After last week's debacle, I told Donna my new last name was NeverAgain in terms of Movie Night. She agreed, and we both, being teachers, started working on ways to learn from the disaster and make it possible to host community gatherings that didn't end in cursing. A flurry of emails went out, asking why the same few people have to volunteer for everything with no help from the rest of staff, concisely worded suggestions of how to re-boot events, and blatant please for specific help doing specific tasks. These were responded to with angry words by some, the overt silent treatment by one who literally told me to my face she wasn't speaking to me, and the stepping up by many who said they never helped because they never knew there was such a need.
One major change that happened was a change in venue. Rather than show the movie on the wall of the large Commons area, this week's movie went up into the unused band room, an acoustically sound room nestled between the stage of the Commons and the stage of the gym. Another fix involved the movie itself, Jurassic World. A PG-13 movie required a signed permission slip for anyone in grades 6 and 7, and anyone 5th and younger had to not only bring their parent or guardian, that person had to stay with the student all night. No more drop and go.
To keep the numbers up, the gym stayed open past the end of the volleyball tournament (yes, before Movie Night even started there was a middle school volleyball tournament that started at 6:30) for anyone who wanted to come in and run around for the same $5 the movie goers had to pay. At the height, I heard that there were upwards of fifty people running around of all ages. It really had turned into a Community Gathering.
I was assigned a job that could have been awful or great. I was to chaperone inside the band room; making sure no one got rowdy, that kids attending with their parent stayed with their parent and vise versa, and that no electronics were used. It turned out to be a piece of cake. For the most part, everyone understood that this was not a free for all, when anyone tried to move chairs around a short "Put it back, the chairs stay where they are" was enough, though one middle school girl nearly got charged twice when it looked like she was going to refuse to take her feet off a chair. The only "trouble" all night, was the fact that this movie, like last week's was too long by about a half an hour (and why did Richie Cunningham's daughter's clothes get more skimpy and grimy as the movie went on until she looked like the ad for that Raquel Welch caveman movie from the 70s while Chris Pratt just looked slightly damp?)
I did have two middle school boys who decided it would be fun to poke the girls sitting in front of them. At least it was fun until I PBISed them by standing a few inches from their chairs on the aisle and faced them. They clearly thought I would go away after a minute or two of good behavior but I stayed there for almost twenty minutes, not moving, not looking away until one finally broke and went off mumbling something about getting a drink. His friend lasted thirty seconds before bolting after him. When they came back, they sat in the few empty seats in the front and were perfect angels after that.
At the end of the night, the seven student government members cleaned up the band room, put away all the chairs while we on staff congratulated ourselves on solving a problem. I didn't hear the final take but fifty in the gym and fifty in the band room makes for about five hundred bucks before concessions. That, added to the take from the volleyball tournament of around 100 people at $2.50 each should add up nicely. Too bad I was just there as a volunteer and not a recipient.
The only grumbling I heard was when, at literally the last minute, the AP suggested we cancel Movie Night because everyone was too tired after the volleyball games. This very thing was suggested to him last week but he turned it down. I guess the reality of how much effort goes into these events finally sank in. I expect we will have a lively discussion about this next week too, but at least it's coming off a win.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
The Tea Station
A few years ago, I subbed for a 6th grader
teacher on paternity leave after the birth of his twin sons. In his room, he had a tea station set up for
anyone who wanted to use it. Students
brought their own cups from home and were free to make a cuppa anytime. Rather than being a messy pain in the neck,
it was a great way for restless students to take a few minutes to relax away
from their desks, get their extra wiggles out and usually did better work when
they sat down with their steaming mug. I
never once saw any student take advantage of the tea station to avoid work, and
only once did I have to suggest that a girl replace the honey from the honey
bear when she used up nearly all of it in a single day. She did, but grudgingly. And this was at a school where money was no
object, at least not for her family.
I always thought this was a great idea. So, when I saw on Amazon’s Daily Deal a hot
water kettle for 58% off, I jumped at the chance to try a tea station in my
classroom. My students were very
enthusiastic when I explained to them the concept, to the point I kind of
wished I hadn’t mentioned it to them until the kettle came because it was a
month of at least one person asking me “Where is our tea set?” every day.
Once it arrived, I set it up in a corner of the classroom
with a tray for cups, a bowl for discarded tea bags and a donation box. I told kids they were not obligated to donate
either tea or money but it would help if they did. Everyone is limited to two tea bags per day,
are not allowed to bring tea bags for only their use, and only one person can
be at the tea station at a time.
