We haven't written a post about what has been going on at school or in the village in awhile, and a large part of the reason has been that, quite simply, this has been a pretty challenging year for us. The challenges have been many, and they have mostly taken us by surprise, which has made it all the more difficult to decide whether to return for another year. After much consideration, we have decided to return to Goodnews Bay next year. While we may reflect on some of those challenges in a future end of year post, we have striven for perspective with our blog, not wanting it to become merely a way for us to vent or unload our frustrations.
Instead, we have focused on the good that has come from our time here. We are continually amazed at the progress that our students have made in the past two years. Certain days I will find myself frustrated with a certain situation or a student, and then I will think back to where they were at the beginning of the year last year. That perspective not only quiets some of those internal doubts and frustrations, but also refuels the desire to push them even farther.
We have enjoyed some beautiful days lately as well. A few days, the bay has been clear as glass, and the reflection of the mountains in the water has been almost a mirror-image. Even though it's mid-April and the sun is shining pretty brightly (and it's light until almost midnight), there is still snow on the mountains.
The last two weeks have been pretty busy for me, as our NYO team traveled to two tournaments: one in Bethel and the district tournament in Kwigillingok. We held a pep rally for the school before we left for the first tournament. Student Council made us this awesome sign, and our team ran in to the gym to the tune of "Eye of the Tiger" blasting on our sound system. We had our athletes demonstrate a few of the events for the students to try. After seeing them in action, there are a few kids that I'm going to try to recruit for next year's team!
We were able to take the "back door" to Bethel for our first tournament, a journey literally through the mountains that we rarely get to take due to high winds and visibility issues.
It is a rare treat to see those mountains stretch to the horizon;
one of the most awe-inspiring sights I've ever seen.
We flew with a different carrier, Renfro Air, who mostly does guided hunts but also a few charters. You can take a 10 day guided moose hunt with them for about $22,000.
Walking around Bethel with the team. We have the smallest NYO team in the district. Some schools bring teams of 20-30 kids. Our small budget (and our remoteness) only allow us to take 2-3 trips a year with a limit of a single 207.
It's hard to believe, but for two of my students, this was the first time they had ever been to Bethel. It's the closest hub town in the region, a place I've been to 15 or 20 times already, but for them it was a complete mystery. Three of my students had never been to Subway before. I had to show them how to order a sub and how to use the soda and ice dispenser. Sometimes I forget just how large the cultural barrier can be between me and my students, and then it will randomly smack me upside the head.
In addition to all the turmoil that has been going on in the village lately, I spent the week leading up to traveling with the team sick with the flu. I spent a miserable night in Bethel sleeping on a classroom floor shivering in my sleeping bag, and when I woke up I was craving some rich, down home comfort food. So I went to AC, hoping for a pizza or something along those lines, and was delighted beyond measure to find this feast. It was no Jack's from Nashville, but it did the trick.
The "waiting room" (hallway) at Renfro. The pizza in the corner there is for Homer, our maintenance guy at the school. It cost him $40 for me to pick it up and bring it back for him.
While we didn't have a cultural week this year, we did have a stained glass artist come from Anchorage last week. I never knew the process for making stained glass art, but it's pretty fascinating, and the kids enjoyed getting to make their own masks.
With cultural and global awareness fresh in my mind, I've had the students working on learning the countries of the world in World History to improve their sense of life beyond the villages. I whetted their appetite with a fun on-line game and now they're hooked. Last week, they hit the 100 country threshold; yesterday, they were able to identify 148. (Go ahead over to sporcle.com, type in "Countries of the World" and take the quiz. See if you can beat 4 Eskimo kids who have never even been outside of Alaska before!)
I can't describe to you what flying over these coastal plains is like except to say that it feels like flying over some distant planet- I always think of Lewis' Space Trilogy, like I'm flying over Perelandra. This region, about the size of Ohio, is an enormous delta created by the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers. As you fly over it, for miles and miles, you begin to wonder how anyone could live in such a desolate place, or how a structure like a house or a school wouldn't just slowly sink until it slips beneath the surface. And yet, the Yup'ik people have found a way to live and to prosper here for 1000s of years.
A closer look at Indian stick pull, in which you have to pull a greased and tapered stick out of the hand of your opponent. Traditionally, this was practice for pulling seals out of the water.
