Here is a video of a snowmobile ride I took through Kotlik on my way to the “airport” when I left for winter break. The person riding in the sled is my roommate, Kylie. Oh, and it was about -20 degrees that day so it was SUPER freezing during the ride. My batteries died right before we got to the “airport” because it was so cold out, so you don’t get to see the strip. Oh well.

(P.S.-The whole ride in this video was the entire length of Kotlik. There’s not much to it, in case you didn’t guess).

Snowmobiling through Kotlik

Here goes:

Snow. Freezing temperatures (just a bit below zero). My nose hairs froze literally everytime I went outside. I took a picture for proof. School. Tons of kids absent. Thanksgiving with other teachers. We had 16 people total over at our house. It was fun. Anchorage last weekend for a training. Arby’s. Yum. Warm weather came in. Been in the 30′s the past few days. Snow melted. Now just ice EVERYWHERE. Slipped and fell on the ice for the FIRST TIME since I’ve been here in August. I’ve been trying so hard. Kylie’s fell bunches of times. Home in 11 days. Woo!!

There’s a quick update for you. Hopefully I’ll put more anecdotes (as my mom calls them) up here soon and with more details. Ta ta for now!

So besides those two fun times, there were tons of students absent today as well. On Sunday, one of the older villagers, who happens to be the mom of the girl who works at the post office, died. Death occurs pretty frequently around here (this is the first one that has happened in Kotlik since I’ve been here), and we were told to expect deaths, especially during the winter.

Obviously, the Yup’ik culture handles death very differently than we do in the Lower 48. Since it is very natural and common for deaths to occur, it is not so taboo to discuss. Usually it is very hard to talk about death, especially in elementary school, but the kids here know and understand what death is and know how to handle it.

Anyways, like I said they handle deaths very differently here. After a person dies, they are laid out in their house, or the house of a relative, for a few days so people can visit and pay their respects. They don’t put them in coffins or anything, they are just laying there out in the open. After a few days, they hold a funeral and bury the body. Since the communities here are so small, everyone is affected by the death of one person. This means that most of the community attends the funeral, which is why we had so little students in attendance today. And it’s not just one village that is affected by the death of someone. Since all of these villages are interconnected and everyone has one relative or another living in one of the other villages in the district, these deaths are felt throughout the entire district. A little bit different than down in the Lower 48, huh?

It has been getting much, much colder lately! A few weeks ago we had a little bit of a cold streak, where the temperature was in the mid- to low-30s for about a week or two. Then after that it warmed up. Now, when I say “warmed up,” it’s all relative. It “warmed up” to the low-40s.

This past Sunday night, however, there seemed to be some kind of switch that was turned on because now the temperature has been in the mid- to low-TWENTIES and windy. Man, it is COLD! Especially with that wind in your face. It is brutal walking to the post office. For the past few days I’ve felt like my nose was going to fall off because of the wind. Brr…

You know what is crazy? The river is freezing up! When Kylie and I went down to the post office on Tuesday, one of the villagers told us that there was some ice on the river. Since we don’t live right next to the river and see it on a daily basis, we went to check it out. And there was ice along the banks and some of the river’s surface was starting to freeze as well. It was crazy! Here are a couple pictures of the river from TUESDAY (more will be posted on my photobucket once I get the chance).

Tuesday, Oct 20

Tuesday, Oct 20

Now, get this. TWO DAYS later (today–Thursday), most of the surface of the river is frozen over!! There is a narrow opening on the opposite bank where the surface hasn’t frozen yet. I went down to check out the river today, and I couldn’t believe it!! Two days and so much more was frozen! Insane!! I can’t wait ’til I can walk on it…how exciting!!

Thursday, October 22

Thursday, Oct 22

Thursday, Oct 22

I don’t think I’ve described how school goes each day for me yet. Well, the teachers have to arrive at 8 am but school doesn’t start until 8:50 am. Since we have the kids for almost the whole day, since there are no specialist times except for Yup’ik, that time in the morning is our prep time. Kids start arriving around the same time as the teachers because the eat breakfast. The entire student body is eligible for free/reduced lunch, and I’m pretty sure it’s all free. These villages are super poor so the food is provided to them at the school. In fact, some kids wouldn’t even come to school if it weren’t for the free food because a lot of these families don’t even have enough money to feed them at home. It is really sad seeing some of the conditions these kids live in. But that’s for another post. Back to my school day…

So the kids come in and eat breakfast, then sometime between 8:45 and 8:50 they let the kids go to their classrooms (they are not allowed to leave the commons area/cafeteria until they are released). The teachers all stand outside their doors and greet their kids (yes, this is required, but I have super fun with it!). I say good morning to all of the kids and give them high-fives or elbow bumps. Yes, I did say “elbow bumps.” Since there is a lack of personal hygiene in these villages, we don’t usually like to touch other hands, unless we wash them right afterwards (which I do). So what they do here sometimes is bump elbows. It is pretty much like bumping fists, but with elbows. Why the elbows? I have no idea. I just go along with it.

