get a good breakfast and begin to meet people. And meet people I have, and really nice people to boot! My principal, Harold, is a really wonderful salt-of-the-earth kind of guy, and I fully anticipate my experience working with him to be fun and rewarding. We seem to have a shared vision in terms of the work I will be doing. I can’t articulate to you a whole lot about the work I will be doing because, frankly, I don’t know enough to do that yet! But I do know that one of my first responsibilities will be to see where the seniors are in terms of graduation requirements and then to work with them to ensure that they are on the right track. And right now, the most important thing for me to do is to learn about the culture of these friendly people so I can begin to understand how best to utilize my talents and skills. And that requires listening and genuine curiosity.
Anyway… After the morning session which covered a lot about technology in the district, we were taken shopping. I went with Alex, one of the Assistant Superintendents, and a really nice guy! I had four carts full at Wal Mart and spent $1250. And let me tell you – that kind of a shopping trip is exhausting! Truth to tell, I don’t know where my energy was coming from, but I continue to be amazed at my own stamina! There is no question in my mind that the choice to live a life without alcohol is proving to be an invaluable one – especially in the midst of all of this! That evening, the district had dinner for us at the museum in Anchorage, the name of which escapes me at this moment, but it was really lovely.
I walked to and from the museum with Robin and Sue, two of the women I’ve befriended, who will be living and teaching in Kotlik. Funny how things work out, because I feel a kindredness with both of them. And whatever thoughts I may have had about being isolated here are so far from reality that it amazes me!
I also got to be good friends with a young lady named Kara who will be teaching at Hooper Bay, my former duty station, and she would have been a fun one to get to know in Hooper. But that’s just not the way things worked out. Probably good though, because I’ll have enough on my plate as it is without mentoring a young ’un, which I would have naturally done (and if you know me at all, you know exactly what I mean!) One another woman I met, Bryn, will be at a different village, but we will stay connected to one another through email because we connected right away. She has her nine-year old daughter with her, Lorna, who is a doll! Bryn is one year older than I am, so there is that commonality. But that relationship will simply have to be what it will be under the circumstances, such as they are.
How can I explain how this all felt to me at that point? I had to leave some really special people behind along with a place I love, but this opportunity for growth and self-discovery will only serve to enrich those relationships and teach me to love a place that I wouldn’t ordinarily choose as a home. I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, but bear with me. I will take pictures and send them on, but be prepared, because some of you will find yourselves appalled and wondering how I could be happy here. Kotlik is not a pretty place in many ways by our standards, although it is on a river and you can see mountains and low trees in the distance. But already I am in love with the place, the experience, the people I have met thus far.
Back to it. Thursday was more orientation and more shopping. And more fun than a Barrel Of Monkeys! The only things I would have changed if it was possible was having time to connect via phone with people. The time difference was prohibitive because when I was ready to relax and make phone calls, you were all long asleep! I did get to connect with some people briefly, and that was very very good.
Friday! Holy buckets! A very long, very tiring day! Got to the airport in Anchorage okay, flew to Bethel, and made it there in one piece. I ended up sitting next to a woman named Edna, a principal in a different village. That part of this experience is so fun – not knowing who I’ll be talking to when, or why, or what more I will be able to learn. Like little gifts I’ve been opening for days!
