I don't have an awful lot to post about this week, even though it was a holiday. But the three main things I would like to tell you about are Valentine's Day, power and water outages, and snow drifts.
Gifts from all my family members
Valentine's Day has always been my least favorite holiday. I don't think it makes sense to devote one day to love. If you truly love someone it should be every day. This hallmark holiday is just something I see as a day to force couples to be romantic and make single people feel sorry for themselves. My students saw it as an opportunity for a party. My coworkers and I celebrated with dinner at the cafe. I also received gifts from my parents and grandparents. I still don't love the holiday, but I truly love my students, my coworkers, and my parents.
Happy Valentine's Day- Heart made out of candy by one of the teachers.
Another thing we dealt with a lot this week were power outages and water outages. In fact, on Thursday we had to let the students out early because of not having water. It never fails that when I'm told the water or sewer is out in the village, I have to go to the bathroom immediately. Fortunately for me, so far, the water hasn't ever gone out for a very long time. But we did have our longest bout of power outages this weekend. The power was out for almost an hour on Saturday morning. My roommate had walked to pick up buckets for her potlatch dance from the store and had to wait around for nearly an hour before she was able to head back with her purchase. Hopefully, as spring comes along, we will have less and less of these outages.
Lovely drift outside of our assistant principal and counselor's house.
Lastly, I wanted to talk about how much I love the way the snow forms snow drifts out here. It makes me laugh to walk in the village and see one spot with tons of snow right next to a bare space. The houses are the worst. It piles up right next to them. Of course, we can have loads of fun with that. I haven't done much playing in the snow, but I feel as though snow drifts are the best to play in.
This week was semi eventful. I'm still really looking forward to next weekend when we will have our village potlatch. Pictures will be plentiful! May the Lord bless you and keep you over the next week!
It's been a while since my last post so I figured I would update my readers on the last two weeks of my life here in the good ole frozen North. It certainly hasn't been anything too amazing for me, but my friends, the other teachers have had a few awesome events happen.
My beautiful snow angel that I made
"Mmm, this snow is so yummy!"
The first thing that happened with two of the other teachers was a week ago, on Super Bowl Sunday. You see, instead of sitting around watching people tackle each other over a pigskin like the rest of the world, two adventurous women set out on a journey to capture a mighty northern beast. Their adventure began with their native guides, one of which was a student from my class. They set off along the path southeast of the village. While the world was waiting for power to return to the most important game of the year, shots rang out across the tundra. Two girls from the Lower 48 took aim and shot a moose each! Their very first catches ever meant a tremendous victory for each of these women. And while the exhilaration of their first kill pumped through their veins, they began the work of cutting up these magnificent animals.
"Help me! I can't get out!!"
Your first kill in the village means donation time. After cleaning and cutting, the meat is distributed around town to those who need it; elders, families, what have you. The task at hand is not easy, but the girls managed to pass out all of their meat by eleven o'clock the following evening after having worked all day at school. It was a very exciting accomplishment for both ladies and I am proud of them.
My roommate getting her things together for her first official dance in Potlatch this year. She has her hat, belt, and boots here in this picture.
Unfortunately I've been suffering from a head cold for the past few days so I wasn't able to embark on another adventure with some of my coworkers. However, they were able to go on a twenty mile drive down the river to cheer on our high school boys basketball team. Four teachers found themselves in another village, much smaller than ours. They had a wonderful time, and I was very jealous I missed out. On their way back, they almost missed the path, but thankfully made it home all in one piece before the storm blew in.
Practicing for Potlatch
We also had a visitor this week. It is always a good time when the tech guy comes, especially when we break out the dog toys. The video below is of our tug-of-war competition. The snow goggles are a safety precaution. Unfortunately I didn't get much of it because I'm still getting used to my camera, but it is a combination of tug-of-war and the Native Youth Olympic stick pull. I dare you to have as much fun as we did playing this crazy game!
That's about it for this week's blog. I'm looking forward to two weeks from now when our village has Potlatch. I'm sure it will be very exciting, I will have lots of pictures of that events and hopefully many more stories. My roommate will be dancing at Potlatch, which is an extreme honor. For my prayer warriors out there, please pray for me that I will get over this cold ASAP! Thanks, and God Bless!
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.
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!
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!
Hello all! This will be my last post of the year, seeing as how a week from today I will be heading to the lower 48 to visit my lovely family for the holiday season. There isn't a whole lot to blog about this week. I think everyone is getting very anxious for break time. We did, however get to go and have another tour of the new school. It was a lot of fun and they have done a lot of progress since Labor Day, which is the last time we went to check it out. There were a few new things that we noticed now that they are actually getting walls up.
Time Out Rooms: There will be two very small rooms with windows into the principal and assistant principal's offices that will be very helpful. A lot of the time kids may need to just get away and out of the room for a while and these are perfect little rooms for that.
Library and Computer Room: From the looks of things, the library will be nice and big! It will give us a lot of room to move around and fit classes into.
A view from the top looking down at the gym
Teacher Break Room: Since our current facility is so close to teacher housing, having a break room wasn't necessary. But now the school is a lot farther away, which means we can't just walk home for lunch. Because of this, we will have a break room. I think this will be very interesting and I'm excited to get to use it.
Gym: Above the gym will be a little open area where people can stand and watch games and things. After seeing the NYO events here last week, this seems like a really smart idea because more people will be able to watch our events.
One thing that happened this week was that the heat went out in our classroom. Fortunately, it was found before everything frozen and it was just for my classroom since it's out in a portable building. My kids and I had class in the library in the morning and then worked with the other classes during the afternoon. By 3:30 the room was all heated up again and the next morning the smell was gone too, so it only lasted one day like that, thankfully. Our maintenance guys did an awesome job of getting out there quickly and fixing the problem for us. I appreciated it a lot.
