Culture Days, Senior Dinner, and Graduation

Senior Dinner

Graduation

This is the basket I made

Akutaq

WOW!! What a week we've had out here in the village! It was probably the busiest week since we hosted Elementary NYO. Monday and Tuesday were Culture Days, where the students participated in many different culture events including making Lap Balls (for a game similar to baseball called Lap Game), Eskimo Ice Cream (akutaq in Yupik), spears, drums, and many other things. I was in charge of showing the girls how to make baskets, which was a lot of fun. Then on Thursday evening we had the Senior Dinner. Each of our fourteen seniors were allowed to invite six people, but because of younger children and such, there was about 115 people or so. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Finally, Friday night was graduation. By the time we got to the ceremony, the number of graduates had increased to seventeen students! That is the largest number of students graduating from our school in the last fifteen years. 

Making Akutaq-Eskimo Ice Cream

Working hard on basket making

Making a basket

 Monday and Tuesday were kind of hectic and crazy. There was a lot going on. The high schoolers were split into three groups- 7th and 8th graders, 9th and 10th graders, and 11th and 12th graders. The 7th and 8th grade boys were with the science and reading teachers, the 9th an 10th graders were with the social studies teacher, and the 11th and 12th graders were with the Elementary Yupik teacher. They worked on a few different projects in their respective classrooms. The girls, however moved from room to room. In my room they did basket making. In the writing classroom they worked on beading, the Yupik teacher taught them to make keychains and the math teacher showed them how to make lap balls. On top of that, each group went to the Special Education classroom for an hour to learn how to make akutaq. I went out with two different groups, so if anyone wants any lessons this summer, I'll do my best to teach you. Also, each group practiced a certain Eskimo dance for half an hour each day. 

Eskimo Dancing with face painted like a seal

Then, on Tuesday, we invited all the people in our village to come watch the students dance. We also handed out the akutaq we had made during the week. I had a wonderful time, learned a lot, and am looking forward to doing it again.

Senior Dinner setting up

Yummy food

Thursday was the Senior Dinner. Fourteen students brought their family members to share in their success. We served about 115 people plates piled with a cinnamon roll, shrimp, ribs, steak, and corn. We also had cheesecakes, pumpkin pies, blueberry pies, and apple pies for dessert. The families were so happy with their students for all of their hard work and accomplishing something so important. I loved getting to see all the students enjoying themselves and getting their hard earned praise for a job well done. 

Graduation starting

For graduation, I spent a while after school helping set up. Then came back to the school where it was super crowded and everyone was staring at the seventeen seniors. That's right, I said seventeen. During the course of the day on Friday, three more students were able to graduate. The last one finished at 4:15. Granted, two of those students didn't actually get their diplomas, they received Certificates of Attendances, which means they will finish taking courses this summer, but that is still a pretty big accomplishment out here. It took a while to find out, but the last time we had this many graduates from our school was about fifteen years ago. The guest speaker was the Social Studies teacher who has been here for six years. His first year in our village was these students' seventh grade year- they were his first group of students at this high school and it was their first year in high school. We are all so proud of them!

S.S. teacher was the guest speaker

This next week we will have 8th grade graduation and then we will be closing in on the last day of school. It's a bittersweet deal. I'm so excited to be done with the school year and go see my family this summer, but I also will miss my students and getting to talk to them and joke them with just about every day. This year has been so wonderful. I have truly loved my first year teaching and the students I was blessed with. I hope they all have a great summer!

Oh The Joys of Prom!

Working hard as a chaperone

The sun is almost completely set. I'm walking home. The path to my house is quite jagged and hard to walk on, so I've got my head on the path and am concentrating on every step. Suddenly, I hear something and see movement out of the corner of my eye. I freeze. Something's there. I turn my head and I see.... a rabbit. He is still mostly white, but I think I see a little bit of brown under his chin. When I stopped moving, so did he. I know that if I had a gun, I could catch him right now, but I don't. So instead, I just stare at him for a while. He is beautiful. This night is beautiful. I want to stare at him for a little longer, but it is just about 2 am, and I've been dancing most of the night, so I turn back to my path and take a step. I look back at the rabbit one more time and see that my step was a signal to him that it was time to go home. I smile to myself and walk the remaining steps to my house thinking how amazing my life is. 