I asked them to bring either .25 cents or 5 decaf tea bags
per week, if they could. I think it’s
important that they have ownership of the tea station and not just have
everything handed to them on a silver platter.
It makes me happy that none of them have teased or pressured their
classmates into donating to the tea station but boy they sure notice if someone
tries to use more than two tea bags in a day!
The other rule that I changed from Mr. Tabshy’s room is that
no sugar or sweetners of any kind are allowed in the classroom. No sugar packets or honey or agave. I want to try in a small way to wean these
kids away from processed sugar. They eat
healthy when the food is something they picked or caught themselves, with the
exception of Eskimo ice cream, berries with sugar and Crisco frozen into a
gooey treat. But they make up for it
with tons of sugar from the local grocery stores. Candy is expensive but everywhere, as are
soda and energy drinks. My students know
that if they want to eat a snack in my room, they have to show me the wrapper to
prove it’s healthy. Same with drinks;
water only unless it’s tea from our tea station. Just today I heard a student explain it to a
visitor, “She’s a health teacher, duh.”
In just a week, students who took advantage of the tea
station went from hating green tea for its lack of sweetness to appreciating it
(somewhat). Black tea is a hit, and I
think there would be a standing ovation if I brought in a box of Red Rose, the
most familiar brand. This week I brought
in some peach tea and the room smelled delicious.
The obvious side effect of all this tea drinking is an
increase in trips to the bathrooms. But in
my case, it is right down a short empty hallway so it hasn’t been too much of a
problem. One student who used to use
bathroom trips to get out of doing work, or just because he was bored, has been
getting more work done than ever because he only goes now when he really has
the physical need.
All in all, I am very pleased with the tea station and hope
it lasts all year. In the meantime, I’ll
just sit back with a cup of Earl Grey and bask in the silence. And a drop from my little honey bears.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Movie Night
A few nights of every term, Open Gym is set aside in favor of Movie Night. This is one of the only times the Student Store is opened, a version of a concessions stand with handmade cotton candy, fresh popcorn, canned soda, chips and many many kinds of candy. It is a quick, relatively easy money maker, if you are running the Store and have any kind of retail experience.
For those of us helping in other areas, it can be more challenging. All of the proceeds go toward Student Government and the Prom, so only the Secondary teachers work Movie Night. But I had nothing better to do so I wandered over after dinner to lend a hand. The two female teachers were running the concessions stand, the two male teachers were collecting money, though why it took both of them to do this is beyond me. One was much more needed to help me oversee the fifty or so kids from the lower grades and their even younger siblings who were literally running wild in the viewing area in the school's Commons, the main open space that multi-purposes as a breakfast/lunch room, meeting place for the entire community, where we had our potluck last month.
Most of the kids made it to the school on their own (it was still light at 7:30 when they walked the 3 miles from downtown), or were dropped off by parents with a handful of money. The older the child, the more still the child. If one had a phone, there would be a few comrades clustered around, watching a game or YouTube or whatever keeps kids of all cultures busy in the internet these days. This added up to about a dozen students. The rest were, in no particular order, running aimlessly, moving chairs around, sliding on the slick floor in their stockinged feet, jumping off the stage, chasing each other, climbing on anything that looked remotely stable and basically acting like unsupervised kids in a big open space with time to kill.
I, foolishly, thought that once the movie started, things would settle down; kids would watch the movie seated in their chairs or sprawled on the carpeted stage. But nothing changed from the pre-movie activity to the during-the-movie activity. In desperation, I started a game with a group of little kids that revolved around my pretending to be holding a balloon that I would then hand to one of them, he or she would hand it back and I would act as though it weighed fifty pounds or as if it was lifting me off the ground. My tippytoes got a workout last night, as my calves will tell you this morning. One second grader named Nikolas* added to the game by describing the balloons whenever he would "hand" one to me. "This one is Mickey Mouse" or "this one is a rainbow" he would say with a big toothy grin. I pulled out every mime skill I had, and some I never knew I had and clowned for these kids for nearly an hour before someone across the room bumped the projector, shorting out the movie. While Brian the Math teacher got it back running, Donna the Science teacher came out of the store to bellow at the kids to sit down, stop running around, be quiet and watch the movie. They did.
