Just a little Alaskan humor

This is for all of you who said we should have our heads examined for coming to Alaska in January!

Sorry, lower 48-ers. Couldn't resist! We mailed all of our snow gear back to Illinois today...Seriously

The volcano is smoking!

The volcano is smoking this morning!

I know, it's not a lot. BUT it is a volcano! Smoking! We can see it out the school window!

Pictures were taken at sunrise - about 9:45 a.m.

Native Youth Olympics

     Coming from Lincoln where there are so many opportunities for kids to get involved in sports, it's been a real eye-opener at the big effort made by the district to give our students the same opportunities as those I see at home. To begin with, there are many villages like Pilot Point that are only accessible by air. It has to be a huge undertaking for a team to visit another village for a game. Players almost always stay overnight and then there is the cost and time involved in flying to another town. Sports that are available here include basketball, volleyball & the Native Youth Olympics (NYO) for both boys and girls. In the case of this little village, there are not enough students to field a team so opportunities are even more limited. To offset this problem, the district, which consists of 12 remote village schools, hosts three jamborees a year; a volleyball jamboree in the fall, a basketball jamboree in the winter, and an Athletics & Academics jamboree in the spring. One of our students Michael will be flying to Egegik tomorrow where he will be assigned to a team that will play in a round robin basketball tournament. In addition to the games, there are also chances to discuss what's happening in your school,  social mixers, and a dance. I'm guessing Michael is going more for the party than his intense desire to play basketball! 

At the spring AA jamboree, the grand finale will be the district prom!

A major activity in the spring AA jamboree is the Native Youth Olympics prelims. I have found the NYO to be a fascinating event. It is an annual competition of youth in a series of games that honor their cultural heritage by demonstrating skills needed by Alaskan natives to demonstrate hunting & survival skills.

Some of the NYO games include:

The stick pull-a strengthening activity involving a Crisco smeared stick to mimic a skill used by native hunters to prepare themselves to pull a seal out of the water

The kneel jump- an activity involving agility & balance used by early natives to jump from ice flow to ice flow

The seal hop-while maintaining the push up position, students hop across the floor on their toes and knuckles to mimic the position taken by seal hunters as they camouflaged themselves from their prey while moving across the ice

In the past, Pilot Point has had several NYO competitors, but unfortunately does not have any this year. I'm attaching a couple of pictures at the bottom-these are not Pilot Point kids but are good images of what the competition might look like.

I also got to meet the principal yesterday. She flew in after lunch, spent the day dealing with normal school paperwork, conducted a community/parent meeting in the evening (kind of like PTA) and signed the employee time sheets. She flew out this afternoon. There is an apartment for itinerant personnel attached to Rachel & Matt's house. It is used by administrators, special ed teachers and the school counselor as they breeze in and out. They bring their own bedding & food. You'd hardly know anyone was here. Can't imagine a job like that! 

Driving the "Bus"

     Well, today I can add something new to my resume. The school bus driver did not show up so I was recruited to take over his duties. As you might remember, the "bus" is actually the school's red pick-up truck. It has really taken a beating on the 3 miles of muddy gravel road that surrounds the village. One tire is perpetually low, the wind whistles through the passenger window, and the spiderweb of cracks on the windshield make for an interesting view.

You can just see Alayssa's eyes
on the far side of the "bus."

     When Matt called, I was still at home, but I hurried over to the school and found a cute little second grader Alayssa already perched on the passenger seat of the truck. She announced, "I am your GPS." (Matt had installed her as my navigator.) Awesome news since I didn't know where anyone lived and at 8:00 a.m., it is still pitch black outside. Alayssa wasn't so great with keeping her right & left straight, but if I followed her pointing finger, I didn't go wrong. We'd pile in 3 or 4 kids, turn around and take them to the school, and then go back for more. Two trips did the trick since several parents delivered their own children on 4 wheelers. 

     After school, the bus driver was still AWOL, so my GPS and I reversed the process.

*This picture was taken on our after-school delivery. It is January 27th in Alaska. No coat, wearing tennis shoes... I hear there is no school in Lincoln again today due to the extreme cold & wind. What is wrong with this weather picture?????


