Settling In & the Start of School

Nathaniel and I haven't had a chance to really sit down since we've been here.  We had meetings, more meetings, and then more meetings last week for new teacher orientation.  School started on Thursday and here we are on our first lazy weekend, still unpacking and settling into our house.

Let me give you a tour of our house:

 Our house is the middle one.  This is one section of teacher housing.

This is our arctic entry way where we leave our muddy boots.  We also have a deep freeze in there.

 

 Our back porch.  We don't use it because there is a 3 inch gap between the house and the platform.  The ground shifts a lot.  I think it's shifting away from the house.

  

Nathaniel climbing over the sewage pipe.  We usually go around and use the boardwalk to get home. 

This is where we drop off our trash.

Another section of teacher housing which are newer, nicer, and cleaner.  The teachers living in these have been here at least 3 years.

The house across the road from ours.  The building on the left is called a "burn-out."  (a house that caught on fire)  They demolish burn-out houses, but this one had a major power line in it, so they just decided to leave it.

Care packages.  HOORAY!  I was very excited because homesickness was starting to hit me.  Thanks Mom, Dad, David, Amy, and the Neuschwander's.  It felt like Christmas!

Most of the boxes unpacked....

Gas stove.

Monster flies!  Here they call them "gevaks."  The best part about them is that they are fat and slow, so they're not hard to kill.

Kitchen

 

Our refrigerator filled with faces.

Pantry... I don't think that will last us all year.  We are going to order more food on amazon.com and through an Alaskan Bush Order.

 Living room:

Waiting on a projector.  We won't have television unless we want to pay a ridiculous amount to install a dish.  So instead we are going to hang a sheet of white vinyl on the back wall for a movie screen. 

 

The first spare room.  We're using it for box storage.

The second spare room.  We are using it for an office/craft room.

 Bathroom... very retro.

 Master bedroom.

That laptop is sitting in the EXACT spot and ONLY place in our house that can pick up wifi.  Can you guess where I am sitting right now?

After the first day of school, we went with some teachers to eat at THE Yukon Cafe.  THE meaning it is the only restaurant in the village.

Me and Culea

 Should we sit at table 1 or table 2?

The menu. 

I had a chicken bacon ranch sandwich, mozzarella sticks, and a vanilla milkshake.  So good!!!

 

The muddy playground.

 

One evening I went on a walk to the docks (Yukon River) with a teaching couple, their little boy, and dog Cornelius.

 It usually rains for a short time every couple of hours, so the clouds always look awesome.

 Cornelius playing in puddles.

We walked through the dump to get to the docks.

Trash burning

At the docks

Muck boots are essential.

Low tide

 Cornelius playing in the Yukon River.

 Fields on the path to the docks.

 

 Pretty flowers near the dump.

driftwood

The river bank is constantly eroding.

Me and Cornelius in the Yukon River.

Sunset and the moon.

The next night Nathaniel and I walked to the docks and the river was high tide.

Sinkhole below

Another deep sinkhole at the docks.

We worked really hard cleaning up our classrooms in 2 days time for the first day of school.

Nathaniel's Reading classroom before...

 After hours and hours of alphabetizing, cleaning, and organizing books...

Here's my Writing classroom:

On Saturday we went to our first Eskimo Dance.  The dance was a memorial celebration honoring the passing of a woman in the village.

 Me and my youngest Cross Country girl.

 The kids teaching me how to use my iPhone.  "You've had it for 2 weeks and still don't know how to use it," they teased me.

Waiting for the dances to start.

I look the other way and this is what happens.

A girl showing off the handmade fans that her grandmother made that are used for dancing.

The Elders of the village starting off with the first dance.  Three men in the back beat on the drums, and the dancer used fans, or wore gloves.

My student holding her baby niece.

Kids doing one of the dances.  A little toddler boy on the floor wanted to join the big kids.

 Here's a short clip from one of the dances.

It was hard to watch the dance with this cute little girl prancing around in her pink tutu skirt and bottle of milk.

Culea got her hair done by this funny guy.

 Me and my new friend.  We're the same age and she is a substitute teacher at the school.

 

Culea and Zoey busting a move.

parking lot

After the Eskimo Dance, I went home and made cookies like a good wife should.  But really I was making them for the school maintenance guys who hauled in 3 different refrigerators to our house until we found one that worked.

 Moose mugs from David and Amy.

We are finally settled in our house and classrooms.  Let the lesson planning continue!