School has started! It was a crazy start to the school year, but the kids seem happy to be back. I ended up having 20 first and second graders! They are a very energetic group and I will have to work extremely hard this year, however, I think I'm ready for the challenge. Since the sun doesn't go down until around 11pm the kids stay up super late! This makes them extra tired at school and they have trouble sitting up when we are in a large group on the floor. I'm gonna have to get extra creative with ways to keep them awake this year. I do have an aide for two parts of the day which is very helpful.
Here are some more pictures from around the village...
So many stray dogs!
A native came into school last week selling homemade crafts and such. I bought this nice hat for $40. My first real Alaskan purchase!
Yesterday we went for a boat ride to Bethel. It's about 13 miles by boat. Randy, a teacher who has been here for 11 years, owns a boat and took us out. The ride was a little rough but we made it! It took about 30 minutes. Once we got to Bethel we went to the grocery store to pick up a few necessities like bread and milk. I also bought a new card game, Skip Bo, to play.
When we arrived back home to Napakiak we were putting the boat away and a native came by to ask if we wanted a fish. They just caught the salmon a few hours before and we decided to have it for dinner that night! (Although I ate steak..I never thought I would be eating steak in bush Alaska!) Everyone else enjoyed the salmon. The next night we took the leftover salmon and made salmon patties. I decided on just a baked potato and leftover pasta, but I had a bite of the salmon patty! It wasn't too bad.
Nik, the high school teacher, and Randy went down to the river to gut the fish. It only took about 5 minutes to clean and gut it entirely.
Fish head!
The salmon was a female. Look at all the eggs!! We ended up just throwing the eggs back in the river after we were done examining them.
After we gutted the fish we decided to go for a walk to find more berries! We actually explored a part of the village we had never seen before. This is the real tundra. There was nothing around us at all! Unfortunately, we didn't find any berries. Apparently berries grow well if the winter before has a lot of snow. When the snow melts, it waters the berry bushes and helps them grow. Last winter Alaska had a crazy winter and they didn't get much snow...which means it's not a great season for berries this year. Maybe next year!
Napakiak sunset.
The river is the most beautiful, relaxing place. Nik, Curtis, and I visited the river last week and took a picture. We go down there about every other day. It's only around 200 steps from the school.
I will post pictures of my classroom when it's finally done! It's still a work in progress at the moment..I still have so much more to do!
The new teachers have been sleeping at the school/at the principal's house because our houses still aren't ready! We're all hoping that they are done sometime this week. When we move in and get settled I'll be able to post those pictures, too. Oh, how life in the bush is so different.
No comments:
Post a Comment