If Only My Eyes Were Tiny Cameras...

Huge store!

Seal meat, moose fetus, Yup'ik name, basketball games, and a trip to another village by snow machine, what more could you ask for when living in an Eskimo village in Alask? What a week we've had!

Yum! Fresh produce :)

On Monday afternoon, right after school, a few of the other teachers and I got all bundled up, hopped on the snow machines and drove about thirty minutes away to visit the AC store in a neighboring village. Their store is bigger than ours and has more fresh produce and frozen foods than our store does, so it felt like we were in a huge store, like a Sams or Costco, but really it would have been viewed as a small store by any outsider. It took us around thirty minutes to get there and forty to get back, but it was only eight or nine miles away. There was a bit of overflow, which is melted ice, that we had to be careful to go around, but really it wasn't too bad of a trip. I wanted to take more pictures, but it's hard to do that while riding on the back of a snow machine that is only meant for one person.

At the store after a nice long ride

Cutting into the brain

Wednesday one of my aides went around finding out what all of my students' Yup'ik names are. She wrote them all down, then made them look very pretty and laminated it. It looked very pretty. She was almost done when she came back in and asked if I had been given a Yup'ik name yet. I said I hadn't and so she named me. She asked if I was the oldest, and when I replied yes, she named me Alqaq, which means big sister. It was exciting. I feel a little bit more like a member of the village.

moose fetus before surgery

A student's mother had caught a moose and when they were cutting her up, they discovered she was pregnant with twins. They decided to bring one in for the school to dissect. The science teacher allowed my class to come join. Not many students have ever seen a dissection here before, so they really enjoyed that. They were all impressed by how small the fetus was, because of how big moose are and they were also impressed with how similar a moose is to us when it comes to the intestines.

Spirit Line

Our crowded parking lot

That was on Friday. Friday also brought a basketball game to our gym. It was a lot of fun. The gym was packed! Many people showed up from the neighboring village to watch the game. In fact, two young men from another village came up and recognized me from our teacher dance. Seeing and meeting people from so many different places was a lot of fun.

Yummy seal meat!
Tastes like beef, smells like fish

Bright moon one day

I doubt next week will be as interesting as this week, but I do hope you enjoyed reading about the wonders of our village this week. The pictures are just a hint at how much fun it was to experience. I wish my eyes had tiny cameras in them so that I could have even more amazing pictures to show you. Keep yourself entertained until next week.

The Wonderful Life of a Teacher in the Village

I think that is a great title for a book about my experiences here. Well, not much to tell about this week, it wasn't very eventful.

I wanted a picture of the snow so clean and soft...
of course, it would have been helpful if the sun was up

We had parent teacher conferences for the second time in my career. I had seventy percent of my parents show up, which means Woo Hoo! I had two great experiences with that this time:

1)One of the parents of my student is a really sweet lady. She is very kind hearted and everyone loves her. She spent an hour in my room telling me stories about her family and life, it was great! She also invited me to come to a sauna with her some time. She told me the Yup'ik word for it, but I don't remember how to say it. She also invited me to her house sometime to make authentic Yup'ik earrings and pins and things. I'm excited to take her up on the offer, but she is in Anchorage for the next few weeks.

A protective barrier during breakfast
 making on Saturday morning

2)Another parent I interacted with was such a great parent! He wanted to know everything about how his child was behaving as well as performing in my class and what he could do to help the student do the best that he could. I loved getting to talk to him because this is a student who really struggles with math and is smart, but just needs a little extra time on his work. The parent was understanding and so involved in his child's life. I loved seeing a parent that devoted to their child.

Our amazingly delicious beef stew

This weekend we had a grand ole time making beef stew pretty much from scratch. It was delicious! The other teachers and I ate dinner, watched a bit of television and just talked. It was so very nice and fun. I love my village. I love my life. Hope you enjoyed reading, and sorry it wasn't very interesting this week!

Snow Play in the Sun

Christmas break is over, it's time to hit the ground running and get things done! That's what it felt like when we got back from break, anyway. All of the teachers came into the village on the 31st of December to enjoy the New Year beginning in our quaint little village. There were fireworks on the river, which were beautiful to watch, but by this time we were all so exhausted from all of our traveling that we went straight to bed afterwards! 

School started up again on the third of the year which means we were able to see all of our students' bright shining faces again. Most of them had a great break. Unfortunately for them, the quarter wasn't over yet, so we picked up on work right away, trying to get as much done before the quarter was over. 

It was also the warmest week in a long time. We got more snow, although it was more like rain than snow. However, it was very fun to play in. We took the snow machines out and slid behind it in tote boxes. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work too. You had to hold on really tight, and it my back is still a little bit sore from it. We had a great time playing all evening.

Another fun thing that we did was lessons on how to drive snow machines. They are super easy to drive and a lot of fun as well. I didn't drive for very long, or go very fast, but I can tel why people like them so much. Another teacher was also learning to drive her brand new snow machine. Her machine is a two up, so it was a little different than the one I was driving, but ultimately the same idea. We both had a good time.

A few days later we went outside and built a snowman, a couch, and the bottom part of an igloo. It was so much fun! The part of the igloo that we did build is very solid and keeps the inside quite warm. The couch was for the babies, but I took advantage of the nice comfortable seat in the snow. We also buried one of the other teacher's in the snow. The babies sure had a lot of fun with that one! They threw the snow right in his face! They had a very good time playing in the snow. We taught one of them how to have a snowball fight. Oh, he sure loved that new game!