Basketball in the Bush

This is my bed from last night and for tonight. It is located in Colleen's classroom.

Why would I want to sleep in the school? Let me tell you:

During basketball season, a lot of the athletic budgets for any school go towards travel. In the lower 48, you might take a bus to your game and be gone probably no more than 6 hours. Here, if they're going to spend the money, they are going to make it worth it - meaning a weekend of basketball.

Usually, we try to split the cost of the plane with our opponites. The first weekend of the season the plane came and got our girls team, brought them to Stebbins, where it picked up the boys team and brought them here. Vice-versa on the way back, and the two schools split the cost. Due to teams forfiting because of numbers or any number of other reasons, it can't always work out like that, however.

So, this weekend, our boys headed to Unalakleet and the White Mountain girls' basketball team came here. White Mountain arrived here Friday morning, they played a game Friday evening and Saturday evening, and leave Sunday morning. The players and coach sleep in the classrooms. We get enough itinerant people in and out that we have a few matresses for this purpose, and some of the girls brought their own air matresses. Only one or two girls had to be on the floor.

This is all fine and dandy, except for their coach is a male. Mike cannot sleep in a classroom with 8 teenage girls. So, I was approached by our athletic director to chaperone the girls for $50 a night. Sounds good to me.

So here I am, sitting in Colleen's room at 11:03 on a Saturday night. It's cool though. It's not the first time I've done it (Volleyball season, Golovin), and it probably won't be the last. Unless I have a prior commitment, I will probably agree everytime.

My job was totally easy this time, too. Mike is a teacher in White Mountain, and actually was in Shishmaref for many years as well too. He keeps them pretty under control. He has a bedtime for them, and will personally come shut off the lights. So I don't have to worry about any of that. He seems really fun too, so he's easy for the girls to respect.

So anyway, I think I'll go change into my pajamas and brush my teeth, and get ready for another night in the school!

YAY

Colleen figured out how to put pictures on Blogspot again! She shared this info with me, and I am no longer mad at Blogspot.

Basic update:

The day I was supposed to fly out of Ohio back to Shishmaref, I got super sick. Probably H1N1. So, I paid over $400 to change my plane tickets, and I had to use a sick day because I got back a day late. But, I guess things could've been worse. You would think that they would be happy that I didn't fly with Swine Flu, but I guess it doesn't matter that I was socially responsible.

Julie was here from the District Office this week. It is always nice to have her around.

Colleen and I watched the entire Season 4 of House this weekend, Friday to Monday. In our defense, it was the short season because of the Writers' Strike. Colleen ordered Season 5 from half.com, so we're waiting on that.

I have actually had really good attendance this week at school. 12 or 13 kids almost everyday - compared to my usual 6-10. I have 17 (was 19, but 2 are gone) enrolled, so it's still not great, but it's a start!!

And, I will add a picture - just because I can :)

This is Sharla and me on Tuesday, playing with PhotoBooth. Sharla is in 2nd grade, and her cousin Vivian is in my class.









This weekend I will try and go back to older posts and add pictures, now that I can again.

Peace.

I Touched It's Teeth!

I feel bad. Tons of cool things are happening while Colleen is gone. She probably doesn't think they are as cool as I do, because this is her 6th year here, but still. Lots of cool things have happened since Thursday when she left.

Last night, Kate invited me over to have caribou roast with her, and she said her would get out her bucket of seal oil and seal meat for me to try. So I head over. John wasn't there, just Kate, Carter and Edward, and Wilsa's son Michael. She opens up the bucket and there are all kinds of things floating around in oil. Pink things, black things, white things - stuff that looked like I would never dream of eating. She shows me the different kinds of seal meat (which is black). She had dried, partially dried, and cooked meat. She decided to have me try the cooked kind. Her boys call the dried kind the "hard" kind and the cooked "soft". Carter was excited and wanted some soft too. So Kate puts some on a plate and chops it up with her ulu. She puts several tiny pieces on my plate. Kate told me that if I needed to spit it out she wouldn't be offended. So, I told the boys it was my first time eating it and they should watch. I put a piece in my mouth. Not so pleasant. I thought the consistency would bother me, but that wasn't it, actually. It was very, very fishy. I don't like fish, so it wasn't a good thing. I kept chewing, and I really wanted to swallow, but I just couldn't. I felt bad, but I got up and spit it out in a paper towel. Next Kate gave me a piece of something white-ish/pink-ish/gray-ish. I asked her what it was and she just smiled - never a good sign. She said that it is her favorite part of the seal, and that her boys like it too. So I tried it. It was harder, and more difficult to chew, and it was still really fishy. I spit it out again. Since I was done having it in my mouth, I asked Kate again what it was - seal intestine. Lovely. Kate thinks that it was the seal oil that I didn't like, not necessarily the meat. She said that the oil is the really fishy part. So, if I have opportunity to have seal meat that hasn't been soaking in seal oil, I am willing to try again.

