We Saw Us A Critter!!

Not a heckuva lot to report here in KWT right now. Classes are in full swing, and with the great weather we've had over the past 10 days, student attendance is the #1 obstacle I'm facing. The calendar is a distant second.

Last Saturday Erin and Joel (roomate at the TO) rode their snow-gos up here to get me, and we rode on down to Bethel for the evening. I was able to do a little laundry and pick up some fruit and veggies to bring back to the village to share.

Sunday on the ride back we saw a big ol' lynx running across the river in front of us. It stopped on the edge and gave us a withering glare before turning away to the woods.

We've had even warmer temps this week, up to about 40, and last night and today some rain. It's making things a sloppy slushy mess, and the hikes just don't sound as appealing.

Spring was nicer when it wasn't so springy.

Touch of Spring Fever

Each evening in Kwethluk has been sunny, and they've gotten warmer by the day. It's light until 10:30, and it would be a pity to waste the daylight. I've been doing some hiking and exploring in and around the village. Here is some of the evidence:


This is from the Kwethluk River, an offshoot of the Kusko. That burnt-orange looking thing in the upper left corner is the school.

This is what I believe to be called Birch Hill. It was a nice hike out to it, and the panorama from atop made it worth the while.






Ahh, spring!!

BET/KWT

The busy, needed, and fun-filled week in Bethel is over. And what fun it was...

The first weekend back, I went out manaaq-ing for the 2nd time in my life. The first was out in Toksook Bay, this time was down river from Bethel at the confluence of the Kuskokwim and Johnson rivers. Don't worry, the ice was plenty thick. How thick? Well, we drilled as far as the hand-auger would go, and still needed to work hard with a pick to get through the rest. Luckily, after a couple of holes were drilled with much effort, a nice Native man came over with a power auger and blasted several holes for us, so all we had to do was pick through the last 4 inches or so. It was about 4-5 feet thick.

Having holes, we moved on to the fishing, which meant using a stick with some line, a heavy jig tipped with a pike eyeball, some jigging and some patience. Our group got several pike, I got 3 myself.

Another thing I'll be missing out here is some of that fancy home cooking at the TO. Here's John displaying a pan of brownies Jimmy made.





Now I'm at Ket'acik Aap'alluk Memorial School (Home of the Kings) in Kwethluk (KWT). Classes will begin this afternoon. I went out for a nice long walk last night, and there were lots of people out walking around enjoying the beautiful weather. (It was clear, calm, sunny, and zero)




There are trees here that are taller than me, which is a refreshing change.

So Long, Boiler Room

This past Friday was the day for me to skedaddle from Kongiganak, aka Donkey Kong, aka Kongiganak, pronounced in the traditional, non-kassaq way. Normally I like to do these departure things on Saturdays, as there are tons of SNAFU possibilities when traveling, and having the whole day as a buffer for them is helpful. But this time I had my final inservice of the year to attend in Bethel on Saturday, so Friday afternoon we made a go of it. More on that in a bit.

How was Kong? I'm sure that's on everyone's minds. Kong was ok. There, I've said it. Positives first: I met, as always, some kind and friendly staff and locals there. I had a nice comfy living area up amongst the ductwork. I was so used to the hum up there, I was kind of sleepless my first night back in Bethel. Kind of like missing the sound of the trains at night in Gordon, WI, which I do. There was a pretty nice (clean) kitchen to use at the school, and even an open shelf in the fridge where I could keep my perishables. Oh, and they let me have a key to the school. Some places like to hem and haw about borrowing me a key to use while I'm there. Some make me sign my life away on a sheet of paper. Some pretend not to have any or know their whereabouts. Some just refuse. Anything besides giving me a key right away is stupid. Kong passed the B.R. Key Loan Intelligence Test.

Not-so-positives: My classes were all taught after school hours at Kong. This meant that my day was spent doing prep work, reading, conversing with friends, etc. I'd much prefer to teach in the day and be done in the evenings. The kids like it better that way, too. The thing is, they have a choice, and several chose to drop out of the classes, since staying enrolled would involve being at school until 8:30 at night. It gets frustrating having kids drop out of your program, especially since it's an opportunity they haven't had before, and may not have again. On the plus side, the students that stuck it through were dedicated.

Also, the facilities had a couple issues. With pretty much every village I go to, it's a given that there will be some civil construction project, with construction workers living out of the school, cramping my itinerant lifestyle big time. At this one, there was actually a temporary living place near the jobsite for all these guys to live, with most of the necessary amenities. The one thing they were missing out there was showering and laundry facilities. Not to worry, as Kong has a washeteria for them to take care of their needs. But, the day I arrived in Kongiganak was the day the washeteria burnt up and the music died. Doing hygiene, for me, meant waiting til stupid hours of the night for this parade of workers to be done in the only men's bathroom in the school.

Speaking of the men's bathroom, special thanks to the kid, who every 3 days or so would go in there and piss all over the place. Oops, I almost forgot to thank his buddy, the kid with the bloody nose who leaves blood on the floor, sinks, and walls.
Every school should have staff facilities, separate from everybody else's.

I suppose at this time I should cut to the chase and discuss the travel back. My charter plane was scheduled to arrive to get me at 4 PM on Friday. I had the maintenance man help me get the gear onto the sled and out to the runway 15 minutes early, just to be safe. The weather was about 5 degrees, wind about 20 knots. Not too bad. But, by the time the plane showed up at 5:20 I was kind of cold. Evidently the airline had me down for 4/7 instead of 4/3. When my ride went to pick me up at the airport in Bethel and asked about my flight, they made the panic face and scrambled to send a plane out for me. Not only that, but in the meantime a big A.T.S. twin prop cargo plane showed up and was taking up most of the taxi area, which meant I had to move all the stuff from the usual loading spot. Moving all the gear over to my plane across glare ice without spikes was a tricky, backbreaking pain in the posterior.