The calm lasted for about three minutes, then all the same kids were back at it. Now, all throughout the evening, and my time as Mandy the Mime, I was also keeping watch on the bathrooms. Through the open doorways, I could see the sink lines in both gender's rooms. I am pretty sure some older girls, high schoolers, were doing something illicit but whenever I wandered in to try to catch them in the act, all I saw was a mighty struggle to insert contact lenses. Is there some kind of new way to get high with contact lens solution? But my time with the little kids was well spent, as they are all little informers at heart and any time they knew someone was up to no good, their first stop was to tell me and accompany me as I went in to check, under the guise of washing my hands.
So, now my time was split between keeping kids from getting hurt and hurting others and hurting the school. The movie chosen for the evening was "Tomorrowland" a movie so long and boring it explained why the audience was so restless. But around 9:30, the dark was pierced by the bright flash of headlights as 4 wheelers and cars came to extract their over-excited, sugared up kids. When the movie finally ended, only ten or so people remained. Cleanup was easy, and home I went but not before learning that nearly 500 bucks came in, and that this was the first time the Secondary team could remember an Elementary teacher coming over to help. The thanks I got was sincere and, while my immediate "Oh hell no" to the invitation to come back next week for "Jurassic World", I know they understood it wasn't because I don't want to help out but that I had earned a pass.
It occurred to me, as I listened to Donna yell at the kids, that the reason these kids don't know how to behave in a movie is that, literally, they have never been in a movie theater. They have never known the anticipation of waiting in the red room with the red curtain, for the curtain to close on the trailers and open again for the Feature Presentation. They've never acted along with the pre-show roller coaster. They have never sat in a fully dark room to watch a movie with a hundred other people. No one has ever shushed them during the climatic scene or felt the twinge of fear that they might get kicked out for singing along with "West Side Story" when it played at the Neptune. They didn't know how to behave at a movie, because they've never been to a movie. This insight really helped me give all those kids a break. But I'm still not volunteering next week.
For those of us helping in other areas, it can be more challenging. All of the proceeds go toward Student Government and the Prom, so only the Secondary teachers work Movie Night. But I had nothing better to do so I wandered over after dinner to lend a hand. The two female teachers were running the concessions stand, the two male teachers were collecting money, though why it took both of them to do this is beyond me. One was much more needed to help me oversee the fifty or so kids from the lower grades and their even younger siblings who were literally running wild in the viewing area in the school's Commons, the main open space that multi-purposes as a breakfast/lunch room, meeting place for the entire community, where we had our potluck last month.
Most of the kids made it to the school on their own (it was still light at 7:30 when they walked the 3 miles from downtown), or were dropped off by parents with a handful of money. The older the child, the more still the child. If one had a phone, there would be a few comrades clustered around, watching a game or YouTube or whatever keeps kids of all cultures busy in the internet these days. This added up to about a dozen students. The rest were, in no particular order, running aimlessly, moving chairs around, sliding on the slick floor in their stockinged feet, jumping off the stage, chasing each other, climbing on anything that looked remotely stable and basically acting like unsupervised kids in a big open space with time to kill.
I, foolishly, thought that once the movie started, things would settle down; kids would watch the movie seated in their chairs or sprawled on the carpeted stage. But nothing changed from the pre-movie activity to the during-the-movie activity. In desperation, I started a game with a group of little kids that revolved around my pretending to be holding a balloon that I would then hand to one of them, he or she would hand it back and I would act as though it weighed fifty pounds or as if it was lifting me off the ground. My tippytoes got a workout last night, as my calves will tell you this morning. One second grader named Nikolas* added to the game by describing the balloons whenever he would "hand" one to me. "This one is Mickey Mouse" or "this one is a rainbow" he would say with a big toothy grin. I pulled out every mime skill I had, and some I never knew I had and clowned for these kids for nearly an hour before someone across the room bumped the projector, shorting out the movie. While Brian the Math teacher got it back running, Donna the Science teacher came out of the store to bellow at the kids to sit down, stop running around, be quiet and watch the movie. They did.
The calm lasted for about three minutes, then all the same kids were back at it. Now, all throughout the evening, and my time as Mandy the Mime, I was also keeping watch on the bathrooms. Through the open doorways, I could see the sink lines in both gender's rooms. I am pretty sure some older girls, high schoolers, were doing something illicit but whenever I wandered in to try to catch them in the act, all I saw was a mighty struggle to insert contact lenses. Is there some kind of new way to get high with contact lens solution? But my time with the little kids was well spent, as they are all little informers at heart and any time they knew someone was up to no good, their first stop was to tell me and accompany me as I went in to check, under the guise of washing my hands.
