Break!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Jimmy and I went to a potluck dinner at another teacher’s house and had some amazing turkey. Jimmy didn't try any of course, because he doesn't like turkey. It sure was a nice break off from school for awhile.

Speaking of breaks, Jimmy and I are currently in Bethel right now. We flew out after school today to go to a writing conference. Here we will be grading 1,000 writing tests that the students wrote from all of the villages. It is a much-needed break for Jimmy and me. We have not been off the island since we got here in early August! We will be in Bethel until Friday afternoon and then we will fly back to Toksook. We were very worried today because there was a lot of wind, and they were wondering if he planes would even get out. A lot of times planes don't land in the village because of the danger of such a small plane and strong winds. Thankfully we saw it land and were able to get on when there was a break in the snow. We were surprised to see it was a larger plane than we had come to the village in. It had a total of 9 seats in it!

After we got on the plane with two other teachers from Toksook they told us that we would be stopping at Mekoryuk to drop off some passengers. I looked over at Jimmy and said who do we know from Mekoryuk? He mentioned that Kale, another first-year teacher lived there. When we landed I looked out the window and Kale was waiting to get on the plane. He is going to the writing conference as well. It was nice to see him and hear about his first year experiences in another village.

As I am typing this I feel so happy! Jimmy and I ate hot pizza for dinner tonight from a restaurant. We then went back to our hotel and watched TV and were amazed at the choices (we only have one channel at home), and that we could have Internet in our room! Not to mention the fact that there are people everywhere and we got to ride in an Chevy Avalanche on our way to the hotel. What simple pleasures that you didn’t think you would ever miss.

As we were in the pizza place I kept thinking about home and how much I missed it. Jimmy then looked up and said hey look at that picture. I looked up and there was a picture from Tahquamenon Falls framed on top of the cooler! How bizarre that we were in Bethel, Alaska and they have a picture from my hometown! I asked the owner where he got the picture and he said it was a pretty picture he got at the local gas station up the road to decorate his restaurant. What a small world!