From Alaska - Log 6

Continued from Log 5...

9/30/02

School is going well, at least the preparation of the lesson plans.  I seem to have a knack for it.  I could improve my presentations I think. I went to the local Covenant Church yesterday.  It was a little more interesting than the local Catholic service.  The church is headed by a missionary.  A relative young couple in their mid or early 40's I suspect.  They own an airplane and he teaches natives how to fly along with being a real asset to the community.  There is going to be a teachers retreat next week.  The sponsoring organization picks you up in a plane and you fly to some location, stay in a cabin, have religious services, and they feed you.  It will be a nice change of events.

I am glad I have done this, coming up here, but there is a part of me that wished I hadn't.  Seems a long way from home.  Over all Paula and I have a pretty good balance on things.

They say it will start snowing soon.

There seems to be a lot of interest in keeping the Yup'ik culture and language alive, the language is about to disappear.  But how do you do merge a subsistence life style with the 21st century.  The parents want to help and most see the importance of an education but a lot of the time it does not carry over into the classroom.  The state is demanding that the kids pass tests to move on to another grade level, and they should but how do they do it.

10/08/02

It snowed today.  It came down real hard and blowing in from the sea.  A white blanket covered the ground in no time.  My first thought was that I hoped it did not effect  our TV reception.  But within an hour it had stopped.  The sun came out, no snow, but did have TV.

The water pump went off for a day or two.  No water for the school or our place.  Had to walk a quarter of a mile to get water from the center of the village.  It got fixed OK.

The village ran out of money and could not pay their 10 city workers for about 2 weeks.

A friend -  Jerry, went to Mountain Village for a math conference.  He didn't know when he was to supposed to leave, where he was going exactly or where he was staying, or if they would even feed him.  Typical Hooper Bay travel arrangements I am told by the veterans here.

Apparently the school is built on an old Eskimo cemetery.  There is supposed to a ghost running around.  One teacher at least says she has seen it.  There is also a story about little people that live out on the Tundra.  It is sort of interesting that the same legend about the Little People is told among the Greenland Eskimos.  Might make a story about that some day.

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Homer-Conley-Stone-McAnally/dp/0615779808/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371306837&sr=1-1&keywords=tales+from+homer