So, now my time was split between keeping kids from getting hurt and hurting others and hurting the school. The movie chosen for the evening was "Tomorrowland" a movie so long and boring it explained why the audience was so restless. But around 9:30, the dark was pierced by the bright flash of headlights as 4 wheelers and cars came to extract their over-excited, sugared up kids. When the movie finally ended, only ten or so people remained. Cleanup was easy, and home I went but not before learning that nearly 500 bucks came in, and that this was the first time the Secondary team could remember an Elementary teacher coming over to help. The thanks I got was sincere and, while my immediate "Oh hell no" to the invitation to come back next week for "Jurassic World", I know they understood it wasn't because I don't want to help out but that I had earned a pass.
It occurred to me, as I listened to Donna yell at the kids, that the reason these kids don't know how to behave in a movie is that, literally, they have never been in a movie theater. They have never known the anticipation of waiting in the red room with the red curtain, for the curtain to close on the trailers and open again for the Feature Presentation. They've never acted along with the pre-show roller coaster. They have never sat in a fully dark room to watch a movie with a hundred other people. No one has ever shushed them during the climatic scene or felt the twinge of fear that they might get kicked out for singing along with "West Side Story" when it played at the Neptune. They didn't know how to behave at a movie, because they've never been to a movie. This insight really helped me give all those kids a break. But I'm still not volunteering next week.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
The Liquor Question
There are three kinds of towns in Alaska: wet, damp and dry. Wet means anyone over the age of 21 can buy alcohol in stores, bars, restaurants. Damp means people over the age of 21 can possess but not buy alcohol anywhere within the town. Dry means possession by anyone of any kind of alcohol is illegal. The reasons for this are many and varied and simple: alcoholism is a huge problem in Alaska. It is genetic, generational and historic.
Togiak is a dry village so no relaxing beer at the end of the day, no chilled white wine spritzer at potlucks, no teacher bar to do shots after a difficult day to vent with other teachers about how we hate our jobs, our students, our lives.
Drugs are also a huge problem in Togiak, due to many of the same factors. I do not know a single kid here who has not been affected negatively by drugs, partly due to the fact that everyone is someone's cousin here. But between the lack of economic opportunity, poor education and plain old boredom, addiction is part of life.
Marijuana is now legal in Alaska to those over 21 for recreational use, but smokers here are not usually that old. Where they get it, I have no idea but at this time, it is ubiquitous and unregulated. I don't know if there is an official prohibition on the books yet, but I imagine there will be soon enough.
I had a beer the day before I left Oregon. The only alcohol I have had since then was in the mouth wash I keep in my desk for days I have salmon for lunch. It burned like the first time I ever tried Irish whiskey. Minty fire. I suddenly realized that I could probably be fired for having this travel size bottle in, not just my desk at school, but in my possession at all. They literally put people in the village jail when caught with alcohol.
I remembered seeing at the store a bottle of vanilla extract, behind the register next to a bottle of hand sanitizer. I didn't think about it at the time but I wonder now if there is some kind of formal registration one has to sign when purchasing these items. Like with Sudafed in Oregon. Here, I can't even buy Nyquil from Amazon; it brings up a prohibited message.
My students always always always ask before using the hand sanitizer bottle that was in my classroom before I got there. These are the kids who help themselves to everything in the room: pencils, tape, liquid paper all had to be locked in my desk drawers after the first week when we went through so many supplies I feared we would run out by October. But they respect the alcohol content in hand sanitizer. Now my job is to teach them that alcohol isn't the problem, alcoholism is.
And that there is so much more to it than that.
Togiak is a dry village so no relaxing beer at the end of the day, no chilled white wine spritzer at potlucks, no teacher bar to do shots after a difficult day to vent with other teachers about how we hate our jobs, our students, our lives.
Drugs are also a huge problem in Togiak, due to many of the same factors. I do not know a single kid here who has not been affected negatively by drugs, partly due to the fact that everyone is someone's cousin here. But between the lack of economic opportunity, poor education and plain old boredom, addiction is part of life.
Marijuana is now legal in Alaska to those over 21 for recreational use, but smokers here are not usually that old. Where they get it, I have no idea but at this time, it is ubiquitous and unregulated. I don't know if there is an official prohibition on the books yet, but I imagine there will be soon enough.