Well, that's it for this semester. Next time I write it will be a New Year. Hopefully next year will be just as amazing as this year has been. Have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Here is the library and computer rooms
P.S. If anyone would like to see more pictures of the new school, feel free to check out some of the other teachers' blogs: http://sammyjotakesalaska.blogspot.com
Every two years I watch the Olympics on television. It's amazing to watch so many talented people do what they are so great at. In the Winter Games, you have people who have mastered the ski slopes, or can spin a million times in a minute while balancing on a small blade and manage not to fall on the ice and break their faces. In the Summer Games you have athletes who are masters of the pool, or do tons of hops, skips, and flips, landing perfectly in a small amount of space. So much talent in one place is inspiring. Well, if you enjoy watching the Olympics, then I strongly encourage you to look into the Native Youth Olympics (NYO). In my village, we have gathered all of our school district's downriver NYO competitors for a three day competition not only of the body, but also the mind. Six schools, fourth through eighth grades, all competing for the glory. Students competed against each other on an intellectual level, testing what they had learned about each of the school's core subjects as well as their knowledge of their own culture. They also competed on a physical level doing events that have been in their culture for centuries. It was said that these events were done during fierce winter storms to help the hunters keep in shape and keeping their abilities that would be used during hunts sharp. These events were mind blowing to watch, some of them I even think could give our World Olympics a run for their money.
Stick Pull
Since most of my readers are interested in the culture of the people out here, the focus of this blog is to tell you of the awesome and unique events these children have competed in the past few days. For the safety of the children in photos, names and villages will be left out. There will be eight athletic events that I will try to explain to you in this blog. I must warn you that these are dangerous and I suggest that you do not try them on your own without some sort of guidance.
Seal Hop: Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures of this event because I was judging at another thing during the same time. My students, however, have described for me how it works. Each competitor starts out at the top of a push up. Then, thrusting themselves forward with their feet, they begin hopping down the court, racing against the other students and trying to be the first one across the finish line. This exercises arm strength and balance.
One Arm Reach
Stick Pull: In this event, two students sit across from each other with the bottom of their feet touching each other. Then a stick is held in the middle. A coin toss determines which competitor gets to have their hands in the middle of the stick and which competitor has their hands on the outside of the stick. They are given a countdown and each competitor begins to try to pull the stick away from the person on the other end. The compete three times, whoever wins two rounds is the winner of the match. To make sure it is fair, the competitors switch hand placement each round.
Kneel Jump: Competitors sit on their knees with the tops of their feet flat on the ground. From here, the competitor uses as much strength as they can to heave their body up and land on their feet. Once here, the judges measure how far from the beginning position to the landing position. Whoever jumps the farthest, wins. I wasn't able to get a picture of this event either.
One Arm Reach: This one is one of my favorites and very impressive. There is a ball hanging from a mechanism in front of each competitor. The better they do, the higher it goes. Putting all their body weight on one hand, with the elbow of that hand in their stomach, the competitor attempts to touch a ball in the air with their free hand. This takes a lot of strength and balance and is very dangerous looking. The competitor who can touch the ball higher than the others, is the winner.
Scissor Broad Jump: In this jump, a competitor starts with their weaker foot and steps forward. Then, like scissors, the competitor swings their other foot behind that leg. The competitor then steps forward with the same foot they began with. They kick their other foot in front and then begin their final jump as far as they can forward. Here, their jump is measured and the person who jumps the farthest after three attempts... well, you get the idea. This is very similar to the long jump we all know so well. I have included a video of this jump, seeing as how you need to see it to understand a little better.
Two Foot High Kick
Two Foot High Kick: A ball is hung from a string in this event much like in the One Arm Reach. Then, the competitor attempts to jump up and kick the ball with both feet. I missed most of this competition, but I think this picture captures the essence of the event. The competitor who can kick the ball with both feet at the highest point is the winner.
One Foot High Kick
Alaskan High Kick: I very much wish I could have watched this event. Each competitor, again, has a ball hanging from a mechanism in front of them. The competitor then grabs their less dominant ankle in their hand. Putting all their weight on the hand that aligned with their less dominant foot holds all the body weight as they kick up with their dominant foot and kick the ball. The leg that is being held up cannot touch the ground until the judge says so. The competitor who kicks the ball at the highest point, wins. This is hard to describe. For example. If I am kicking with my right foot, I would hold my left ankle in my right hand. This cannot be let go until the judge says I have succeeded. Then, I will put all of my bodyweight on my left hand and attempt to kick the ball with my right hand. Hopefully that makes sense, because I didn't get any pictures of this event either.
One Foot High Kick: This event was very similar to the Two Foot High Kick. The same ball is hanging again as before. This time, however, the competitor only kicks with one foot. Their other foot has to be suspended in air. The competitor may take a running start if they need to. They must kick with one foot and land on that same foot. I have not only a picture of students doing this, but I also have a video of the highest kick from the competition. This young man was able to kick the ball at 92 inches, which is just four short inches away from nine feet tall! Like before, the competitor who kicks the highest ball, wins.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of these events. It was amazing to get to see so many students enjoying themselves, getting to know other people their age from different villages, and being in touch with their heritage. If it were up to me, I think we would do this a lot more often. I loved the atmosphere and the entertainment value of it all. I hope you all enjoy looking at pictures and videos and really do get an idea of how impressive this culture is. Their activities and athleticism is outstanding. These kids really are talented.
