Rural Practicum: Napaskiak, Alaska

Disclaimer: This post is LONG. Lots of pictures. But In my opinion, worth the read. So, get a mug of ho cho and settle down for an adventure. If you don't have time, I give you permission to skip this post.


So, I was selected to spend a week in a rural Alaskan village for a week. (February 3-9) The purpose of the visit was to expose us interns to life in the rest of Alaska and perhaps persuade some of us to thinking about teaching there in the future.

So, here's me and my stuff ready for the journey!

Sunday:
-Left Fairbanks. Flew to Anchorage, Anchorage to Bethel, No one told us that we would have to go to another airport for our next flight and we had no cell service... Luckily some nice teachers on our flight let us borrow their phones. We got to Bethel on Super Bowl Sunday. It was kinda surreal, being in the middle of nowhere but watching the Super Bowl!

 Then on to a tiny 6 seater plane to Napaskiak. I sat next to the pilot! I told him I didn't know how to fly but he assured me he did! (We went up, over the river and back down!) 1 4 minute flight, I watched the instruments on the dashboard.

Me ready to board! There's not really heat on the plane so you have to be in full winter gear.

Ready to Fly!

-Principal met us in Napaskiak on snow machine, he took our bags and we walked into town.

Our View From the Plane

The Napaskiak "Airport" AKA a landing strip and a shed.

Napaskiak

More views from our adventure

-Went to check out the school and showed up just in time for school dance practice, the kids did Yupik dancing.

Our Sweet Digs! We got to stay in an extra apartment in teacher housing, so no slumber party in the school for us!

Relaxing in the apartment. The school and teacher's housing are the only 2 buildings in the village with running water.

The School! Everything is on stilts because the river floods so often.

The Motto for the school. The school was a Yupik Immersion School. Everything was posted in Brown (English) and Green (Yupik). Monday, Wednesday and Friday were Yupik days, Tuesday and Thursday were English days.

-Met the music teacher our hostess, who truly showed us the village. Too much to write about her, not enough time. Ask me about it if you really want to know.

Monday:
-Met the kids. SO cute. I worked in a kindergarten class, 10 kids.

Writing Time!

Recess! Yes, even the playground is on stilts!

The Class, waiting patiently for snack of "cracker"

"The Language of the day is Yupik"

-The teacher I worked with has never taught school before. The previous kindergarten teacher is getting her teaching certificate with UAF and is doing her internship in Bethel, so the poor teacher felt really overwhelmed, but is doing great things with the kids! Rita is amazing!

-Our hostess took us to Father Ish's house. Father Ish is a pastor at the church (Russian Orthodox) Father Ish is very nice and talked to us about life in Napaskiak. And his daughter was one of my kindergartners so she felt like a celebrity when she told the kids the next day that I ate pizza at her house.

-Tried Akutaq (Ah-Goo-Taq) aka Eskimo Ice Cream... pretty tasty actually.

Tuesday:
-Read the Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear, the kids LOVED it. I brought strawberries and the kids gobbled them up, they never get fresh fruit.

Some of our writing samples

Bundled up and ready for recess!

Wednesday:
-Father Ish made Moose Stew, it was pretty good.
-Heard that someone in the village had got a seal, went over to see if we could see the carcass, but it was already processed. We did see the fat they were turning in to oil and they had a pot of seal meat on the stove, so I got to try seal meat. It tastes like fishy beef, just like whale.

The seal we ate

The seal fat turning into oil.

Showing us his seal harpoon!

 -Then we went to the priest's house. He said that they would have church the next day and we should come.
-My teacher invited us for a steam after all our visits. People in Napaskiak don't have showers or tubs, so they take steams. People have a small shack outside their house like a sauna. They start a fire until it gets about 200*F and then you get naked, sit there and put water on the rocks while you get steamy and sweaty. So, we all wore swimsuits while my teacher was in the buff. Kinda different, I've never sweat so fast in my LIFE! haha But my skin did feel good after and I was super relaxed. My friend Kelley took a picture of a steam (before anyone got in) I'll post the picture when I get it from her.)

Thursday:
-My teacher had to take her daughter to Bethel and she asked me to sub. It went well until I was practicing ZooPhonics with the kids (I taught them because they had little phonics knowledge) so I'm teaching them and my friend Brittany is recording the lesson...

-While the teacher was gone we worked on a secret project for her....