And in further regards to the "bus," we had just filled 'er up at the village gas station last week. It is run by the city and is the only place to fill up your motor vehicles in town. The station is open from 3:00 - 4:00 Monday through Friday, $5 a gallon. Remember, full service? It's alive & well here in Pilot Point!

PP Teachers in the news

     Almost exactly a year before we arrived, the Anchorage television station did a series of reports on teaching in Alaska. One of the segments included a 6 minute segment featuring the school at Pilot Point and interviews with the 2 teachers. Matt Grossman was Doug's student teacher in Lincoln and then taught at Chester-East Lincoln for 5 years. He is the person who recruited us to come up and substitute when Troy's wife had a baby back in their home state of Idaho earlier this month.

CLICK HERE!

Anchorage Television News Report 2/7/12

     An interesting side note: The villager with the giganto tv that we visited last week told us that the shot of the little boy reading a book while sitting in the school window is still shown at the end of the Anchorage evening news as the credits roll. That would be Loren, the little guy on the far left in the picture below.

Recognize any of these tv celebrities? This picture was taken last week.

Visiting the local clinic

     Today during class, Tracy the local Community Healthcare Practitioner popped into the room with little cups of fluoride for each student. Obviously the water we use is from wells and these kids eat candy and pop like it's going out of style. It made me wonder where they get dental care or any kind of health care for that matter. She told me I was welcome to come by the native Alaskan clinic anytime. A couple hours later I walked down the road with Rachel & the 2 Grossmann boys to check it out. The clinic has recently moved to a new building and it was pretty impressive. There is no doctor on duty, but one flies into town every few weeks. The rest of the time, the clinic is staffed by Tracy with assistance from Tabitha, a local villager who is trained as a Community Healthcare Aid. I believe Tracy has the equivalent of an EMT certificate. Tabitha received specific training for her job. Anyone who has completed 8th grade can take the training for the aid position which requires classes and on-the-job training. There is an on-site pharmacy with just the basics-antibiotics, Tylenol, cough medicine, etc.

     The place was pretty high tech. Their fancy equipment can send EKGs and

One of the Grossmann boys is pretending Tracy is the dentist

blood pressure reports to consulting doctors. One room even had a computer equipped with a camera so that patients can be seen by a doctor in Anchorage if the problem is significant enough. It was kind of like high tech skyping! Tracy said they use this "telemedicine" for physical therapy and mental health counseling as well. They even have a dental room that is used by teams of dentists and their assistants who fly in several times a year. She says they bring boxes and boxes of supplies and try to see everybody in town when they set up shop.

Telemedicine

Sign posted at the clinic
We won't see this one in Lincoln!

We slipped into the garage where the ambulance is parked right alongside the portable sled that they use to transport patients through rough terrain or over the snow. It is usually hooked to a 4 wheeler or snow machine. The sled had wheels on today, but the interchangeable set of runners was at the ready. In cases of serious illness or injury, patients may be taken out by medivac helicopters. Keep in mind we are 3 1/2 hours by air from Anchorage.

There is no cost for this health service for the native people. Native is defined as anyone with a minimum of 1/8 Indian heritage. For the rest of us, the news is not so good. No insurance is accepted. Pay up front. Matt's strep throat last winter was $300, DPT, tetanus shots for the 2 boys $900. Yikes!

I had asked another villager earlier about funerals. She said the local elders usually choose not to be embalmed and as a rule, someone just builds a wooden box and digs a hole. There are no village regulations regarding burials which usually is in the church graveyard. She did add, "But that's not the case if the troopers get involved." She said the troopers get involved in the case of suspicions of foul play or anytime there is a need for an autopsy.

She also said that in most cases, the family of the deceased clean and prepare the body, there is a graveside service and then a big family meal.

     There is also an Eskimo graveyard. I'm trying to understand how Eskimos are different than the Yupiks and Aleuts in this village. Apparently the term is used to describe natives from SOME other tribes who came down to this area from the north when jobs in the (now abandoned) cannery were plentiful. For some reason, these individuals were not well accepted. The word Eskimo means "eaters of raw fish" which appears to be distasteful. The housing for this group of natives was set away from the other homes and they were segregated to their own graveyard as well. We were told a story about an "Eskimo" that died in another area and had expressed his wish to be buried back here in Pilot Point. A plane brought the box with body to town. No one was there to claim it so the pilot just unloaded it on the edge of the runway where is sat for 2 days. Finally a local villager took pity on the poor guy and got him buried.