As we were sitting there, I asked where John was. Kate thought that he was fishing or something - he just takes off sometimes. We were talking about all the different things that you can hunt and such. Carter loves to tell me that his dad has got a wolverine before, and we were talking about caribou and lots of other things.

Not five minutes later, in walks John. I asked him if he got anything, to which he responded "I got hot, I got cold, I got stuck." Then he walked back outside. We weren't paying much attention as John walked back in with a box, and set it on the floor. I turned around, and noticed that something furry was sticking out of the box. Sure enough, John had came home with a wolverine!!! He had it in a white garbage bag, and then the bag in a box. The head had broke the bag and was sticking out the bottom. It had really pointy teeth!!! I was squealing, Kate was calling everyone, and the boys were excited. So John took it out of the box and laid it on the floor. I wanted to touch it, but I was nervous!! Carter was nervous to, but finally did it, so I did too. They we played a game. I told Carter to touch a part of the wolverine, he touched it, then I touched it. So we touched its back, head, ears, teeth, claws and nose. It was really exciting. I took a bunch of pictures with Kate's camera. I'll eventually get them from her and put them on Facebook. I was wearing an OSU shirt, so it was a great time for me to get my picture taken with a dead wolverine. Take that, Michigan!!

PS) I didn't even know that is what a wolverine looked like.

Pretty soon I will be Eskimo. The 6th grade girls already refer to me as "the Eskimo who needs a tan".

(Photo added 1/23/10)

Sinnok Snack Shack

Dennis Sinnok is now the hero of Shishmaref.

He has opened a snack shack. Angie and I went last night and got dinner. They don't have a place to sit there, so we took it back to my house. We both had burgers, fries, and milkshakes. SO TASTY! It has been forever since I have had a burger. I wasn't that hungry, but once I saw the burger, my mouth was watering. The fries were super good too. And the milkshake. Little Clare Bear was with us too. She had nachos, fries, candy, and a strawberry sundae.

My meal was $15.50. I can't afford to eat there all the time, but it was nice for a treat. Good thing it's on the other side of the village so I won't be tempted to eat there everyday.

Angie and I were sad for Steve and Colleen. Steve is in Unalakleet for some math thing (I think), and Colleen is on her way to Europe, so they both missed the wedding and the first trip to the snack shack. At least we have a good excuse to go to the snack shack again when they get back. :)

Shishmaref Style Wedding

Today was the first wedding in the village since I have been here.

Earlier in the week, John Kokeok asked me if I was going, and I replied with "No, I didn't get invited." Evidently, that was a stupid thing to say. EVERYONE is invited. If it is small and just family, they tell everyone that. Otherwise, you're invited.

The bride and groom are the parents of my little Katie in my class. The wedding was in the church and it was really nice. Beautiful white gown, tuxes, bridesmaids, groomsmen, the whole deal. After the ceremony, we were all invited to go downstairs in the church and have cake. Angie and Daphne (a HS student) made the cake. They have been practicing their fondant roses for months now. It was really beautiful. People couldn't believe that it was a homemade cake. Chairs were lined up, everyone got a napkin and piece of cake, and enjoyed.

Shishmaref has a really interesting tradition. It's called a shiveree. At midnight after the wedding, the whole villages goes to the house of the bride and groom and beats on the walls. Then some of the men go inside and get the groom and they carry him around the house. Then the bride and groom stand on the porch and throw TONS of candy into the crowd. I was not expecting that much candy. Some girls were at my house right before and they asked me for bags for shiveree, and they needed the bags for all the candy! It was really cool.

So, the wedding was really fun!

Colleen is gone until the 16th. She left on Thursday. She and two HS girls are on their way to Copenhagen, Denmark for the UN Global Warming conference. What an amazing experience. I am so excited for her, Meghann, and Janelle. It's sure lonely at home, though!

Thursday we had to cancel both ECE classes. We ran out of stove oil and didn't know it. We got to school Thursday morning and it was freezing! We couldn't keep the kids in there like that. Kate has been out sick and will be for the next month or so, so I went and helped in the kindergarten classroom for most of the day. The store wasn't able to deliver to our building until after 2, but it was warm enough by Friday morning, thank goodness.

That's about it for now!

I leave to come home to Ohio in two weeks!!

My first Thanksgiving away from home

Monday was not welcomed this morning.

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend, but I fell into "Eskimo Time". I don't know if it is all the villages or just Shishmaref, but people stay up super late and then sleep super late. Whenever I want to go to bed before midnight, everyone always says that I need to adjust to native time. So, we had 4 days with no school. Colleen and I went to bed around 2 most night, and I still got 12 hours of sleep. So I was dragging this morning, for sure.

