Week 1- Two East Coast girls on the Tundra

June 18th-

Day two in Bethel

Susan here. Amy and I were feeling a bit down as we are not in a tiny village as we wanted but in a small 'city' of 6000. Twenty miles of paved road no less and it even has a museum. What would Indiana Jones think! When we arrived yesterday we'd only had a few hours sleep after staying up packing. As the other people went off to smaller planes we were picked up by our contact here. Everyone is nice and the rec center which we work out of is great but we became down when we learned that this dusty old town had a supermarket and a movie theater. It's not the Hollywood idea we had in our heads. It sort of looks like some place out in a dusty corner of Okalhoma. Me being an endless New York cynic kept siting the negatives but we learned at Campfire to come up with three positives for every negative so here they are:

1. We have our own bathrooms;

2. We are no longer living in a house with 23 people;

3. We have enough starch items to survive for the next year.

Flew over the Alaska mountain range which was miles of snow capped mountains which then went into tundra which is grasslands or marsh. The town itself is dusty looking like what a remote town in the west would appear to be. The hourses are colorful on stilts so as not to sink into the tundra, they look sort of icelandic. We are staying in a community center which is plain but clean. We set up a room as our office and storage room. We have a kitchen and then we are sleeping in the community room which has no beds but carpeting. While it is on a street the other side is Pinky's park which is marsh with small lakes and boardwalks running through it. People here walk there at night, although there really is no night here with sun going down around 1:00 am. Right now it is 10:30 pm and looks like 6:00 pm. It is disorienting and gives an energy surge at night. The birds come in and fly around at night and tweet and the wind comes up. Last night I went for a little walk and it was very peaceful.

Today we made Tundra Teriyaki, yes I am learning to cook. It comprised of brown rice, cranberries, almonds, canned corn and beans fried . On top was beef teriyaki jerky. Hmmmn declicious. We sat out on the boardwalk watching the birds and wondered how the other teams were doing. Some people we miss, some we don't. We took a long walk out of town and the tundra got more hilly there, with small trees, lakes and lots of marsh. Lots of ducks and birds and think we saw an eagle. It was peacful.We are near the Yukon Delta Wildlife refuge which is the largest ? refuge in Alaska. Hopefully we see some animals althought there are not many trees out there. 

The good news is Rhonda is very helpful, we will work with her to run the program which will be a good learning tool for our next village. Amy is great and we get along really well. There are puppies everywhere in town. The next village we go to is supposed to be really small and prettier. Three weeks here, three weeks there.

Thursday, June 21, 2012 12:02 AM

Day Five

Most children here are at least part Yupik Eskimo and the accent is hard to understand. People are very soft spoken and they speak from the back of their throats. It is lovely and much more pleasant to listen to then my New York nasal twang.

We have kids from 4 - 13 here and some - like Tody or a little girl named Sammy are sooooo cute.  On the other spectrum is two 13 year old boys who keep punching each other, one other guy name Ayuk who doesn't listern to anything and keeps running off. Kids here seem to stay out very late since the sun doesn't go down until midnight. There are problems with alcoholism which makes for difficult family life. Children seem to thrive with attention. 

Wow, working with kids is hard!!! Tried to take them on a nature hike and trying to keep them all in one place was virtually impossible. Some kids really go into the hike and loved the binoculars. They were bird spotting and we saw quite a few - sandpiper, loon, seagull, and some others that I don't recognize. I'm trying to keep a journal of them with the kids. The tundra is beatiful - lush grasses and mosses and lichen but there are also rusted cars and containers all around. Pinky's Park has these amazing boardwalks above the tundra that are sinking and curving to the side and up and down. It's pretty when the sun goes down and these white puff balls are shivering in the wind. 

Friday, June 22, 2012 8:23 PM

My first experience driving a school bus. It holds 14 children, is a bit dilapadated but gets the job done. Amy and I took the kids swimming yesterday and they were so excited just to be in the cold muddy water. They were laughing and saying, "look at me, I'm swimming". I drove the small bus and as it shook and shuttered I was a bit worried. Climbed the sandy hill and it made it down to the shore although we were a bit worried it would make it back. Amy stood with her life buoy while I put on rubber waders and a large sun hat. I promptly sank in the mud and couldn't get out. The kids did love it so we were happy although our feet froze as we kept them from floating out into the current. The beach is along the Kuskokwim Rive here next to where the villages fishing boats come in. Down the way are large ships which bring in goods from Anchorage and Seattle to be distributed up river on barges.

Last night we had them staying at the building we are staying in. Six boys age 6 to 13. So much fun. The first two were Tody and Rob both around seven years old. Tody is Yupik eskimo with a round chubby face. Rob is half Yupik, half white and hyperactive but so fun. For some reason they saw us washing dishes and wanted to clean. They spent the next hour fascinated by the scrubbing brush and washed the whole counter, sink, stove etc. Rob then became obsessed with getting up on a chair and putting his glass of gatorade into the freezer. This went on all night. He would drink some, get up on the chair put it in, leave it and come back to see if it was frozen. I think he was making a slushy.

After the other boys came and they laid out their sleeping bags they went crazy in the big room. Running around hitting each other with pillows, cushions, anything they could get their hands on. Climbing on everything that was available. It was crazy! What energy, We made s'mores in the oven which came out good and then played music. Finally to calm them down Amy showed them an album of pictures from home. They all sat around her intrigued. They were asking her so many questions about home and when she showed them a pix of an alligator. We then played the story game where each one of us said a sentence. I turned off all the lights and held a flashlight to my face and began. They loved that. The story devolved into lines like "hairy butt" and "poop" but they were laughing so I didn't care.

We put in a movie to get them to sleep which worked and most were snoozing by the time it went off. Everyone was scratching from mosquitos which are terrible here. Tody woke up in the middle of the night crying after he had been moving around a lot in his sleeping bag. He had pain in his legs and wouldn't go back to sleep and wanted his mom. We did call her as she said he might want to come home but she didn't answer. We didn't know what to do. We rubbed his leg and held him. He got cold and we put him back in his sleeping bag wanting one of us on each side of him. He was still awake and looking like he was going to cry again so I had my head next to him and we whisperd a rhyming game - "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I'm alive", He seemed to like that and we kept going up in numbers and rhyming ever so quietly. Then he started to tell me how is saw an owl once with her babies, and that it was cool, told me about caribou and hunting with his dad, and that he saw a grizzy bear and shot it (apparently not true) but he was telling me how he sometimes pretends to be sleeping and showed me his face for that. He said my leg feels better. We laid there side by side while he whispered until he fell back to sleep and slept till morning. Amy and I then laid there listening to the boys sleeping. It was wonderful. .

In the morning Amy made tie dye pancakes while I took pictures. The girls came by and the chaos began again. I've got to go now. So tired. Amy and I are going to the crafts market tomorrow and out on a fishing trip on Sunday.