August 5, 2018: And so it begins

Today marks my first full day in Alexandria.  After delayed flights, rescheduled flights, crazy gurgly anxious stomach pains, a luggage fiasco, and countless "Why on earth did I decide to do this" moments, here I am.  Excited? Of course.  Anxious, lonely, slightly terrified, a little sad?  You bet.  Regretful?  Not in the slightest.  If there's anything I have learned in the last 3 years, it's to take more chances.  Say yes a little more, stop being so afraid, live purposefully, do the things that you know will ultimately be good for you even though they make your gut hurt a little.

So I made the move.  I packed away all my fleece leggings, puffy jackets, XtraTufs, and beanies and traded them in for sandals and lots (and lots) of linen clothes.  I said goodbye to my mountains, all the green things, temperate climate, and the land of Amazon Prime, and I am entering a world instead of little tiny shops, year round sun (!!), the Mediterranean Sea, and a brand new culture.

If there was one thing I heard whispered throughout this entire transition it was, "My God will supply every need of yours..."  Philippians 4:19.  Every need.   The whole verse says "My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."  As much as I wanted it to, this didn't necessarily mean that when I was a dummy and didn't quite get around to opening a new bank account with no foreign transaction fees, and that I might have to pay a fee each month just to receive my paycheck, that God would miraculously orchestrate a way for me to waive all these fees and I'd receive no consequences from my irresponsibility.  But it does mean that God has riches in store for me that are far greater than the material ones here on earth.  God meeting my needs doesn't necessarily mean that I will arrive in Egypt and automatically make tons of friends and be surrounded by great community (I hope it happens, but it's not a guarantee!)  What it does mean is that if I draw near to Him, He will draw near to me, and His love is greater than that of any friend or coworker.  It doesn't mean that I will be successful, that my lessons will go as planned, or that I won't experience failure.  It does mean that He is the God of comfort and will be here when I do.  He will meet my every need, as He promised.  I need to trust that how He chooses to do that is far better than how I might want Him to.

I anticipate that the days ahead will be hard.  I've heard that many international teachers are in a honeymoon phase in the beginning, and once October rolls around, the shock of everything really sets in and becomes overwhelming.  I pray for a good attitude, patience with myself and joy in the hardships.  My first flight over here was delayed, making me miss all my other flights and sending my anxiety through the roof.  In the midst of rescheduling flights and trying not to cry in the middle of the airport, I reached out to some of my college friends and asked for prayers for my perspective.  My friend Tisa responded with incredible insight :)   She mentioned the importance of keeping a joyful attitude in poopy situations.  Then she wrote, "Maybe there is a reason the poop emoji is smiling?  Perhaps it knows that even though it is a poop and has had a bad day, it is loved and under God's care and that makes every poopy day amazingly blessed."

Cheers to living out the rest of my days as a happy poop emoji.

June 18, 2017: Kodiak kids are crazy

Here we are, on our last night of camp.  Traditionally on the last night there is a bonfire and the kids go swimming.  In the ocean.  At 8 PM.  This evening it was cold enough for me to wear all three of my jackets at the same time.  And the kids still swam.  Happily.

It kind of makes me want to live here forever so I can raise my own kids to be crazy bad asses.  Might be worth it.

June 17, 2017: Catcher's Beach

At camp today, everyone took a walk at low tide over to Catcher's Beach.  I guess it's called Catcher's Beach because the shore here catches all the garbage from the ocean.  We grabbed a big stash of trash bags, round up the kiddos, made sure we had our two gun carrying adults at the front and rear of the pack (one of the only hiking rules for the kids was "Stay between the guns."  That's one I hadn't heard on a field trip yet), and set out for the beach.  It was a beautiful hike.  The sun was out (still only 50, but sunny!!) and the kids were happy.   On our way to the beach we passed a patch of dead trees that are still standing.  Marya told me that these are trees that were killed in the 1964 tsunami that destroyed the village on the island. Apparently you can still see remnants of the village on certain parts of the island as well, but we didn't go see them.  I can imagine these trees are a powerful reminder of the destruction that fell on Kodiak in general, but especially on the people who lived in Afognak at the time.  They were eerie yet still beautiful.

Once we made it to Catcher's Beach, the kids all grabbed their trash bags and filled them with beach garbage.   Parts of old fishing nets, weathered water bottles, chunks of plastic with Japanese writing.  I saw three boys work together to carry a mattress sized piece of styrofoam from the beach back to camp.  Granted, they were more motivated by the prospect of it becoming their new raft once they were back at camp more than their desire to rid the beach of pollution, but do the details really matter?  Watching 30 kids hike back to camp with their yellow trash bags flung over their shoulders made me really happy.  The kids took pride in cleaning up a beach that very few people ever even get to see.