I had a beer the day before I left Oregon. The only alcohol I have had since then was in the mouth wash I keep in my desk for days I have salmon for lunch. It burned like the first time I ever tried Irish whiskey. Minty fire. I suddenly realized that I could probably be fired for having this travel size bottle in, not just my desk at school, but in my possession at all. They literally put people in the village jail when caught with alcohol.
I remembered seeing at the store a bottle of vanilla extract, behind the register next to a bottle of hand sanitizer. I didn't think about it at the time but I wonder now if there is some kind of formal registration one has to sign when purchasing these items. Like with Sudafed in Oregon. Here, I can't even buy Nyquil from Amazon; it brings up a prohibited message.
My students always always always ask before using the hand sanitizer bottle that was in my classroom before I got there. These are the kids who help themselves to everything in the room: pencils, tape, liquid paper all had to be locked in my desk drawers after the first week when we went through so many supplies I feared we would run out by October. But they respect the alcohol content in hand sanitizer. Now my job is to teach them that alcohol isn't the problem, alcoholism is.
And that there is so much more to it than that.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
The Potluck
The all community potluck was billed as The New Teacher Welcoming Potluck, and the whole town was anticipated to attend. I pondered what to bring. Potato salad, the food of my people? Cake made with old bananas for something sweet? In the end, I chose a kind of made-up succotash of canned black beans, canned corn and canned red peppers. The red peppers made it flashy and it actually wasn't too bad, alongside the variations of salmon brought by the others. I don't know if people liked it but it was all gone when I left so it can't have been too bad.
There were two kinds of baked salmon, dried salmon skin that was crunchy good, and a bowl filled with strips about half an inch wide by 3 or 4 inches long of cured smoked salmon. The kind of smoked salmon that in an average Safeway store in Portland sells for nearly twenty dollars per pound. This was in a huge wooden bowl, clearly hand carved, with a diameter of about two feet. It was amazing and reminded me of the salmon my grandpa would bring over every once in a while when I was a kid.
There was also rice, boiled and roasted potatoes, things made with local cranberries including a lovely vibrant pink pudding kind of thing, dozens of baked cookies and bars, and moose stew. Finally, I had a chance to try moose! I am delighted to report that it was delicious. Much like beef in consistency and flavor but just more meaty tasting. Very rich indeed. I am glad I only took a small bit because I am sure it would have caused much more intestinal distress the next day than the slight inconvenience I experienced.
There was a local band from the church playing country songs and before we ate, a woman whose name I never did hear gave a long speech to welcome, not the new teachers, but all the regional tribal elders and leaders who had completed their final day of regularly scheduled tribal council meetings. There were visitors from all the villages around us and many of the names echoed those of my students. Then a man said a long prayer in Yupik, the only thing I recognized was "Quyana Jesu" which means "Thank you Jesus." I didn't understand the words he said but the meaning was clear, and it reinforced my desire to learn Yupik, a language of many consonants and sshhhhh sounds.
Although I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone, this time I did sit with the other new teachers. I was surprised that none of the teachers, new and old, wanted to go to the potluck, and many left as soon as they wolfed down their food. I didn't see why they showed up at all if they knew they were going to leave 20 minutes into a 2 hour affair. I hung around and was delighted that at the end of the eating portion, there was a kind of local karaoke. As the band played, women went up front to sing various Yupik and gospel songs, including my former para-professional aid, Frieda. I teased her a few days later about knowing her all that time and never knowing she was a singer! She raised her eyebrows and beamed back at me, "Oh yes, there is a lot of singing we do. But mostly at church." Maybe if I ever get a vehicle here, I can join the church choir, something that definitely is out of my comfort zone in Portland, even though it is only a half block walk away.
As I sat listening to the singing, the light broke through the clouds and made the view from the Commons so incredibly beautiful, I tried to point it out to anyone who would listen. But my fellow teachers hardly noticed and the villagers just shrugged, their way of saying "Yeah, so what? We know it's beautiful here." I wished with half a heart that I had brought my phone but there is no camera good enough to capture what I saw.
Toward the end of the evening, a few of the elders got up to make more speeches. This time I was lucky enough to have a very kind woman sitting next to me who whispered what the people were saying. One very elderly woman told of how she was widowed early in her life but knew her husband was always with her, and how she wished the community would find better ways to combat the drugs and alcohol problems in the area and how sad she was that so many children don't speak Yupik any more. All the while she was saying this, about a dozen kids from toddler age to 10 years old were running around making quite a lot of noise with no one supervising them. When a little one bonked her head and wailed, then one of the women went over and scolded the little ones and read them the Yupik Riot Act because they all hurried back to their chairs and sat quietly from then on. I sure wish I had a translation of that!