Exploring on the 4 wheeler

     This was the view when I opened the door to our little house this morning. New snow was still coming down and you can see in the background the warm lights of the nearby school house. It was 8:30 a.m. and still pitch black!                                                                                                          I don't usually go over until after 10:00 when the online classes have finished, but we are currently experiencing an oatmeal crisis, sort of... The school receives regular food shipments and over the past year has acquired an over-abundance of oatmeal - an abundance of probably twenty to thirty containers of oatmeal. They have not touched this year's oatmeal allotment and probably won't polish off the supply from last year that is currently close to expiration. This morning when Matt & Doug asked who'd had breakfast today, not a single child raised their hand. My duties now include being the morning oatmeal maker.

Note added Feb 1:   Over the course of our 3 week gig, I fixed an oatmeal breakfast 5 times (with lots of help from Doug.) We'd scavenge whatever fruit was left from the previous day's lunch and use it to "decorate" our breakfast. Never thought I'd put fruit cocktail in my oatmeal, but it really wasn't too bad. A dollop of peanut butter was also a favorite for many of the crew!

After school, the snow had stopped and the sun was shining so Doug & I jumped on the 4 wheeler to take an up close and personal look at some of the neighborhood attractions for the newly arrived "lower forty-eighters." 

Mount Chiginagak

The clouds parted and for the first time we were able to get a good look at the volcano behind the school. Somehow I felt a bit safer when I COULDN'T see the volcano behind the school. It looked pretty non-threatening today, though you can still see where part of the top blew off a few years ago. Matt says it "burps" out some black smoke every once in a while, but other than shutting down the runway due to poor visibility caused by the smoke, it is really nothing to worry about. Uh, ok... Please do not be burping on Jan 31 when we are planning to head south.

Whale skull

We than rode past the abandoned salmon cannery where someone had propped a whale's skull against the side of one of the buildings. Now that's something we don't see down home too often. Uh, guess that would be never.

Village incinerator

 And for the grand finale, Doug drove me out to the dump. What a romantic fool he is! Actually I truly did want to see the incinerator. When I had asked where the recycling bins were at school, the kids looked at me like I had 2 heads. It was almost as if they'd never heard of such a thing. I guess if you have to pay to ship everything in or out, no one's going to spend money to haul out plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Everything (and I mean everything-paper, cans, plastic, food waste, old furniture, bicycles-everything) goes out to the dump where most of it is fed once a week into a big incinerator and burned.
 Lucky us-today there was smoke pouring out-we were here for the burning!

 There were big signs at the gate warning us that only authorized personnel could enter.  Both sets of gates were wide open and there was not a soul in sight. I'm not sure who the authorized personnel might be, but was pretty sure it wasn't us. Anyway, rule-followers that we are, we kept our distance. Actually, I insisted that we keep our distance. Doug was all for getting off the 4 wheeler and climbing the hill to see if he could get a better volcano shot, or if he was lucky, maybe get to see any of the wolves that people have been hearing howl at night. It's common knowledge that wolves & bears ("Oh, Judy, don't be silly! Bears are hibernating right now.")
like to visit the dump in search of food scraps. Not wanting to experience first hand what a food scrap might feel like, I was VERY insistent that he turn around NOW and head back toward town. Could a wolf outrun a 4 wheeler? Might these unseasonably warm temps have confused a bear's sleeping schedule? What exactly was just over that slight hill by the gate? These are all questions to which I did not want the answers. We headed home.

On a related somber note: I had earlier asked Matt about special education services in the school district. He informed me that they had itinerant LD teachers who fly into a village, spend a day or two at the school and then fly on to the next remote village in the district.
"But," he said, "We lost one a couple years ago."
"Oh," I said, "She got another job?"
"Nope, she liked to go jogging. One evening she went out for her regular evening run and she didn't come back.  Wolves" 

Seriously. Yikes!