Thursday evening, most of the village met in the gym for a feast. There were huge pots of reindeer soup all over. Esther, one of my para-pros and the parent of one of my students, invited me to sit with her family. I had soup and homemade rolls. Then some ladies came around with bowls of berries. I usually don't like the berries that are picked locally, but I had some anyway, and they are growing on me. But they were just berries with sugar, not Eskimo Ice Cream.

After the feast, the gym was cleaned up and then there were basketball games. A women's game and a men's game. So that was fun.

On Friday, we had the "Orphan's Thanksgiving". Basically the teachers without families here in town got together and had a big turkey dinner. We also invited the Stenek clan (Ken, Lisa, and the 5 munchkins), Melinda and her kiddos, and Helen brought her twin granddaughters. So it was really nice. And we had the usual Thanksgiving food. So it was nice.

Either than that, I just laid around all weekend. Played cards, watched 3 movies, moved into Season 3 of House. And I found my checkbook! It had been missing for a few weeks. I knew it was somewhere. Ha Ha!

Three week until I go home for Christmas! Time has flown by!

Blogspot is making me angry

Now that I have my own nice new BSSD computer, with pictures uploaded to it, Blogspot is being funny and doesn't show the photo uploading option. Colleen is having the same problem. Everything on the posting page looks weird and it doesn't have the options, like changing the font and uploading a picture. This has been going on for like a month and a half. It has frustrated me and made me not want to post. Sorry.

So, last Thursday, well into November, the famous "October Storms" hit. Global Warming is the cause of the delay. My mom had been telling me for a couple of months that I needed to order my snow pants and snow boots, but I had been putting it off - not wanting to spend the extra money. Needless to say, the waist deep snow on my porch last Thursday forced me to suck it up and make an order.

A view of the storm from the elementary entrance. My house is the greenish one straight ahead.

 

My porch as the snow fell down.

 My footprints walking to the porch. All of these photos were taken at about 5PM. The storm has been going on a few hours. It continued through the night, so there was considerably more snow in the morning.

On Friday night, I was at Rec and Fred Charlie asked if on Saturday I wanted to go fishing with him and Matt. Of course I wanted to go! I want to see as much of the life of a villager as I can. So, he told me to see if I could find some warm clothes and they would call before they came by on Saturday. So I asked a couple of people, and everyone was using there winter gear. So, I wore Under Armor leggings, jeans, three pairs of socks, and my rubber boots. And my coat of course. I had a hat and a big hood on my coat, and some gloves. I thought I would be fine. Fred Charlie saw what I was wearing and wasn't convinced. I said I would be fine, and we headed out. Matt drove the snow machine and Fred Charlie and I rode in the sled being pulled behind. Fred Charlie's dog, Little Crust, ran beside us. We headed out to the frozen lagoon and stopped a little ways out. Matt and Fred Charlie used a big pointy stick tool to dig a hole in the ice. They handed me a fishing stick and made themselves holes. Matt caught a tiny fish, then Fred Charlie caught a tiny fish. I didn't catch anything for a long time, and man, I was getting cold!!! It was cold and windy, so it wasn't so pleasant. I was getting ready to say that I gave up, because I thought I would be warmer if I could just stand and cuddle with myself. Then I caught a nice size smelt!! Tom Brad showed up then, so I gave him my stick. Rachel Stasenko, Kate's mom, showed up too. She was appalled by my choice of clothes. Tom Brad wasn't dressed appropriately either, so he was only there for a few minutes, and I left with him. I was getting a little bit worried for my toes. After I left, Matt and Fred Charlie only caught a few fish each.

Fred Charlie digging the hole.

Matt working on the hole.

 

First hole made!! Pretty sure someone stole that spoon from the kitchen to get the slush out of the hole.

 

Matt and me. I'm obviously inappropriately dressed.

 

I look happy, but I'm freezing.

 

Matt focused on his fishing.

Later, Kate called me and told me that she had heard that I had been fishing in inappropriate clothes. She told me to to come to her house and get some snow pants and boots to borrow until mine arrived. So, Sunday morning, I went and got the gear from Kate and then went fishing with Matt and Fred Charlie again. I also wore my Mad Bomber hat, compliments of the Weeks family from swim team. I was much warmer! But the fish still weren't biting very much. Between the three of us, and two days, we only got like 15 smelt.

On Monday, I saw Matt with his kiddos at Rec, and he said that he had gone fishing and got 90 fish! They said maybe there were seals in the area or the fish just hadn't came down yet, which is why we struggled. But it was a fun experience!

Oh, my boots got here Tuesday, and my snow pants on Thursday, so I am set now. :)

On Thursday and Friday, my preschoolers made Buckeye necklaces! And Ohio State beat Michigan today, so my kiddos gave them some good luck! :)

(Photos added on 01/18/2010)