Learning from our Elders

I had intended to post this on the day that it happened...but obviously that did not happen because I got a tad bit sidetracked, so here it is now.

During one of our teacher work days before school started, we had an absolutely AMAZING opportunity!  Our day was filled with lots of training, specifically for curriculum instruction, but after we had our break for lunch in the afternoon and were returning to our different training sessions, we were told that one of the elders wanted to speak to us.  So we all went back into the cafeteria to listen to him.

The elder is the oldest remaining elder that helped to start the school and make Chevak a one school district (as I understand it).  The entire school staff sat in the cafeteria and listened to his words of wisdom and advice for about an hour.  He actually probably only spoke for about 30 minutes or so, but he only spoke in Cup'ik, so one of the teachers from the village had to translate everything he said for us. 

The elder gave us advice about being teachers in the village and told us that this experience is going to be different from any we have ever had, and it will take time to learn just like in any other new job.  He told us that if we ever have any troubles, there is always someone to turn to for help.  He said that we are all here for the children.  He also told us that we should always remember that the students we are teaching are still just kids and we should not break their spirits.  There were several other words of wisdom that he gave, but those are the main ones that I remember.   

It was a truly amazing experience!  It was really neat to listen to him speak in Cup'ik, which is a very throaty and guttural language.  It was also neat to see how important it is to the community to listen to and respect the elders.  I have always heard that, but I have never actually witnessed it. 

Apparently, the elders of the village will come to the school quite frequently to see how things are going or to talk in different classrooms because they are very invested in the education of the children.  Already during the first week of school, when I would walk by the office I would often see one of the elders sitting by the front desk.  How cool is that?!

It was really awesome to get to see and experience that part of the culture, and to get to listen to someone who is so wise and knowledgeable.  What a unique opportunity!

Craziness!

Well, this morning I had a message on my phone from my brother saying that he was trying to find out how things were going, but he couldn't because I hadn't updated my blog.  I wanted to call him right back and say, "Excuse me, Mister.  Do you think that I have had TIME?!"......but I refrained from doing that ;)

It has just been CrAzY here the past couple of weeks.  For those of you who have been looking for updates about life in Chevak, I apologize, because I have gotten pretty behind on my posts.  The week before school started I was busy trying to get ready for school, and then when the first week of school actually got here I was busy trying to survive through it!  Well, I'm still alive (so far...hehe)!  And I am going to try my darndest to get caught up with several small(ish) posts about the last couple of weeks.  No promises that I will always be up to date...it is my first year of teaching, you know ;)

Thanks for following along! :D 

Our Apartment

Here are some pictures of our apartment!  It is a little bit plain at the moment since we don't have a lot of things hung on the walls, but we plan to make it more colorful :)

 This is the teacher housing.  There are two rows of duplexes.  Each duplex has a 3 bedroom unit and a 2 bedroom unit.  Ours is in the back row.  Supposedly our apartment is located in a spot that won't get snow drifts too bad in the winter....we'll just have to wait and see.  I'm sure there will be plenty of shoveling snow going on :)

This is our apartment unit.  Ours is the door on the right.  We are apartment 1B.  It is one of the closest apartments to the school, which will be nice in the winter months :D

 Here is our lovely welcome mat.

 This is our entryway.  Falon was baking cookies for our first teacher potluck!

 

 Our many coats hanging in the entryway.  We are going to be needing them!

 All of our muddy boots and shoes.  It's been raining a lot.

 A view of the entryway from the kitchen.

 Our laundry room!  It is wonderful to have a washer and dryer in the apartment.  

It is also currently serving as a garbage receptical until trash pick up. 

 

Here is a view of the kitchen from the entryway.  

I keep rearranging the food in the cabinets because I 

get it the way I like it and then we get more boxes of food.  

Falon has been a good sport with my random rearranging.   

A view of the kitchen from the living room.

 

A view of the kitchen table and the living room from the kitchen.

 

A view of the living room from the hallway.

 My bedroom.

