My roommates and I went to Bethel last Friday for an inservice dealing with teaching multiple phases in the classroom. What they told us was basically what we already knew; split the class into small groups and work on the appropriate phases with each group. Nonetheless, it's always fun to go to Bethel. We took the flight out Friday afternoon, our principal was with us as well because she wanted to be at the inservice, and spent the day on Saturday listening, perusing the District Office for supplies and information, and snooping in the Media Center looking for buried treasures.
Our flight on Saturday was for 5:30 pm, check-in at 4:30. After the inservice, my roommates and I decided that we wanted to stick around until Sunday because there was something going on at the Cultural Center on Saturday night and we never really get to do anything fun in Bethel. The activity at the Cultural Center was called, "Just Dessert" and it was a benefit concert for charity...the boy scouts or something for the Cultural Center...I obviously wasn't paying very much attention when we were told, haha. There were people who sang, danced, and read poetry. It was fun, but the group who sang sounded like they do at choir practice - so it was a bit much, but still fun to hear. They even did a couple remakes of classic rock songs. I took a few of them on video to give people an idea of what it sounded like.
So, when we got to Just Desserts, we saw our principal sitting there - which was surprising because she was supposed to leave for Kipnuk that afternoon. Turns out there was too much fog in Kipnuk so the flight didn't leave. This turned out to be a blessing for my roommates and I because the flights were weathered on Sunday and Monday as well. Since we decided to stay in Bethel for an extra night for funsies, we would have had to take personal days for missing school the following week. Luckily that wasn't the case! So, on Sunday we went to the airport to check about the status of our flight, and we were there from 9am until 5pm - only to hear that our flight was cancelled because of the weather!! So, we went back to the DO (District Office) and spent the night there again. It actually worked out well because on Monday I went to observe a Kindergarten classroom in Bethel. My roommate, Voni, got to observe a second grade classroom as well, while my other roommate, Liane, hung out at the district office and met with some people about curriculum and supply issues. It worked out very well for all of us, because we got lots of information and resources to bring back to the village.
Monday afternoon, we called the airlines and checked the weather from the DO, and since it looked really bad, we just stayed there all day and perused. It turned out that our principal was at the airport all day long!! My roommates and I went to the airport around 4pm, because the airline said they won't know if they can fly or not until 5pm. So, we bring all our stuff and wait to find out that there will be no flight for us. So, we bring all our stuff back into town and start to look for a place to stay. We weren't staying at the DO again because since we'd been weathered for three extra days, they decided to give us per diem, and we were going to a hotel to sleep in a real bed! Apparently, the whole world decided to come to Bethel that night because there wasn't a hotel we could find that had a vacancy. One hotel wasn't picking up their phone, so we decided to walk over. On the way, we passed another motel we called that was all booked up. As we're walking past, someone comes out and yells, "Are you the group trying to fly back to Kipnuk?!?" Nowhere else would that happen except for a small place...it was insane. That phone call was our principal saying the airlines were having a special plane take us home. After being pulled back and forth for the past few days, we were looking forward to just getting a straight answer. So, we haul all our stuff back to the airport. What happens when we get there? That's right, there is no "special flight" to take us back to Kipnuk. We ended up staying with friends that night and leaving the following morning. We got back to Kipnuk around 10:30am, showered and then went into school. It was such a warm greeting from my students - they missed me so much! It was good to be back, but hard to get back into the groove after not showering for days and not getting much sleep, and hanging out at the airport for days at a time, haha.
On the plus-side, we all got a free round trip ticket from Bethel to any of the villages. We can use it to come to Kipnuk at some point or we could use it to visit one of the other villages. It would be like having half of our ticket paid for, because to go to most of the other villages, we have to go through Bethel. It doubles the price - so it was kind of cool to get stuck in Bethel for a few extra days. We got per diem, lots of cool stuff, and a free round trip ticket!!
We have all gotten back into the groove of things, but are glad it's the weekend! The northern lights are supposed to be out tonight (we have a website to check what level it is and whether or not it's worth it to go out into the bitter cold and wait for them...). I really hope we can see them, it's rare that we can see them all the way out here. One teacher out here was here three years and only saw them once. My camera is charged just in case I can figure out how to take a picture of them...we'll see what happens with that one.
I am going to post some pictures on my next entry because I need to go dig my camera out of wherever it is. My kids are doing very well, they know all their letter sounds and are starting to sound out words, which is just fantastic. It makes me happy that they are learning - because it means I'm doing something right!
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