We're Here!

Well, Falon and I made it to Chevak, and it's been an adventure already...

Monday morning I woke up to the alarm clock in the bathroom going off an hour and a half before I had planned to get up.  I got out of bed and turned it off and then tried to go back to sleep, but mostly just ended up laying there worrying about things until I finally fell back to sleep... and then it was time to wake up again.  So I got up, got dressed, and finished some final packing.  My mom had packed up an ice chest with some moose and fish along with some other frozen foods.  We loaded up the car and headed into Anchorage.

When we got to the airport I checked in, handed over my luggage, and then we met up with Falon and her mom.  We chatted for a little bit about our morning and then gave hugs, said, "See you later" to our parents (which was hard), and went through security.  It was definitely a little bittersweet.  I knew that I was going to my new job and a new adventure, but it was hard to say goodbye (even though it's just see you later! :D) to all of my family and friends for a whole school year (well, until Christmas).  Going through the security line was kind of when it majorly set in that I wasn't just leaving to go to college for a few months, but I was actually going out to the bush to teach for my first year....yikes!  Once we got through security, it was kind of like...okay, here we go.

Our first flight was to Bethel.  It was a regular sized plane, but the entire front half was all for luggage, so we were seated in the back half of the plane.  Falon was seated next to a French guy (who was not too shabby looking :D) and apparently he fell asleep with his arm on her leg.  She wasn't too terribly upset by it...hehe.  We both slept for most of the flight, but it was only just over an hour, so it wasn't long.  When we got to Bethel, we got off the plane and walked into a smaller airport than I was expecting.  I thought that because Bethel is sort of a hub for flying to other villages and small towns in Alaska, that it would be a bigger airport (or at least big for a village) with more than one terminal...apparently that's not exactly how it works.  There were quite a lot of people in there and not a lot of space.  We waited by the small baggage claim belt (the one and only in the airport) and watched for our things.  We had more than we could carry by ourselves (2 ice chests, 1 tub, 1 small suitcase of food, plus the backpacks we already had on), so we got a dolly.  We waited for some people to clear out first before we stepped forward to grab our things off the belt and stacked them on the dolly. 

Once we had all of our luggage, we weren't sure where we were supposed to go.  We went up to the only counter in the airport and talked to the lady that was there.  We found out that the airport building we were in was for Alaska Airlines only, and we had to wait for a shuttle van to come and pick us and our stuff up and take us to the Era/Hageland airport.  So we pushed our dolly with our stuff out onto the sidewalk where it was windy, cold, and raining.  The van that we were looking for was out there, but the guy had to come back for us because the van was already full.  It wasn't a long wait, but we were getting kind of cold standing out there with our stuff in the rain, so we were happy to see the van pull up again.

The airport that we needed to get to was not far from the one we arrived in at all.  It was maybe a minute or two down the road.  The man that was driving the van was very nice and friendly, asking us where we were from and if we were teachers.  He seemed surprised to hear that we were from Alaska, because he's so used to bush teachers being from outside.  He was listening to some interesting music for a man of his age, though...I think we heard the end of a Lady Gaga song and the beginning of a rap song while we were in the van...maybe that's the only radio station he had the option of listening to, who knows.  It was just kind of funny.  If you had asked me, I would not have put that man with that kind of music.

When we got to the airport, the man driving the van helped us to unload our stuff and take it inside.  We checked in at the desk and weighed and checked our luggage.  So far it sounds like a fairly normal airport, right?  But let me put things into a little better perspective for you...  This airport is probably about the size of a gas station.  At this airport you only have to tell them your name when you check in because they have it on a list.  We didn't have to show them ID and we were never given a ticket for the flight.  We also never had to go through any kind of security - no metal detectors, no pat downs (thank goodness).  You have to tell them how much you weigh because the planes are small and there is a maximum weight limit.  The baggage claim in this airport was a small metal ramp.  The workers would open a big door and slide the suitcases, boxes, ice chests, etc. down the ramp onto the floor.  When it's time for your flight to "board", they announce it over the speaker, saying something like "the flight to Chevak is about to leave, would the passengers please meet the pilot at the door."  Then the pilot flying your plane stands at the door and does a roll call of all of the people on his list that are supposed to be on the plane.  When he has made sure that everyone is accounted for, you follow him out to the plane.

Now I was pretty well prepared for what the airport and travel experience was going to be like for the most part because of the opportunity I had to substitute teach in the village of Perryville, Alaska last October (you can read about it here), but Falon really didn't know what to expect.  I tried to remember this while we were traveling to Chevak so that I could reassure her, but I'm not sure I did a very good job.  One of the first things out of my mouth when we stepped out into the wind and the rain in Bethel was, "Well this isn't going to be very fun to fly in."  How stupid of me.  Falon had never flown on a bush plane and was kind of nervous about it.  Sometimes I need to think before I speak.  She probably should have given me a swift kick in the pants for that comment ;-)

Anyhow, our flight actually went really well even though the weather was icky.  There were 10 people on the plane, including the pilot, so it was a fairly small plane, but not as small as it could have been :)  It really wasn't a bumpy plane ride at all, which was good.  It took about an hour to get from Bethel to Chevak.