Prom entrance 

Prom set up- lovely

That scenario happened right after we finished cleaning up from prom. Ah, prom! What a fun night! Prom in the village is much different than prom in the lower 48. For one thing, we stayed after the dancing was done to take down everything. The main reason we did that was because we were pretty sure if we waited until the next day, no one would come help. It took us less than an hour to clean up. A lot of people stayed to help. Young, old, everyone. That brings me to another difference- age groups. There aren't a whole lot of things to do on a Saturday night in the village, so prom becomes an activity not only for the high school students, but also for their parents to come and hang out and dance. I say dance, but that is yet another difference. Not a lot of the students wanted to dance. The teachers, now we hit that dance floor hard and had a good time, but the students seemed a little worried to be caught dancing like a baboon with us! Of course, some students did dance and had a grand old time of it. That was a lot of fun. 

The door ladies, making sure no one brings
anything they aren't supposed to

Our prom court-prince, princess, queen, king

Prom was held in our gym. Now, the sun stays up until after midnight here these days, so to help block out the light, the gym is decorated with trash bags lining the floor and material covering the top of the prom area. It was quite a different look for our gym than I had ever seen before. And boy, was it beautiful! The teacher in charge of everything did an amazing job! Even the students were impressed, which isn't very easy to do. 

Good sports

My class's design, isn't it great?

It was a great night, one to remember. Everyone enjoyed themselves and everything went smoothly, kind of like our event earlier in the week. On Tuesday we had a fire safety presentation. Leading up to that, the students for each class were asked to decorate their door in a fire safety theme and they could win a chance to pie an administrator in the face. My kids enjoyed putting our door together. I think it looked really good and that they should have one, but alas, I was not a judge and so our door wasn't the winner. However, we did get to enjoy watching as all of the administrators were pied by different students. The whole school was watching and everyone enjoyed it. 

Everyone gathered waiting for the event to begin

Just two more weeks of school and they are PACKED with fun filled activities! Monday and Tuesday are Culture Days, where students will be led in different culturally relevant activities. This, I feel, will be a lot of fun. I'm working with students on basket making. Other activities include making lap balls (lap game is very similar to baseball), beading, making agutaq (Eskimo ice cream), Eskimo dancing, and making spears or manaqing poles (ice fishing poles). I'm looking forward to all of these things. We also have Senior Dinner and Graduation next week followed by 8th Grade Graduation and Dinner the next week and our Clean Up Day, which I'm not exactly sure when that will be. Then, of course, there is the last day of school on May 17th. So much to do, so little time! I hope my readers are looking forward to the wonderfulness that is the end of the year teaching in Bush Alaska in my next and last couple blogs for this year!

Warmer Weather

Looks like the weather is finally starting to warm up, the sun is staying out much longer, and there are more things to do and explore!

Wooden boat we found on the bank

Captain of the Ship

Wednesday me and a few other teachers drove to our neighboring village to go to the grocery store but also mainly to just get out and enjoy the beautiful weather. When we came back home, we found this old wooden boat up on the bank, so we climbed up to investigate. It was pretty neat to see all of the really neat things up there. I loved just exploring and walking around in a wooded area like my hometown. It reminded me of exploring the woods with my cousin as we were growing up.

Barge back in the trees

Afterwards we goofed off and just sat in the sunshine as it gleamed down on us. The air was warm and beautiful. It's interesting to say it was warm, seeing as how it was only about 25 degrees, but we all took off our jackets and were sitting in the warm air enjoying ourselves.

Our snow machines look so cool!

The week wasn't all just fun and games, though. I was in my classroom Thursday until six at night trying to get my purchase orders for next year's classroom done. Even staying that long, I still had to try to finish in the morning and it was very stressful. I'm moving to first grade, which is much different than seventh grade, and wasn't really sure I knew what I wanted. Luckily for me, I have awesome co-workers and a nice state mentor who helped me out a ton so that I think I have ordered most things that I will be needing for next year.

part of the bank sticking out

"I'm going to dive!"

Of course, after stressful days like Friday, it's nice to relax with a fun game of Volleyball! Seventh and eighth graders aren't allowed to be on the team, but our coach holds a camp for them to prepare those who might want to play in a few years. On Friday some of the teachers went out and played with them. We had a lot of fun, just playing around. Not many of us teachers are very good at the sport, but we sure enjoy playing around. One of my students didn't want to be on my team because he was sure we would lose; I guess he must've seen me play before. Even so, we all had a good time and we didn't keep score so it was all good.

Just sitting on some stumps

Just four more weeks of school left. The longer the sun stays up, the more events the school has, like cultural days, prom, and graduation. I think the next few weeks will be interesting, busy, and quick. Hopefully there will be a lot of good pictures for you all to enjoy!