Every morning when the kids get into the classroom they come in and wash their hands and brush their teeth. Yes, they do brush their teeth at school. Because they don’t do it at home. At first it was kind of frustrating waiting for them to get their teeth brushed and hands washed because it takes them about 10, sometimes even 15, minutes to get done. And when that happens it cuts into my instructional time. I don’t really care anymore because they’re getting their teeth brushed and hands washed. Yay for clean hands and no stinky breath! The kids wash their hands every time we leave and come back into the classroom (so after library, recess, gym, and reading buddies), and they brush their teeth in the mornings and right after lunch.
Other than that it is pretty much a typical day, except for the fact that I have the kids all day. Even though it can be exhausting being with them all day, I do love going to gym with them. Since I don’t really know how to teach P.E. (that course in college was pointless), we usually just play a variety of group games after warming up and stretching. Now, in the elementary portion of the school we have “Fun Friday” and it’s to reward those students who work hard and get their work completed throughout the week. Each teacher does her own thing for it, but what I started doing is playing music in gym for Fun Friday. Now, like I said, each day in P.E. we play a group game, but on Fridays I give them free time since it is Fun Friday. Well, last Friday I really wanted to jump rope to a song for warm up with the kids. I brought in my laptop, but you couldn’t hear the music unless everyone was standing still, which doesn’t really work with jumping rope. Anyways, one the kids asked, “Why don’t you just hook it up to the speakers?” I had no idea that I could hook my laptop up to them or where to do it, but apparently the sound system is located in the storage closet where all of the gym equipment is kept. And there was a cord that could be used with my laptop with it. So we listened to music and played for that half hour. It was super fun. So now every Friday we will listen to music in the gym. Kind of a long explanation for that, but whatever.

I don’t know if I’ve said it before or not, and I guess I’m too lazy to look back at my other 3 posts , but I really LOVE my class. They are such a great group of kids and I am so lucky that I get to teach them. Sure, I have some challenges with them and it is hard because some of them are so far apart in their levels, but I absolutely, without a doubt would NOT trade this class for anything in the world. (Indubitably!) Even for a class of genius kids all on the same ability level. Nope. These kids are fabulous. They’re funny, smart, goofy, and fun to be around. I can be myself around them and they think it’s great (which I love!). If I stayed another year, I would really, truly want to loop with them and be their teacher for the 6th grade. It would be super fabulous (not to mention a whole heck of a lot easier since I would already know what levels they all were on!).

My class on School Colors Day…I painted some of their faces

We got the moose from one of the other teachers in the village. Her husband is a local and he went out hunting and got himself a moose. It was pretty cool for him because it was his first time getting a moose. Ever. Anyways, she is a real sweet and generous lady and gave all of the other teachers in school some moose meat. It was pretty good. I think I’d eat it again.

I have not seen a real live moose though. I really want to, especially since certain people, namely my family, keep bugging me about it. Every time we talk on the phone, “Have you seen a moose yet??” Umm, NO! Now I guess I can tell them I’ve seen a dead moose. But just the meaty part though. No fur or legs cut off or anything like that. *

*Actually, I now have seen a cut up moose. My neighbor got a moose leg from one of the villagers and I got to see it. Yummy. I also saw a couple people driving through the village on their four-wheeler with cut up moose parts on it. It was pretty sweet.

It snowed again on the 28th of September! That was the day I got back from Anchorage (which I’ll have to tell you about in another post)…and apparently it had been snowing all day. When we were in our layover in Bethel waiting to go back to Kotlik, a group of people leaving Kotlik told us that it had been snowing since they left. It was still snowing when we arrived back in Kotlik, but it kind of tapered off and stopped at about 3:30ish. Once again, it didn’t stick, but it still snowed.

It hasn’t snowed since that day, and it actually warmed up for a couple weeks. Now, when I say “warmer,” it’s all relative. It had been in the mid- to low-30s for a couple weeks and then it warmed up to the 40s. Yes, still cold, but warmer than it had been. Now, however, it is back to freezing. The mud is frozen and the puddles on the ground are frozen. The boardwalk gets icy every morning, which is super fun to walk on in the dark going to school.

Well last week we attended an advisory school board meeting and one of the local villagers, who also happens to be one of the school’s custodians, brought some akutaq with him to the meeting. It was pinkish, and I thought it looked like it had chocolate chips in it. I also thought it would taste something like the mixture you start out with when making a batch of cookies…crisco/butter, sugar, vanilla. OH. NO. This was absolutely NOTHING like a batch of cookies.

After the meeting was over, we scooped ourselves some akutaq. Since they refer to this stuff as “Eskimo ice cream” I thought it would be cold and hard. Nope. It was soft and warm. Mmm. So why they call it Eskimo ice cream, I have no idea.

After I scooped myself some akutaq and was about to taste it, I caught a whiff of something nasty. Well, I taste the akutaq and it turns out that what I smelled was fish. That is right. Apparently akutaq is made with not only Crisco, some sugar, and berries, but also fish. Delish. Oh. And those “chocolate chips” were actually blackberries. It was pretty disgusting. But hey. At least I can say I tried it, right? …I didn’t want to be rude and throw this stuff away at the school, so I pretended to eat it and took it home with me. Marlee (Kylie’s cat) loved the stuff. Eww.

I found this link if you want to learn more about the deliciousness that is akutaq.