A view of my bedroom from my door.

 My door and my coat hooks.

 My dresser.  I need to get some pictures in the picture frame.

 

My window.

 The view out my window.

The tundra.

 A little set of drawers in the corner of my room.

 My night stand and my laundry tub.

 My closet.

 The hallway.

 Falon's room.

 Falon's room.

 The bathroom.

The sink and medicine cabinet.   

The cup sitting on the counter is there for when 

all the water gets sucked out of the toilet (it makes a lovely noise). 

We use it to fill the toilet with water from the sink so that it will flush.

The bathroom closet.  We have a large stock of toilet paper.  Wouldn't want to run out of that!

 

 Our toilet.  Falon has named it Damien.  Apparently in the scary movie, The Omen, there is a creepy little boy whose name is Damien (I have never seen the movie).  Falon thought that it would be an appropriate name for our toilet because sometimes it sounds like it is possessed :)

 

Our shower.  We need a more cheerful curtain.

The shower head that we had at first.  Isn't it lovely? :)

 
Our new shower head that the maintenance men installed for us.  It's glorious!

A Shout Out to the Space Saver Bags

Okay, so I just have to take a moment to recognize the incredible awesomeness of space saver bags.  If you don't know what a space saver bag is, they are bags (obviously :D) that you can get from the store (I got mine from Wal-Mart) and you can use a vacuum to suck out all the air from the bag once it's sealed, so everything inside shrinks down in front of your eyes (it's seriously like magic!) and can fit into a much smaller space...such as a tub!

 As you can see, this bag does not even completely fill up the tub.  I was able to fit some more stuff on top (I think it was my mud boots and an extra pillow).

 Here is what the bag looked like out of the tub.  That was ALL of my winter gear PLUS most of my sweaters, sweatshirts, and some other bulky clothing shrunk down into a compact cube.

 This tub held all of my bedding except one pillow (which probably would have fit if I had wanted it to).  I was even able to fit one of my winter boots on top.

Here is what it looked like out of the tub.  That's (from top to bottom) 5 pillow cases, 2 extra blankets, 1 set of flannel sheets, 1 quilt, 2 pillows, and 1 green fuzzy blanket that's somewhere in there too.  That's pretty dang impressive, I say!

A Little Bit of Chevak for You

Well, my last few posts have been pretty wordy, so here are some pictures of Chevak for you.

 The view from my plane window as we flew from Bethel to Chevak.

 As you can see, the weather was a bit gross, but the flight was actually very smooth.

 This was our pilot.  He was pretty, but he was not very nice.

 This picture is a little dark, but here is Falon on her first bush plane flight.

 This is the view of the houses across the lake in Chevak.  The lake is right in front of the school and the teacher housing.  We were walking past it on our way to explore the village.

 The lake from a different direction.

 The side of the school and some of the playground.

 One of the two churches in Chevak - The Uttermost Tabernacle :)

 The blue building with the cross on it is the other church in Chevak.

 From what I hear, this red building is the old school.  I'm happy to be in the new school building.

 The front door of the school.  It is a very nice building.

 I have my very own name plate next to the door of my very own classroom!

 This is what my classroom looked like when I saw it for the first time.  

It's pretty plain, but I'm sure I can fix that ;-)  I am not the most creative person in the world, but even some posters up on the wall would make it look better.

I have made a little more progress than what you see here, but I still have a lot of work to do!  

It's a tad overwhelming...

 Those cupboards are full of stuff from the previous teacher!  I have some organizing to do!

 Well, as you can see, Falon and I had the chance to explore the village a little bit on the day after we got here.  We went to the health clinic so I could get my TB test read for my physical, we checked out one of the stores and saw a $17.00 small bag of frozen P.F. Chang's and a $15.00 jar of mayonnaise, we went to the post office and got our new PO boxes, and we went to the school and took a first look at our classrooms.  There is certainly more left for us to explore!   Everywhere we went people said hello, asked if we were new teachers, and welcomed us to Chevak.  The people here are so friendly!