Breaking Records

Here she is doing a Wrist Carry-
holding onto the bar only with her wrist,
she holds herself up as the boys on
either end run around the court.

This week was a week of breaking records, and it isn't even over yet!! I've had a blast and I'm sure the students that I've been spending my time with have, too. The best way to explain this is to just list the records that have been broken:

To perform a Toe Kick, you have to barely
land on the stick, kick it backwards with just
your toes and then continue jumping forward.

1) I was asked to be a chaperone for the students going for NYO to another village (you will remember from a previous post that NYO is Native Youth Olympics, a group of activities used to keep native people in shape during the long, cold winters that has now become a competition similar to the olympics).

This is a successful Toe Kick

2) I hustled to finish my DRA testing this week-- Totally school related and a lot of people wouldn't really care, but I don't think anyone has finished testing all their students in two days like I did; it just has to be some sort of record!

This is the record breaking one foot high kick!

3) Flying to our closest neighboring village seems silly. In fact, our flight was only five minutes long. You barely got used to it before you were landing!

Another of my favorite events, the One Arm Reach!
Students balance on one hand,
hold their foot with the other and kick the opposite
 foot up into the air to kick a ball on a string.

4) Never had I seen so many kids from so many different villages. There were high school students from at least twelve different schools. Our school had a pretty small group of ten students compared to the other larger groups, so you can imagine how many students there were. The coolest part was watching all of them interact. They have been competing against each other for so long that it was just natural that they knew each other and could read each other so well!

This is the Indian Stick Pull (both hold onto a stick and try to pull it out
 of the other's hand), I didn't get any pictures of the Eskimo Stick Pull

5) This year a district record was broken in my favorite event- The One Foot High Kick. The student jumped and kicked a ball with one foot and came back down landing on the same foot he kicked with. The ball was 104 inches above the ground! That is nearly nine feet high! It is always an impressive event to watch.

and last but not least, 6) I witnessed for the very first time the seal hop, Indian Stick Pull, and Toe Kick. These events were very interesting and took quite a bit of skill to master.

Here are our boys doing the Seal Hop, literally hopping on
their wrists and toes only all the way down the court

Though none of the students from our school placed high enough to go to state, they tried there hardest, did their best, and no one could ask for any more from them.

As for me, I met a few people from different villages that I hadn't met before. We shared a room with Kotlik girls and the chaperone for those girls and I sat down at lunch and she told me her story about how God has transformed her life. It was so inspiring. I may have grown up in a Christian home, but I still struggle through life with certain things. Now, during certain parts of my life, I can think of her and know that the Lord has a plan for all of our lives.

The week isn't over yet. I will return to my classroom tomorrow and try to restore mayhem, unpack my bag and pack another overnight bag that I will use while I chaperone for one of the other teacher's kids over the weekend. Talk about tuckered out!! Let's hope next week is a little bit less running around and a little more sleep!!

Happy Easter in the Village!

Easter gifts I put together for my neighbors and coworkers

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. I love everything about it. My family and I usually go to our friends house and have Easter egg coloring and Easter lunch, but the past two years I haven't gone. Last year I was in the Philippines and this year I am in Alaska. I, however, made this year a special treat. I made each of my coworkers a nice little gift basket and delivered them. I also made myself some hard boiled eggs and bread. Unfortunately, I couldn't color my eggs, but they still tasted pretty good. The thing I love the most about Easter, though, is Easter services at church. I wish I could be there in person, but I'll settle on watching my church's service online. There are a few people that I know I would die for if I knew it meant saving their lives. My sister. My brother. My parents and cousins. What Jesus did wasn't just for a few people. It was for all of this that don't even deserve it! That amazes me so much and I love hearing pastors talk about it on Easter Sunday mornings because every year it seems more and more incredible that he could love me that much.

My non painted hard boiled Easter eggs

Homemade bread, yum!

In other news two things happened this week. 

First, I finished my very first scarf project. It is kind of short, and not completely straight along the edges, but other than that it turned out pretty good. I'm planning on giving it to my dad when I go visit for the summer. I'm also going to start making one for my brother this next week. 

The scarf I finished making for my dad this week.
It's not perfect, but it didn't turn out too bad!