The Alaska Airlines terminal in Bethel is quite possibly like nothing you’ve ever seen before. We all got our luggage and were transported to Grant Aviation, the carrier for my flight to Kotlik. Now, the fun begins…
I am missing a piece of luggage! Some of our luggage got erroneously mixed in with the luggage for a group who were going on a fishing trip, and I found one piece of my luggage in the belly of their plane! Still missing a piece, though… So I got driven back to the Alaska Airlines terminal. The only black suitcase left behind there had duct tape all over it – clearly not mine. So back to Grant Aviation we go. There is one lone black suitcase (or as Alaska Airlines call them, one 22), but it’s not mine because it doesn’t have the right kind of luggage tag, right? Guess what? The tag on that piece of luggage is different from the tags on all the rest of my luggage, but I looked at it anyway (FINALLY), and, you guessed it, it’s mine – sitting there all along. By the way, the Grant Aviation terminal looks a lot like the terminal in the show “Wings,” although if that terminal is a first class terminal, the terminal at Grant is absolutely no better than coach! No worries, though. Really nice people, and just a fun experience. Okay. By the time I found that piece of luggage, I had to be moved to the next flight out which meant a three hour layover in Bethel. That’s the only time I was almost reduced to tears because I was so TIRED, but then I shifted gears and sucked it up, an ability that I apparently have developed over these last few years that I think is so darned COOL! So I took a taxi into the town of Bethel to the AC store (Alaska Commercial Store) and shopped for some groceries, including some fresh produce and chicken kabobs. When I got back to the terminal, the very sweet girl at the counter informed me that they had found another piece of my luggage back at Alaska Air and that it was there for me to take with. Have you guessed yet? Yes, folks, the black 22 with the duct tape all over it! How fitting is THAT? I don’t know if that suitcase popped open (it was STUFFED) or if they inspected it and couldn’t get it closed, but had I gotten on the earlier flight, I don’t know when I would have gotten that suitcase – and that suitcase had my shower stuff in it!
Then, the flight. A ten seater plane – 12 including the pilot and co-pilot – and such a neat flight! So close to the ground in comparison to the flights we are used to, and just beautiful landscape! One stop in Emmonak, and then on to Kotlik. I left the hotel in the morning at about 10, and got into Kotlik at 8:30! Felix, of school maintenance, met me with a kind of golf-cartish vehicle with a little trailer attached and took me into the village and to the school where I met Harold. Harold then told me that my living quarters were not only not ready, but not really decided yet! Robin was hired only a couple of weeks ago, and hers is a family of 6, so housing had to all be rethought, and I guess they’re not done thinking! But I’m staying with Sue this weekend in a unit where neither of us will ultimately live, and we won’t know anything until we get back from training in Mountain Village. I should say – AT LEAST until we get back from Mountain Village! By the way, we leave here tomorrow morning and get back here on Thursday. Friday is the first day all staff reports, so hopefullly I will be setting up my new home over the following weekend.
Anyway. Sue and I talked Friday evening until we were both so tired that we couldn’t stay up anymore! We both slept in, but once we got going, we walked to both of the stores in the village as well as along the river. We ran into Harold who showed us his place and gave me coffee (!!!!! God BLESS that man!!!!!) I met many villagers yesterday, and there wasn’t a one who wasn’t wholeheartedly welcoming! I am going to have the time of my life, I believe!
Robin got in yesterday afternoon. She has family here because her husband is a native of this village. She came back from her in-laws’ last night to grab some things as she was going to sleep there, and she brought her mother-in-law, Winnie, and her sister-in-law, Goosey (a.k.a. Regina). Winnie is an amazing woman and shared a poignant and heart-wrenching story. I will share it with you here, but please treat this information with some reverence as this was a difficult story for her to share.
The schools up here used to under the auspices of the BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most kids didn’t really attend school because it wasn’t valued over having the family members working to support the family, and if there was a school, it wasn’t uncommon for it to be miles away making it really difficult for parents to get their kids to and from. In the mid 50’s an early 60’s, the BIA began to crack down and require that kids attend school. Eventually, people who lived spread out moved closer to one another and created villages, the ones that exist today, and built their own schools. Before that happened, though, the BIA would intervene and require children to attend boarding school. This is what happened to Winnie.
The problem was, however, that she didn’t understand what was going on or why. All she knew is that she was forced to leave her parents for an entire school year. When she returned in the summer, this didn’t resolve the issues for her or other kids because, in this culture (Yup'ik, I think it’s spelled, but I’ll confirm) children are raised to learn by watching, not asking questions. You can imagine how abandoned a six year child would have felt under those circumstances! When Winnie was 41 (she’s 61 now), her mother died. What followed for her was an extremely difficult time in her life. She suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized and received mental health treatment. When you think about it, how fortunate she was ultimately to have things unfold as they did so she had the opportunity to work through all of that!
