Alaska Tundra and Berries

Above is Snowy Owl which we saw on our river trip. These things are huge, bigger than a barn owl, maybe. Two of them were sitting in trees near the river. When we got too close they would fly a short distance away, but well within gun range. Don't these things know the people use their feathers for hand held decorations during native dances? The feathers at the dance could have been from sand hill cranes which Susan spotted shortly before the picture on the bottom. My students say they have eaten sand hill crane meat. I always ask if whatever they are telling me about tastes like chicken. They said mostly dark meat.
This is an area of tundra that came right up to the bank of the Yukon River. The word lichens, mosses, berries, bears, and reindeer come to mind. The footing is really spongy and with each step clouds of bugs fly up. I don't think I was bitten anything like how often I was bitten during a summer twilight in Blytheville, Arkansas. While the young man from the family who was showing us around was holding onto the boat anchor, he was picking blue berries and eating them right off the river bank. Berries do not grow around Emmonak because of the bad drainage, so close to the sea level and the sea. I am not that smart, the native Alaskans have been teaching me!
Here is shot of some of the flora and fauna of the tundra. The red berry is a cranberry. The moss looks like rose moss we plant in flower gardens. Our tour guides helped us pick some of the moss to make tundra tea. She said it had a calming effect. I havn't tired it, yet.
This place helps everyone take good shots. I gotta tell ya, I am sleeping better and feeling great. I think part of it is that I am doing what I love, working with kids.
Alaska did not help me too much with this shot!! I was down close to the tundra with the bugs in my eyes. I wonder if the bug action bothered the camera, also. I wanted to show the little blue berry.
PS. We got cable tv thanks to our nice neighbor's help and I watched OSU beat Washington State with Susan. We didn't talk about it, but I got homesick for things past. The super nice teachers, students, and their parents are all so nice and encouraging, that I know we will love it here. We are going to eat tacos with fellow teachers at our principal's house tonight. Talked to my sister, mother, grand neice and nephew, their dad, and sister's husband on Skype today. It is so unreal to be able to see them when their what, thousand of miles away. I got e-mails from many of the teachers I spent 5 years teaching with from Blytheville. They are very encouraging and as I have learned years ago, teachers are some of the nicest people around. If I make it to heaven, I know I will see them there sooner or later.

National Geographic Tour of Lower Yukon

Hey, we had a fantastic voyage on the Lower Yukon River, around 80 miles worth!!! This a shot of us leaving Emmonak. May be the last time we get a chance to leave the village. We netted salmon, viewed a large area up river from Emmonak, saw a seal hunt,visited the summer fishing camp, met some some Yupiks that were so friendly I could have sworn I was in Oklahoma or Arkansas, saw an expanse of Tundra, and road miles and miles with the fresh Alaska wind in our faces.


Here is our crew three wonderful people from the Watksa family, a Texas teacher, a Phillipino teacher(planned and arranged the trip, a Colorado teacher, and a new teacher mentor who is native of Hawii. Oh! that is me behind the camera with Susan. This boat cost $18,000 with the motor costing $16,000. The right to net fish salmon cost in the neighborhood of $20,oo0. This aluminum boat really moves on the river water. It had a four-stroke engine for fuel economy. I think we purchased $300 of fuel at $5.oo per gallon and used probably three fourths if the total.
Here is the net that was cast into the river. The net has a floater side, which you see and a weight side in the water, of course. We would leave it out for around 30 minutes while drifting down the huge river. Then the net was pulled in with the fish tangled in the net. The net could have no fish or 100 fish. Our first try netted 10 fish and the second got us 7 more salmon. The species were silver and king salmon. If Oklahoma bass from a farm pond they would have been humongus, but as silvers go average, and kings small.


Here are some of our catch. King salmon have kind of a snaggle overbite with dark freckles on their backs. Silver are, right--- silver. We got home at 2 am and had to get the catch up to our houses. We wrapped them in freezer paper and put them in a freezer each of us have in our houses. I baked one of them today. We had a get together for dinner and consumed it. It was very good. Hope I got a lot of omega 3 out of the deal, cause I was sure tired out all day at school. The wonderful trip was worth a little fatigue. We were having meetings and working in our rooms.

Sunset was around 11pm. A person has to watch it or you work too much. Susan and I haven't been watching the clock enough, but operating like a couple of Oklahoma farmers, working from sun to sun. I can only put five pictures on at a time, to I will tell the rest of the story later.

Rigby and me

My principal likes me. Hope that is true by the last day of school!

Some boats belonging to villagers. Behind the boats is an island. The Yukon is more wide than the Mississippi at Blytheville. Some of these boats cost $10,000 and a motor $6,000. We are eight miles from the Bering Sea as a crow flies.

An old boat that Susan found to photograph. The front of it opens like the ones I rode in during my days as a Marine.

The Catholic Church at Emmonak. 

The front entrance of Emmonak School and the trusty van.

