The Alaskan Adventure - Volume 11 - Time Flies - New Adventures

Cold, colder and snow. I guess that’s the best way to sum up the start of the new year here. I honestly don’t even know what happened to January or if the month even took place. It went by so fast. Maybe it’s because we’re closer to the North Pole, lol.

January was a new experience in cold, but I knew that it was going to be like that coming here. We had a stretch of 13 days in a row with temperatures with wind chills between 35-50 degrees below zero. Just a short while ago we had a wind chill of -67 degrees below zero. I had to go to the post office, which is the equivalent of about two blocks away. I forgot my goggles that day. It was hard to breathe and my eyelashes and tear ducts were freezing up. Such a weird phenomenon. So needless to say, everyone in the village was laying low and trying to stay warm.

Well, as it does, the weather changed on a dime and we got our next snowstorm. It snowed and snowed for at least four days straight. It was beautiful and amazing. It was the first time in my life that I could actually enjoy it. I didn’t have to shovel or drive anywhere. I was thinking the cold was going to get to me eventually, but honestly, it becomes a part of you. You put on all your warm gear, head out, and you’re fine.

I’ve also come to learn that basketball is a staple of Mountain in the winters. Once it starts...holy cow! If you’ve ever seen Hoosiers the movie, it’s a lot like that. The village rallies around the games and people come out of the woodwork to attend. There are not only the high school teams, but also what they call City League. There are six teams in Mountain, three for the men and three for the women and the rivalries are very intense. Then you have the villages that are in ‘close’ proximity if you can call it that. They travel miles and miles on Hondas and snow machines along the Yukon, just to make it to the games.

And the fans, they’re pretty passionate too...I’ll leave it at that. It’s quite a sight to see too, as the school parking lot is filled with Hondas and snow machines. The city (village) games are a lot of fun to watch and often go until 1:00 o'clock in the morning. The high school games are a lot more mello, but the stands are still packed and the support of the village is really wonderful to see.

My health has taken a little detour over the winter as I have begun the bear hibernation, eating process. I haven't missed or skipped a meal in quite some time and ten new pounds have made their way onto my stomach. My life-long attempts to defeat pop (formerly known to me as soda in the lower-48), continue to this day. I did make it six months last spring and summer, but fell off the pop-wagon right before I moved to Mountain. With one grocery store here you would think that pop would not be that big of a thing, but it's everywhere and I swear someone in the village is sneaking it into the water supply, because I can't do without it. I did make it four days in a row a few weeks ago, and after overcoming the two days of migraine headaches I was doing pretty good and feeling strong. But...at a faculty potluck on an early release day one of my coworkers leaned over my shoulder and whispered, "Hey Matt, look. There's one Pepsi left there. You should go grab it." After a long pause, I snuck over and grabbed it. I protected it like it was one of my own, saying in my head that I would only hold it and not drink it. It sat in front of my meal for a long time. I was doing great! That Pepsi was one of the best I have ever tasted! Back to Popaholics Anonymous. One of these days...

Well even better was a brief run-in with my friend Strep Throat that put me out of work for two days with coughing that could have 'actually' awoken the bears from their hibernation. We have one small, local clinic here that services everyone in the village. If you need more serious care, you are flown to the next available town, Bethel. Anything severe, you are flown out by helicopter to Anchorage. My wonderful clinician Beth also informed me of my high blood pressure of 142 over 102. To sum it up...fat, sore throats and bad blood. Beth was a sweetheart and took very good care of me. I have to say that our clinic nurses are angels for all they do to help the villagers with their health needs.

Sadly, illness hit our whole village 'very' hard this winter. The flu and bad chest colds have spread rapidly and affected both adults and kids. For about a week and a half we had less than 50% of our kids coming to school. I had never seen anything like it in my 20 years of teaching. We had some very sick kiddos and it was really sad. Fortunately, everyone is on the mend and our numbers are pretty much back to normal now.

I'm really excited about March coming, because there are some cool events headed our way. I may have told you previously that I am the advisor for our high school group called, Natural Helpers. It is a group that helps students with the topics of suicide, Yupik traditions, serving the Elders of the village, winter safety, gun safety, bullying and serving the community in general. I'm so proud of my kids for what they do and the hard work they put in to raise money for the group. We just purchased and will be presenting emergency supplies (blankets, hand/foot warmers, socks and mittens) for our Tribal Police Officers who have countless, first responder emergencies to deal with in the village. I'm also excited about two other events. One will be 'An Afternoon With Akutaq' (A-goo-tuck). It's a day with all the middle/high school girls and their moms, aunts, grandmothers and other women from the village to make akutaq (Google it), Eskimo Ice-Cream. It will be a wonderful day to bring families together and pass down this time honored tradition. The other very exciting event will be a Caribbean Night at the Community Hall. After I was fortunate enough to go to Costa Rica for my Christmas break, I came back and thought it would be a lot of fun to have a Caribbean Night. Latin American/Reggae music, giant flags of the Caribbean hanging everywhere, games, raffles, prizes, the limbo, cake walks, food and more fun! I just keep thinking that if I'm living here and calling this my home, I want to help create things that will get people excited about the village and help make it a more fun place to work and live for everyone.

I also wanted to quickly share, what I think is a heartwarming and moving moment with one of my students. It is another one of those stories that tells me in a subtle way, that I was meant to be here. He is a young man who started the year on a very difficult note. He was a runner, leaving class and disappearing often when he was upset, he consistently acted out, disrupted the class and struggled to do little to no work for me. As the year has gone on, he has shown steady improvements and made leaps and bounds in his attitude, behavior and progress. The time getting there wasn't without challenges, but we continued to grow closer and his trust for me began to show more and more. We are studying planets right now. It is one of my favorite units to teach. We were having a quiz on the phases of the moon and he actually wanted to try to do the entire test himself. Usually I modify it a bit for him. That night when I was in my classroom correcting the quizzes, I got to his paper and he did complete the whole thing, which I was very proud of and excited to see. However, answer number 8 of 8 was not related to the phases of the moon. I came to tears. His answer to number 8 was...I love you Matt. (Speechless)

Honestly, I'm just taking this whole experience one day at a time. Sometimes 15-minutes at a time, when it is all I can handle. Day 202 of the Alaskan Adventure as I write this.

Stay tuned. More to come...