Weekend in Kwig

     As 2nd year teachers, Christina and I are little by little beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor. It's been so exciting to see the growth in our students- not just academically, but socially and emotionally as well. We regularly have conversations that go "I can't believe so-and-so's progress from last year!" or "Do you remember what so-and-so was like a year ago?" It's important to focus on the improvements that we've seen, because we often become mired in the tragic everyday realities of our students. It's one thing to accept a job knowing the demographics and the statistics that you are getting yourself into, but it's quite another when those statistics rear their ugly head with such swift devastation.

     Goodnews Bay has been dealing with some real devastation this year. Last winter, we wrote about going to the funeral of a mother of 8, whose children range from 2 to 18 years old. This past month, the father of those same children committed suicide, leaving a scandal of sexual abuse and heartache and displaced lives that has rocked the village. The teachers haven't even been made aware of all of the facts (the sexual abuse alone has been linked to people throughout the village, including students of all ages) because of the ongoing nature of the case by the Alaska State Troopers. But we do know that victims have become abusers themselves, and this troubles us.
     Aside from this major event, there have just been a lot of issues village-wide, from child neglect to alcoholism and poor parenting and abuse- many days we're left feeling pretty powerless and frustrated. So it was with some relief that I was able to get out of the village for a couple of days last weekend as coach of the NYO team- to get away from the negative energy and to do something positive and tangible with my students. I was especially glad that one of the boys from the affected family was able to travel with us.

We left Friday afternoon on a charter. The students were VERY excited to fly and to see another village. 

Goodnews Bay. A rare barge in the bay. The barge was anchored at the Point, but had to navigate itself further down the bay as the tide came in.

Kwigillingok, Alaska (Don't worry, I have a hard time pronouncing it myself).

The location of some of these villages blows my mind. Kwig is really out there in the middle of nowhere. While there is a small river nearby, it's hard to believe how people have survived here for generations.

Because of the swampy, marshland of the village, there are boardwalks that connect the various houses and buildings. While they are solidly built, I can't imagine driving my Honda on these in the snow and ice. We had Hondas zipping by us at 30mph every few seconds.

Though oil money runs our state, Alaska is ahead of the curve when it comes to renewable energy. Many of the villages have adopted wind or tide power, including Kwig. 

The school

I love this picture. The coach's room for the tournament was one of the Yup'ik classrooms. Here, students have drawn the major animals in the region, including their traditional Yup'ik name.

I had the choice to eat school food or traditional food for the tourney. Here we have (from top left, clockwise): akutaq (Eskimo ice cream), dried halibut, dried salmon, mouse food, salmon pasta, salunaq (salted raw fish), and seal oil. 

Eskimo stick pull, one of the NYO events. I spent the weekend judging Jr High boys' events with the NYO coach from Kasigluk. I learned a lot about the events, how to train for them, and how good some kids are!

Seal hop, the most grueling show of physical endurance.

Walking to the store the next morning. "I want to go store!" reverberates in my skull...

Walked past this quad lineup outside the school without thinking twice, and then went back to snap this pic when I realized how I'm getting used to some things my second year in the bush. 

Our proud team. The student to my left is holding a can of Coke that says 

"Share a Coke with your team" The poster was made by Kwig students

Getting a ride back to the airport

The basketball court out by the airport.

It's good to be home! 

Upterrlainarluta

There's a real rhythm to living in the bush that you can't help but fall into. In a place with few distractions, each seasonal activity becomes illumined and comes to really define that time of year. You feel the rhythm even more so because of how short and intense these seasons seem to be- all sharp bursts of activity. Spawning kings give way to halibut give way to silvers give way to moose and berry season and migrating ducks and geese and on it goes- and for that two or three weeks, that's all anybody does or talks about. Traditionally, Yup'ik culture has described this steady rhythm as "always getting ready," (Upterrlainarluta in Yup'ik) and I'm beginning to understand that phrase more every day- not just in fishing and hunting, but as a way of life. 

I'm really enjoying teaching Biology this fall. One of my goals is for my students to begin to look at the world around them and begin to investigate it like scientists. We're currently finishing up a project where students are making field guides for GNU plants. Next, we're going to be creating a complex food web of producers and consumers in the region. I'm excited to see these finished projects and I'll be sure to share them on here.

Students collecting samples on the tundra.

My appreciation for the tundra itself continues to grow. I had no real conception of it before moving to Alaska. I thought of it vaguely as ubiquitous and homogenous, like a field of grass stretching for miles. While that first descriptor may be accurate, the second couldn't be further from the truth. Tundra is incredibly diverse. From far off, it doesn't particularly strike the eye, but up close the richness of colors, textures, smells and the variety of life is really incomparable. I think the smell is my favorite. There's a small fortune out there to be made for someone who can capture the aroma of tundra in a candle. 

We traveled to Bethel a couple of weeks ago for District-wide Inservice- a week long training where all the teachers in the district get together to connect and learn from one another. It's fun to be able to catch up with friends from around the district and to learn new methods and techniques for improving our classrooms. Junie has become a traveling trooper- we're so proud of how good she's been with all of the traveling this job requires. It really makes our lives easier!

The bed and breakfast we stayed at in Bethel. 

Our view of the Kuskokwim. 

We ended up stuck an extra day in Bethel because our usual carrier Yute gave our plane away to another school that had overpacked and was overweight. There's a saying in the Y-K delta: "If you don't give a hoot, fly Yute," and we've found that to be pretty reliable advice. Unfortunately, Yute is the only carrier that has regular flights to GNU. However, there are a few carriers that will fly there via a charter reservation, so that's how we finally got out of Bethel. Notice how much bigger these caravan planes are than the little Cessnas we usually fly on. We felt like millionaires flying home!