-The Power went out in Napaskiak. (It was out for 4 days!) The school has a generator, and the teacher housing we stayed in had a generator, but it only had enough juice to power our boiler every 4 hours. We didn't think to bring flashlights, so we were trying to use our phones to navigate all night.

-We did get to babysit the neighbor's 4 week old puppies! We took them to the (only store in the village) store for a field trip because there's really nothing to do in Napaskiak when the power's out... 

Kelley, Brittany and the Pups!

There's really not much to do there.... I promise.

-So, since the power was off we assumed there was no church. FALSE. Russian Orthodox church is interesting, relics all over the place, elaborate robes for the clergy. It gets a little creepy when the power is out and the church is lit by a few candles. (Imagine something out of Harry Potter. haha) AND, there's no heat, we can see our breath and we're standing there with candles following along with the 22 page script, praising the most honorable saint Herman of Alaska. Oh, and they rang the church bell... but the only people who showed up were the priest, a decaon, 2 choir members and us 3 interns. They were like you can sing along, but it was super hard to follow! haha

The Beautiful Church Building!

-After church we locked ourselves in a closet at the school to get some homework done since we didn't have internet at our apartment or any power for that matter.

Friday:
-Still no power in Napaskiak, but school was still in session. We made Akutaq with the kids, so fun! My teacher adds a secret ingredient to hers..."Cream of cheese!" aka cream cheese. haha

The ingredients: Crisco, Sugar, Salmon (Cloud Berries), Yupik Blackberries (like a tart blueberry) and the secret ingredient...cream of cheese!

Ms. Rita, giving us instructions!

You whip the crisco with your hands until frothy, then add sugar and water until dissolved.

But only stir clockwise like Brittany

Kelley shows the mixture after your add the salmon berries

Everyone took a turn mixing

Then gently add the blackberries

The finished product! It's really not bad... but not good for you!

The crew

Eating our Akuta!

-Then we gave Ms. Rita our secret surprise... A book we made for her! "Why We Love Teacher"

The kids were so excited to give her the book and each student giggled when she read his or her page.

-Then we got to watch the school wide Yupik dance practice! All students k-6 gather in the gym while the 4th grade teacher and her husband sing and drum so the students can dance.

-Then the kids got out early while the teachers had meetings. We went home to work on our science project until our computers died and we had to go back to the school to recharge. We had no cell service, but while we were at school I could get iMessages on my phone, as soon as we walked in the school my friend Melissa messaged me saying that all the small airplanes weren't flying until Monday because of a winter storm. Since we didn't want to be stranded we ran into the gym where the whole town was watching the basketball game asking if someone could drive us across the frozen river to Bethel so we could get out.

-When we asked our hostess about the situation she confirmed that the planes wouldn't be flying and the only way we could get to Bethel was by snowmachine or truck, and the storm was too bad, no one would be going to Bethel.

-Luckily, an elder was driving back after the game, so we ran back to our apartment and packed and cleaned. In the dark, with no electricity.

The Generator keeping the heat in our apartment since there was still no power!

Everyone from the village watching the game!

-We watched the end of the game and couldn't find our ride, we were putting our gear on and our hostess came and said, your ride is leaving, he couldn't find  you, so I told him to leave! (weird right? we were there the WHOLE time!)

-Fortunately Kelley had found the guy and we got a ride to Bethel,across the frozen Kuskokwim river. beat the storm and stayed with a friend of Kelley's over night.


Saturday:
-Morning snow storm, didn't think we were going to make it, but weather cleared up, we went to a Saturday market and made our flights!

Our crew at the Bethel Cultural Center for the Saturday Market

Inside the market. I got some way cool earrings made from moose bone.

Kelley and I. Cause that's what people in Bethel look like.

Brittany wishing her name was really Erica.

Our Gracious host/rescuer Sherry!

SO glad to be on our way home!

Myspace pic for the kids. If you look closely you can see my bone earrings.

I really enjoyed Bethel and Napaskiak. Everyone was incredibly nice and welcoming. I really think if I was married I could live out there, I don't think that I could do it alone though, I'd hate to be so far from family. But the kids were great and loved us, and it was nice helping kids. I felt like I was in a 3rd world country. The kids had no pencils with erasers, we brought some UAF pencils and they cherished them. One boy even told me, "I won't chew the eraser off this one." Most kids wore the same clothes all week and they all have lice, but they loved learning and I really loved them.It was an amazing experience for me, and I'm glad I went!

Bye Western Alaska! Until Next Time!