Church

Susan and I are going to go to a missionary church tonight at 6:30. I think the denomination is Church of Christ. Last Sunday we attended a Catholic Church and learned from the priest about not giving up on ourselves. One of the teachers said a Presbyterian meeting was somewhere in town according to the Internet. Maybe, we will find out tonight. Monday, we start with in-service meeting again. I think it is over Literacy by Design. Hope they have snacks! Or drawings for teacher supplies!! Susan and I found some boots today in one of the two stores. They stay warm to -43 degrees. I bought them for $22 since Susan had already bought herself a pair. They were in a back room and on sale. The reg. price was $70. Abby said some kids came by our house in Blytheville and asked if the flower man was home. I am going to miss our school kids. All the kids on the streets here in Emmonak say hello and ask if we are teachers. They seem really nice and polite. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I can't wait for the first day to meet all my new students. I hope some of them are gangsta like my brothers and and sistas.

Here are some pictures I just took.

Anchorage from our hotel room.

The airplane Susan almost puked on.

My principal getting our house ready.

Yu'pik with a spear he wanted to sell us for harpooning stuff.

Our house with a nice porch. Yes, the house is on stilts for spring flooding. The ground is peat and boggy so people do not mow their grass. Another good reason to live here!

Classes Assigned

Got my assignment for the next year. I will be teaching Reading to students who are in the six, seventh, and eighth grades. Class sizes will be around 16 to 17 students. In Alaska, the students are on certain levels and in certain grades. In a perfect world this is what happens at school. The levels are determined by the students academic progress. The grades (6th, 7th, 8th) are determined by the students' age. So a teacher could have students who are on several levels, like 4 grade, 5 grade, 6 grade, 7 grade, and 9th grade, all in one (age grade) like the 8th grade. The teacher is a facilitator who helps students move up academic levels. When a student takes a test over a certain standard and gets a grade of proficient, then the student moves up to the next standard level. The tests are supposed to be indicators of the student's ability to understand and/or explain a certain standard on a certain grade level. When a grade is given, it is A, B, C, or developing. Experienced teachers told me they really don't know a student's grade until report cards are calculated by the computer program. No percentage grades are given. Student work at a self-paced rate. I think we are on school improvement, so we are giving Aims tests to students with the frequency determined by the students level with respect to their age-grade. The Alaska Department of Ed. monitor(person) will be able to review these test results and child's progress. This data is per student and per teacher. The teacher can lecture/teach students on grade level standards with their lesson plans reflecting the standard having been covered. Tests over the standard are given at the level each child is currently working on. If the child achieves proficiency then that standard is checked off on that child's record which the computer computes into a report card. Simple?

Emmonak, Alaska Here We Are

After a couple of days staying in an off brand motel in Anchorage, we moved to a Sheridan Hotel in downtown. It was about $300 a night for someone coming off the street, which, of course, we could not afford. Lower Yukon School District was our host for the next two days of intensive, informative sessions of instruction. A good person by the name of Grant took Susan and I shopping around Anchorage and gave us much needed advice about shopping for the Bush. He is like many educators who I have ran across in my teaching career. They have infinite patience, kindness, goodness, and a love for their fellow human beings. I, though, remain a work in progress. With all the good examples I have found in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alaska; someday, I may,at least, be able to act like I have those traits.

After we left Anchorage by air we arrived a Bethel. From there we took a small 10 seater plane to our new home at Emmonak. Susan's stomach did not appreciate the roller coaster ride. I laughed and laughed at her expressions of discomfort when the stuff in her stomach was pressured by the falling plane up to the very back of her tongue. I know I am bad. I admit it. Anyway, when we got there a young man from Arizona, kind of a sufer dude type, said he had the same fluid discomfort. As it turns out, when we had to fly to Mountain Village for more intense new teacher training, we had a very smooth flight and both enjoyed the pleasure of the Alaska scenery.

Get this: The school is run down and in need of paint and eblow greese. It looks like we teachers will have to do the painting and cleaning when we return from Mountain Village. I am okay with that.

We are not sure what we are teaching or were we will be teaching. On the bright side we have recieved a good education about the culture and we have a fellow teacher who grew up in the village. She is very nice and has pledged to help us learn as much about the culture as possible as we are teaching her friend's children and relative's children. As we walked around Emmonak the adult people were very friendly and would shake our hands in welcome. They would thank us for coming to teach their children. Susan and I are going to work very hard for those parents.

This evening we went to an native dance and country western dance. The native dancers were accompined by native crafted drums. Their dances tell stories and confey emotion along with beautifully expressed hand and body movements. I can not wait to learn the stories. Maybe, one was about a crane and another a bear, I think.

We used Skype to talk to my daughter, Sarah. The next day her finance, Ben, helped us to see each other. That was wonderful for Susan and I. We were filled with love so quickly when we saw Sarah we became over whelmed. I hope we can get my other daughter, Abby, hooked up. (To Skype) We appreciate all the people who have the backs of our daughters and will never forget their kindness while Susan and I are working in Alaska. If you do not know what (have the backs of our daughters) means go to Blytheville Middle School or High School and ask one of my brother or sister students I left there. I still have many of their pictures and laugh about the fun times and good things we learned about each other while in school together.

Aug. 5, 2008

We got to Anchorage after a horrendous 11 hours. Alaska is beautiful, just like so many others have found out. My sister said it was 108 in Enid, Oklahoma and it was around 60 here. We felt the carcinogens lodged in our lungs fleeing into the clean, clear air.