Teach Alaska: Wow… just wow!

Hello all,

It's been an eventful last two days. I don't know how I already did so much in such little time, but it's been amazing.

Yesterday I finally slept in, which felt great. It was rainy and dreary all day but we had a bit of excitement because of the new teacher in town. I drove to the airport to pic her up and she's very nice. Some of the kids helped me carry her belongings into the housing unit, she got settled and I went to Mark's house for a visit.

I had more kids over yesterday too. It was a girls night at my house, so we colored and played with sand. We pulled out some games to play with as well. I took it easy for the night and went to bed at a reasonable hour. (not like right now, where I'm wide awake and the sun is shining bright at 11:00 pm).

I woke up this morning to a text from my mother asking what kind of curtains I wanted for me room since the sun has been keeping me awake at night and in the morning as well. I got up, made myself some pancakes, showered and headed to town for the day. hah I say that like it's so far away. What I mean is I went down the dirt road to the post office where I picked up 7 boxes from Gary the postman and fit them all on my 4wheeler. I made bets with Bill (bubba's dad) on how many would fall off during my ride home. He guessed 2 and only 1 fell off! I can't believe how much you can fit on an ATV. Or what they can go through and climb over ! It's unbelievable. I was taking that thing across piles of drift wood on the beach today.. didn't even blink.. it's nuts!

Anyway, I had to figure out how to get gas today. It was a real conundrum ! I went to the store, asked to buy gas (3 gallons) and paid for it there. Gas is 5.75 per gallon here and you have to pay for it first, take the receipt up to the tank farm (across town) and there has to be someone from the store there to pump it for you. If there is no one there you have to wait for the period of time in which they are there. So I asked the store clerk "what time can I get gas?" he says, " until 10". It's 9:52… .. … I better hurry!

I dropped my packages off at my house, zoomed up to the tank farm, the guy put my gas in and I was good to go. Mission accomplished!

I had some kids over this morning too. They came for a short period of time, lots of little ones. I love when they visit, but I also love when they leave. My apartment is so small it's hard to have that many kids in here and if I let one in then I have to let the rest in. Just doesn't seem fair not too. Anyway, Mark and I decided to go fishing right after the kids left (I think). The days are all running together now. We drove out to Iron Creek again and I fished for a while and Mark worked on building his fish drying hut called a daluzvig. People who catch fish out at Iron Creek and other places have these so that they can dry their fish out there. Sometimes they have to worry about bears breaking in or even people who try to steal their hundreds of fish. Which I learned today takes some very hard work and dedication.

I didn't catch any fish (AGAIN) and froze my buns off .. so I took selfies and horsed around with Mark for a bit. After a while I headed back to town somewhat hoping I'd see a giant bear on my way down the road. I then realized that if I did there was no one with me and I would probably have freaked out hahaha … they would have heard me coming anyway and ran away!

I took a nap … ate dinner and got ready to go out fishing at Moses Point. Moses Point is farther away than Iron Creek but totally worth it. The sun finally came out this afternoon and it was surprisingly a very nice and warm night to head out fishing. I took the new teacher with me. She had never been on a 4wheeler before and I was a littler nervous that she may not like it. I had to give her some Sh*t because she was probably the first person in the history of all people to bring a purse to Moses Point. lol

The ride there was beautiful of course and you can take the beach most of the way which is also nice. I kept think of Zarling and Evander when I was riding. Thinking "man E would just love the crap out of this!" hahah

I fished for a while, got nothing and hung out with the kids in the sun for a while. Mark starting fishing with my rod and of course he got a silver. He gave it away to Oscar and Joyce. We took off from there, rode back to Iron Creek and saw Sandra, Carl, Susan and their parents and kids cutting fish. They had a few chums in the bucket and Carl says to me "Hey Sammy, you wanna learn how to cut fish with an ulu?" "Sandra teach you." So… Yep… Yep I had to say Yep.

It was very cool, learning how to cut fish the way that eskimos have been doing it for years. Mark of course is an expert so I'm sure he had a good laugh at me. At one point I opened up the belly and saw these giant white things in there. Mark says "those are the sperm" I immediately think he's joking .. but for real, it was a male fish and it's sperm sacks or whatever were right there.. and I was touching them. hahaha The cutting was pretty difficult and I found it amazing that they were so accomplished at it. Sandra cut hers so fast and I just had fun throwing the extras into the river haha.

Well, I'm off to sleep. Crazy adventures make your tired. I'm going out fishing straight away tomorrow and plan to catch me some silvers!

love you all and thanks for reading,
Tons of pictures to post.

Sammy

mark's fish drying hut