Once we arrived in Chevak we were immediately greeted by the principal and his wife as soon as we got off the plane.  They helped us get our things off the plane and loaded into the back of the school truck.  They were very friendly and welcoming and definitely made it a good arrival for us into Chevak.

The principal drove us past the school and to our apartment, explaining things about the village and where things were as he drove.  He gave us our keys, made sure we got into our apartment alright and that everything looked satisfactory, and left us to unpack our things that had already been delivered and left in our kitchen (thank you, Chevak school maintenance!).  I had 3 of my 7 tubs and Falon had 7 of her 8 tubs, so we knew that we were going to be missing some things, but we just didn't know what we would be missing yet. 

Falon and I checked out the apartment first.  I have to say, it's pretty nice.  Of course our shower is a pipe sticking out of the wall with no shower head and the toilet makes a really loud suction noise like your pee is getting sucked out to space when you flush, but that just gives it character ;-) I will be sure to post lots of pictures of it later.  We looked in all the rooms and decided which bedrooms we each wanted.  Then we got to work unpacking our tubs and putting things away.  I had a little bit of difficulty at first, though, because I had drilled holes and zip tied my lids on my tubs....this was good for keeping the tubs from coming open while being shipped.....but was bad when I couldn't find scissors or a sharp object to cut the zip ties off with.  Eventually I found some fingernail clippers, but at first I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get my stuff OUT of my tubs.  After I solved this little dilemma, it seemed like the stuff in our tubs multiplied as we unpacked it.  In the previous post, I talked about how much I hate packing, well unpacking isn't quite as bad, but it can be pretty overwhelming too.

After unpacking for a while, we decided that we were getting really hungry, so we took a break and got out some Marie Calendar's frozen dinners (pretty tasty, by the way).  We didn't have a microwave, so we knew that we had to cook something that we could put in the oven.  We also didn't have any dishes, so we couldn't eat something that required a plate or bowl.  We thought that we had made a pretty good choice until......I started thinking about which tubs I had.  I had numbered my tubs and lids, and I was pretty positive that I had my tubs with school supplies, clothing, and bedding in them.  I hadn't been able to open them all yet, but I was almost certain that we did not have any silverware.  We could eat frozen dinners without dishes, but we couldn't eat them without silverware unless we wanted to eat with our hands....which we didn't.

We talked to one of the other new teachers, Amelia, on the phone to see if she had any silverware to lend us.  She was still at the school, so she told us to go next door to our neighbor Stephanie's house (also another new teacher) to see if she had any.  She was not home.  So we called Amelia back and she said that another teacher who lived down a couple houses had some silverware for us.  We were starting to feel pretty silly at this point, but were quickly learning that the bush teachers take good care of one another.  What a blessing!  So we walked over to another apartment to ask a lady that we had never met before if we could borrow some of her silverware.  She was very gracious and told us that if there was anything else we needed to let her know.  The people here are so nice, and they have been from the moment we arrived.

So Falon and I walked back over to our apartment, ready to eat.  By this point our stomachs were talking to us a LOT because we were so hungry.  We walked up the stairs and over to our door, AND.....the door was LOCKED!  We hadn't been there but 2 or 3 hours and we had already had to borrow silverware and locked ourselves out of our apartment!  Seriously?!  We couldn't help but laugh.

Right as we discovered this unfortunate situation, our neighbor Stephanie pulled up on the back of a four wheeler.  She was coming back from the grocery store.  We told her what had happened and she laughed (who wouldn't, really?).  So we went into her apartment to see if she had the number of the principal so that we could call him and have him let us back in.  Well, we got to talking, and......about an hour later......we realized that the superintendent was outside playing catch in the road with his son.  So we went out and confessed about our little mistake, and he came over with his keys to let us back in.

By this time we were REALLY hungry.  We were hungry before, but then more than an hour passed during this whole fiasco.  So we got to cooking our frozen dinners right away.  Unfortunately, because we had to cook them in the oven, they took 45 minutes!  So we got back to unpacking so that we weren't sitting there watching our food cook.  Shortly after putting our food in the oven, I got my other tubs open and discovered that what I thought was a tub full of bedding was actually a tub full of......KITCHEN STUFF.....including guess what?  dishes and silverware!  Of course!  So we had that stuff all along, and could have avoided the entire crazy situation....but then we wouldn't have had nearly as good of a story to tell about our first day in Chevak :)  

After discovering this we FINALLY got to eat dinner.  And we felt much better.

Thankfully, Falon had some extra blankets, so it was able to survive without my bedding for a night.

Oh, and I already have a list of things that I forgot or realized I would need after I got here.  I will be sending it to my parents soon :)

So what did we learn from our first day full of adventure in Chevak?  The people here are really nice and take good care of you, and it is always good to laugh at yourself.

I promise I will post pictures next time!