The second thing that happened was my snow machine was fixed. I really appreciate Paul's help in doing that. Without him, I would have had no idea what to do. He also taught me a few things about my snow machine and how to properly use it. I was a little bit uncomfortable with it at first because of how different it is than a car. But then, my friend that sold it to me took me out driving and the longer we rode around, the more comfortable I became. Now, I feel like a pro and I can do anything. Okay, that is a little bit of a stretch, but I am much more comfortable on it and do trust that I know what I'm doing.

My friend taking me out for
snow machine driving lessons

Beautiful view at the dock

At the airport, watching a plane take off

Sun setting around 8:15. It was amazing

I hope everyone has a fantastic Easter! Remember, God's love was brought to save you and me :) Have a great week!

What a Week!

This week was incredibly busy! With only eight weeks of school left, there is a lot going on. We had parent teacher conferences, a community night at the school, our union meeting to prepare for negotiations, and preparing for testing coming up in just a few short weeks.

How do I deal with all of these things, you may ask? Well, it's quite simple. I do one of three things:

The biscuits I made last week. They are all gone now.

1) I try to cook. The reason try is included in that statement is because I'm a horrible cook. I've been getting mildly better as my time out here, living on my own, surviving on what food I'm able to prepare for myself, has gone on. I made biscuits at the end of last week. They tasted good, but were very small compared to what I had planned on.

Beads for our earring making

This is a perfect example of the earring i was trying to make

2) I do crafts. I've been trying to teach myself for a few weeks how to knit and I've finally got the idea. That doesn't mean I'm very good at it, though. Also, my friend showed me how to make some lovely earrings. I don't have any supplies as of right now to make them, but it was a lot of fun and I'm planning on trying to make some more. The earring I made wasn't nearly as good as the one that my friend made, but I think with some more practice I'll get better.

My earrings, I made the one on the right

3) Yoga. One of the other teachers got me involved with yoga. I never realized how much of a workout it can be. We usually start off our yoga meetings with a time of venting about school. These are the only times during the week that we might have a chance to get some of this off of our chest with people who actually know what we are going through. Then we actually do yoga, which is really a lot more fun than I thought. My kids like to look at me and laugh when they see that I'm going to yoga, but then when I show them yoga moves in class, they are impressed.

The beginning of my scarf project. Finished project pictures to come

Soon my snow machine that I bought last week will be fixed and I will have a fourth activity I can do after a crazy busy week at school. In the lower 48 a teacher may relax by going to a movie or shopping. But that isn't as easy out here as it is in those places. These are the ways I have solved my problem of needing to do something that doesn't take too much concentration and that I can do as I want. In two weeks we have testing so this week at school will be a lot of preparation for that. I hope you all have a wonderful week and if you do happen to have other ideas of activities, please let me know what they are!

Happy St. Patrick's Day in the Village

Cute little sled used to bring a child to the post office

Warming up

Learning how to bat

Well this week had lots of sunshine and good times out here in the village!! It was the last week of the quarter, so my kids got a lot of work done at school. However, outside of school was all fun and games.

This week I bought a snow machine from one of the other teacher's who is leaving. She sold it to me for a really good price. I'm going to have to improve my upper body strength, though, because to start it, you have to pull a choke. Let's face the facts, I have weeny arms! Even so, I'm sure friends will be willing to help me start it and learn how to drive it as well.

On Friday, one of the teacher's celebrated her 30th birthday! We all got together and ate cake and had a fabulous time. Her husband and another male teacher put the candles on her cake for her. After she blew them all out, she found out that they put 51 candles on it! Ah, the sources of entertainment we can find out here in the village.

We also had a fun day playing in the sun. One of the married couples received wiffle balls and a bat, so we set up a field in our little courtyard between all the teacher housing area. Everyone came out to play, including two of the children who hadn't ever played before. It was a lot of fun. We didn't keep score or anything, just a fun day playing outside in the beautiful sunshine.

One more quarter and then this school year will be over!! It sure has flown by!! I can't believe my first year of teaching is coming to an end. I've learned so much from my amazing group of students, from the teachers in my village, and from the culture I live in now. I've also become more confident in my abilities as a teacher. I'm more sure of myself and what I can do. It has been an amazing experience and a great year.

Our cheering section

Contracts were due on Friday and I had turned mine in. This means another year of living in the  good old white north. There will be some changes, though. For instance, instead of teaching seventh grade, I will be teaching kindergarten or first grade. It's quite a big leap. There are also many other changes going on in our school district next year. I'm excited to be a part of it all. Thank you everyone for your continued support and prayer. Hope you enjoy the rest of the pictures in this week's update!

Running the bases with a baby on her hip :)

Daddy helping bat and run the bases

My new ride!!