Our little trooper decided that 4 days in Bethel away from home was just too much. Frankly, we agree.

It's official. I have become one of "those parents." I always scoffed at parents constantly sharing pictures of their young kids, insisting that their child is the cutest kid. But c'mon....seriously, look at that face. She seriously is the cutest, and I find myself showing pictures of her to my students and others declaring the same. Junie turned 3 months old yesterday, and we're enjoying raising her and watching her grow up in a hundred little ways everyday.

The Month in Review

It's hard to believe that we've been back in Alaska for almost a month. It feels like just yesterday that we were hopping on the bush plane in Bethel with Junie, crossing our fingers that she wouldn't scream the whole way or the engine wouldn't blow out her eardrums.

I remember spending that flight thinking about all of the things we had to do once we landed in Goodnews: moving in to a new house, preparing for school that started in 5 days, and taking care of a 6-week old with a bad case of jet lag. But once we turned up the coast and saw big Beluga below us and those mountains stretching for as far as you can see, it felt like coming home. (If you look below the wing, you can just make out the village right along the shoreline).

The library filled with all of the teachers' packages.

My box of beautiful tanned fox.

I love this sign that hangs down at the store. When we say wilderness, we mean wilderness! When we got back to town, we heard this story from a reliable source: One day over the summer, a bunch of kids went swimming in one of the many ponds a mile or two from the school. When they jumped in, a momma bear and her cub jumped out! One of our 7th grade students fended the bears off while the younger kids ran to safety. 

Who says you can't grill in the bush?

I knew I was off to a good school year when I sneakily took this picture. At open house, some students came to my room and begged me for the 24 Game to play. Somewhat caught off guard, I located the deck, handed it to them, and then watched amazed as they sat down and practiced math problems for a good 30 minutes. One of the students in this picture hated math last year and let me know that fact quite often. You can see to the left the sun blazing in through the window, a rare blessing in August here. Many of their friends were outside playing bat and soaking up one final summer night, yet they wanted to do math. They even brought in some parents, teachers, and others and taught them how to play!

As Christina said in the previous post, we hosted two Yup'ik artists, Jack Dalton and Drew Michael, for the first two weeks of school, in the hopes of bringing the community and school closer together and kicking off our school year on a positive note. Jack, who is a professional storyteller, came to write new songs to incorporate into the Yuraq, the traditional dance. Drew, a professional mask carver, came to show our students how to work with wood and to carve their own dance masks.

Roy took me, TJ, Jack and Drew out fishing for silver salmon upriver. This is TJ, getting himself psyched up to gut his first fish. 

The guys with their catch. 

We spent a few late nights gutting, cleaning, filleting and packaging between 300-400 lbs of salmon. Drew spent a month in Togiak recently, where some of the elder women taught him how to fillet salmon. He taught me and now I'm filleting the salmon that I catch. Now we have a freezer full of salmon steaks ready to throw in the oven or on the grill.

Drew and I took the Honda out to a remote spot on the river that was pretty hard to get to. We had to get off the Honda and walk it through a few precarious places where the tundra gave way entirely (Anna Beavers warned me about these sinkholes; she told me they can swallow 4-wheelers entirely). But the trip was well worth it- the fish were biting and the scenery was amazing.

A rare flounder that I caught. I showed this picture to Roy and he immediately said "Yes, the sea is warming up and bringing with it new fish to our area."Climate change isn't a controversial topic in a place where we routinely see the effects firsthand. One of the big pieces of news when we came back was that Junior caught a stingray up at the spit, the first time one has been caught in living memory.

And because no post is complete without a few pictures of the baby...

At the clinic getting my shots!

Hanging out in my new crib!

We're Back!

We’re happy to say that we’re back home in Goodnews and the school year is off to a great start. This year brings several big changes for us and we’re looking forward to see how they unfold. We moved closer to the school, moved a 6 week old to the bush and Christina is moving to first grade this year since there aren’t any kindergartners.

Junie was a real traveling professional—you’d think she’d been doing it her whole life! She did get lots of traveling experience in the womb, after all! Getting adjusted to the 4 hour time difference wasn’t too easy for her but she seems to have settled into a good schedule now. She’ll be spending her school days with our principal’s daughter. Having our principal’s daughter here has been a huge blessing already—she and Junie are quickly becoming buddies.

We’ve had the chance to host two very special guests of the school, Jack Dalton and Drew Michaels. Usually when visitors come to the school they sleep in the school on air mattresses or cots. Since the guys were going to be here for such a long period of time we offered our spare bedroom with the caveat that there might be a crying baby at night!

 You might remember Jack from Cultural Week last year.  Jack and Drew are here working with the students for the first two weeks of school. They’ll be working on Yupik Dance and Song Writing and Mask Carving. So far it’s been a great experience for the students and we’re looking forward to a celebration ceremony on Thursday.

She Has Arrived!

After much anticipation, we are excited to announce the birth of our daughter, Juniper Belle Huff, born June 23rd, weighing 6 lbs 13 oz and 19" long. At times, the wait seemed long- especially these last 6 weeks we've been back home in Pennsylvania. We know you've been anxiously awaiting photos of our little bundle of joy, so while I go change a diaper, enjoy these photos:

Meeting for the "first time"

4 generations

Proud parents!