When it was at last time to go, Emma, the woman who had been translating for me, told me that since the woman who is supposed to be my Cultural Mentor for the class I am taking is unable to fit me into her busy schedule, she (Emma) was possibly going to take up the task. She told me I was free to visit her anytime, that hers is the blue house up the hill and she would talk to my teacher about it. I sure hope this happens because I like Emma and felt we were on the same page that I am just a nice White lady who wants to learn about the people with whom I now live. Quyana Jesu!
There were two kinds of baked salmon, dried salmon skin that was crunchy good, and a bowl filled with strips about half an inch wide by 3 or 4 inches long of cured smoked salmon. The kind of smoked salmon that in an average Safeway store in Portland sells for nearly twenty dollars per pound. This was in a huge wooden bowl, clearly hand carved, with a diameter of about two feet. It was amazing and reminded me of the salmon my grandpa would bring over every once in a while when I was a kid.
There was also rice, boiled and roasted potatoes, things made with local cranberries including a lovely vibrant pink pudding kind of thing, dozens of baked cookies and bars, and moose stew. Finally, I had a chance to try moose! I am delighted to report that it was delicious. Much like beef in consistency and flavor but just more meaty tasting. Very rich indeed. I am glad I only took a small bit because I am sure it would have caused much more intestinal distress the next day than the slight inconvenience I experienced.
There was a local band from the church playing country songs and before we ate, a woman whose name I never did hear gave a long speech to welcome, not the new teachers, but all the regional tribal elders and leaders who had completed their final day of regularly scheduled tribal council meetings. There were visitors from all the villages around us and many of the names echoed those of my students. Then a man said a long prayer in Yupik, the only thing I recognized was "Quyana Jesu" which means "Thank you Jesus." I didn't understand the words he said but the meaning was clear, and it reinforced my desire to learn Yupik, a language of many consonants and sshhhhh sounds.
Although I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone, this time I did sit with the other new teachers. I was surprised that none of the teachers, new and old, wanted to go to the potluck, and many left as soon as they wolfed down their food. I didn't see why they showed up at all if they knew they were going to leave 20 minutes into a 2 hour affair. I hung around and was delighted that at the end of the eating portion, there was a kind of local karaoke. As the band played, women went up front to sing various Yupik and gospel songs, including my former para-professional aid, Frieda. I teased her a few days later about knowing her all that time and never knowing she was a singer! She raised her eyebrows and beamed back at me, "Oh yes, there is a lot of singing we do. But mostly at church." Maybe if I ever get a vehicle here, I can join the church choir, something that definitely is out of my comfort zone in Portland, even though it is only a half block walk away.
As I sat listening to the singing, the light broke through the clouds and made the view from the Commons so incredibly beautiful, I tried to point it out to anyone who would listen. But my fellow teachers hardly noticed and the villagers just shrugged, their way of saying "Yeah, so what? We know it's beautiful here." I wished with half a heart that I had brought my phone but there is no camera good enough to capture what I saw.
Toward the end of the evening, a few of the elders got up to make more speeches. This time I was lucky enough to have a very kind woman sitting next to me who whispered what the people were saying. One very elderly woman told of how she was widowed early in her life but knew her husband was always with her, and how she wished the community would find better ways to combat the drugs and alcohol problems in the area and how sad she was that so many children don't speak Yupik any more. All the while she was saying this, about a dozen kids from toddler age to 10 years old were running around making quite a lot of noise with no one supervising them. When a little one bonked her head and wailed, then one of the women went over and scolded the little ones and read them the Yupik Riot Act because they all hurried back to their chairs and sat quietly from then on. I sure wish I had a translation of that!
When it was at last time to go, Emma, the woman who had been translating for me, told me that since the woman who is supposed to be my Cultural Mentor for the class I am taking is unable to fit me into her busy schedule, she (Emma) was possibly going to take up the task. She told me I was free to visit her anytime, that hers is the blue house up the hill and she would talk to my teacher about it. I sure hope this happens because I like Emma and felt we were on the same page that I am just a nice White lady who wants to learn about the people with whom I now live. Quyana Jesu!
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