June 16, 2017: Petroglyphs

Tonight, after a full day of camp (which included failing yet again to master the stitch that Ms. Suzie was teaching us, learning the ins and outs of bear safety, zip lining, realizing that I was carving my paddle to be immensely fatter than everyone else's giving it the look of a banjo or halibut rather than a traditional paddle), we got invited to go out on a boat to see the Alutiiq petroglyphs.  This was a really, really awesome opportunity.  There are only a few spots on the entire island of Kodiak where you can find some of these carvings, and Afognak happens to be one of them.  While they are a little hard to see in the picture, they were easy to spot from the boat.  There are just a few of them (In the center of the rock to the left), and I learned that some of the pictures' meanings have been lost over the course of time.  I didn't think to ask if anyone knew what these symbols may have meant.

After we looked at the petroglyphs, we took a trip out to the little island where some of the adults and kids had successfully shot a seal that morning.  As we idled up to the island, we saw between 20-30 seals sun bathing on the beach and rocks.  As soon as they heard the boat, they jumped into the ocean, and the next 15 minutes or so, we watched their curious heads bob up here and there as they checked us out.  I have seen seals before while kayaking or from shore, but not this close, and definitely not this many at once.   Again, I felt really lucky to be part of the camp this week and to be able to see these sorts of things.  I know I was at camp to "help" with the kids, but I felt like I was being grossly overpaid with all these experiences :)

June 15, 2017: Dig Afognak

I was fortunate enough to spend a week at a summer camp called Dig Afognak.  It is run by the Native Village of Afognak.  They put on three different weeks of camp, each with a different theme for kids in Kodiak to learn more about the Alutiiq culture and history.  I attended Earth/Harvesting camp, but they also have a survivor camp and a music/language camp this summer.  Most of the kids who attend are Native, and there were a variety of different presenters and teachers who taught the kids sewing, carving, group games, how to harvest plants, bear safety, zipline, and language.  My job was to escort a group of kids (ages 9-14) through the different activities, but I got to participate in each activity alongside the kids.  I also slept in the kids' dorm along with 3 other teachers so we could help them at night if they needed anything.  This was such an amazing experience!  It was humbling to be a student again.  I think it's safe to say that I am a bit of a slow learner, and that I am decently unskilled in many areas (I actually stabbed myself in the leg with a carving knife while trying to carve my paddle).  I was amazed at how hard it was for me to remember the sounds in the Alutiiq alphabet, or retain Alutiiq vocabulary words for more than 45 seconds.  It was a great reminder that learning is hard, and I am hoping that it turns me into an even more patient and accommodating teacher this fall.

One of my favorite parts of the camp was being able to watch everyone process the animals after each hunt.  Since I am not native, I didn't participate in the hunts, but each time something was shot, it was brought back to the beach and everyone pitched in with helping clean and process the animal.  It was fascinating.  In the picture below, some of the adults are cutting the coat off of two of the sea otters that were hunted that morning.  In all, 8 sea otters, one seal, 11 fish, and 3 deer were caught this week.  Marya showed me how to scrape the extra muscle layer off of the seal intestines.  They can be used to make rain gear!

My favorite single moment at camp was one evening when we gathered on the beach to learn some Alutiiq songs and dances.  There is a group of young men and women who dance and sing, and a couple of them were at camp with us, so they led us through some of the songs.  We learned one about seal hunting (my new favorite), one about a whale giving itself as a gift to a village, a banya song, one about a spear being returned to the people, and countless others.   I felt very lucky to be included in this celebration of culture.

But this was just day one, and there are a lot more experiences to share..

June 14, 2017: Pyramid, take 2

Last summer I took my family up Pyramid for the first time.  It was a great hike, and it was supposed to be sunny that day, but the fog rolled in and it was hard to see much from the mountain top.  I have heard that the view on top of Pyramid is pretty incredible, so I was bummed that I didn't get to see it when we went.  I knew I'd need to go up again sometime this summer to see it.  Kinsey hasn't been to the top either, and today's weather looked like it was going to be sunny and clear, so we planned a quick hike before I left for Dig Afognak this afternoon.  We drove out to the mountain and saw that there was a good deal of fog surrounding the peak, but we were hopeful that by the time we got to the top, it would have cleared.  The weather was calling for sunny skies.  So we started the hike.  It never cleared.  This was our view from the top.  It was actually so foggy that we lost part of the trail and couldn't see where we were going.  For a few minutes I was afraid that we were going to be so lost that I would miss my boat over to Afognak.  Luckily we just wandered for a while and eventually stumbled across the trail again.  So 2 for 2 hikes up Pyramid without seeing the view!

June 13, 2017: Puffin Pride

I took Heather out on the kayak today for the first time!  We went around Near Island and saw a bunch of puffins.  I have seen them a few times, but this was the closest I have been to them yet.  I failed to get a good picture when they were flying over us, so this was the best I could do, but know that they were actually a lot closer!  Peterson Elementary's mascot is a puffin.  The winning team for field day gets to keep the school spirit stick in the classroom.  The stick has a big puffin on top of it.  It was in Heather's room all year because the teacher who had one it the previous year transferred and Heather took over her room, so she inherited the stick.  And kind of hated having it in there.  So I am fully convinced the puffins today sought us out specifically because Heather had Peterson Puffin spirit stick mojo or something.