After loading up, it was a cold, drafty, noisy ride home. I got the plane with the really bad doors this time. I always have earplugs in my coat, largely due to the possibility of sometime having to ride in this particular plane. It pays off...

Arriving at Yute Air so late in the day, nobody was there besides the employees. My ride/box van was nowhere to be found. After I called the TO for a ride, then my coworker showed up all stressed out about the whole thing. So I had 2 rides show up. Right away, the scheduled driver said how they had to cancel an appointment to get me so late. Since they were the same person who set up my flight, I informed them that I had been sitting at the runway for an hour and a half, what the #@&* happened to 4:00?? Who knows how one can mess up the difference between Friday 4/3 and Tuesday 4/7. Soon enough I was at the TO, wolfing tacos for dinner, and Donkey Kong was just another one for the books.

Cama-i

I went to Cama-i Dance Festival in Bethel this weekend and all I got was this lousy shirt puked on.

Home Sweet Home

Here's my cozy little private living quarters I carved out for myself here in Donkey Kong. The hum of HVAC is so restful...

Donkey Kong

So this past Monday I had quite the experience. I flew out to Kongiganak and I've been here ever since. The day started like any normal Monday Traveling Day. I got up and hurriedly threw together the rest of my gear, because it had gotten too late on Sunday night to choose finishing packing over sleeping on my to do list.

After taking care of some odds-n-ends at the DO (District Office) I had a coworker drive me and the gear out to Yute Air for the time-honored tradition of sitting around at Yute Air all day long. The standard procedure here is to show up and offload the truck at the dock. Go inside, tell the lady at the counter that I'm here, and then head upstairs to Brothers Pizza for the AYCE pizza lunch special. After lunch, the thing to do is to sit and read a book for an hour or so, then put in headphones and listen to some tunes for maybe an hour, and then go to sleep until one of the girls wakes you up and says "your flight is cancelled, go home." I had checked the weather on Kusko.net, and it said the wind was 40 knots out on the coast here. One knot equals 1.15077945 miles per hour (approximately). This being the case, I figured that the flight was pretty unlikely.

Evidently I figured wrong.

About the time I pulled out my book after my pizza lunch, this pilot, an older guy with thick glasses whom I'd flown with before, started calling my name. Making our way out to the plane, I asked him how the weather was out on the coast, as I'd seen high winds forecast. He said "Aaagghh, not too bad. I was out in Kipnuk a couple hours ago and there was a little ground blizzard. Up in the air it's fine." I figured well, he's an old-timer, he's been doing this a while, he knows what is what.

After flying for 20 minutes or so, the view up in front of the plane was a looming gray thing. After another 15 minutes we were in the gray thing and couldn't see the ground. Once in a while we'd get a little bit clearer spot, and I could see that the ground was pretty close by. The wind was really ripping by this time, and the 207 was jumping and dipping like crazy. Meanwhile, the GPS on the instrument panel said we were at Kongiganak. We couldn't see anything though. I was thinking to myself "Okay psycho. Turn the plane around, we'll try again tomorrow." But no. What I saw was Wall-Eye pulling his head down and squinting at the GPS, repeatedly, and trying to figure out where next to steer the plane to try to find the village amidst the blizzard. I was at this time hoping there wasn't anything tall in Kong for us to smash into, since the GPS claimed we were there. Plus, as my friend Lee at the TO (Tundra Oasis) once pointed out, sometimes clouds have rocks in them.

What happened next was very bizarre. The pilot turned sharp to the left, and soon we were at a right angle to the wind. We got down even lower and I could see the ground. Relative to the ground, the wing out my side was leading the way. Literally, we were flying more sideways than forward. The side window was the new windshield. We spotted the runway, made a crazy circle to double back to it, and somehow managed to touchdown, with the plane tipping, dipping, and skipping all the way. I guess that's how you get to be the only person to land in a village on a particular day. Everybody else had sense enough to not try it. I've got to commend the pilot though. I think that it was a needless risk to land here Monday, but he did demonstrate exceptional flying skill in doing so.

As we unloaded the plane, the wind was blowing so strong that I had to catch my big backpack as it tried to blow away. By the time we got into the school, everything already had a layer of snow blasted onto the side of it. As soon as I got in here, I heard the VHF radio in the school office, and it was a pilot radioing from another airline, checking on Kong's weather conditions. The local agent told him "It's not goot. Zero zero, go back."

Anyhow, I made it. Dick R. Kiunya Memorial School, home of the Wolverines (BOOOO!!!) is an older school, and way overcrowded. On the first day here it was a real struggle to find a place to store my stuff. I slept in a classroom and then had to put away my sleeping bag/air mattress and everything else before there would be kids all over everything.

Tuesday, in my quest to find a place to store my stuff, I discovered a new home for myself. It may not be pretty, but it's relatively secure and private. I was even able to sleep til 8:30 there this morning, which is nice since my classes are all taught after school here, and my nights become later than I'd like. In my next posting I will take you all on a little tour of my new home.

For you folks back in civilization, enjoy the March Madness. I do wish I could be watching. I love sitting back and watching hours of college hoops in March. Good luck Bucky.