And the weeks continue to fly

The last couple of weeks have flown by, it's hard to believe we're at the end of October already.

A couple of weekends ago we had another Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls) quirky small town experience.  The cultural center here hosts a "Just Deserts" event each year to raise money for local non-profit organizations. Performers sign up to serve as entertainment and tons of people donate deserts to either be sold in individual portions or auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Sampling various deserts was fun, but the true highlight was the random lineup of performers that we had the pleasure to watch. From an elementary/junior high school dance troupe, to a stand up comedian, to two potters working two wheels onstage for 10 minutes to see who could throw the most pots, it was truly another surreal moment when we realized what a tiny community we live in and just how unique it is. We really enjoy the support that people in Bethel provide by participating in community events as well as supporting them. We've never lived in such a close knit community, which is turning out to be a fun new experience.

I was invited to attend and present at my first Tribal Council meeting today, which was another new experience for me. Prior to living here I honestly didn't have any idea what a Tribal Council was or how it functioned. They are essentially the group that has oversight for village life, politics, and everything else that goes on in a village. There are horror stories of teachers and principals being surrounded and escorted by Tribal Councils and village members to the airstrip where they are kicked out of the village, so I wasn't expecting an invite so soon and was grateful to have the chance to meet all of the members. Tribal Councils need to approve any outside presenters or trainings that we try to arrange for the students and/or community, and have more influence than anyone else on village life.

They began their meeting with a prayer in Yu'pik which caught me by surprise. The training I went to last week on Undoing Racism also started each session and broke for meals with prayers, and also had attendees perform traditional musical numbers with the guitar and drums. I'm enjoying learning more about the culture here and seeing the ways that traditional beliefs and culture are integrated into daily activities.

We've decided to move to a new (well, different) apartment. Our heater only turns on if we set it to 85 (and then are stuck with it heating up to 85 since it will turn off if we turn it down at all), so we've been settling most of the time for no heat. This has worked all right during the fall, but now that we're getting close to "freeze up" it's becoming truly cold. As our landlords have elected not to fix the heater we were convinced by one of my co-workers to move into an open apartment in her small complex. Our current apartment also has water delivery once each week with a limited number of gallons delivered. It's been a challenge to figure out how to shower with a trickle of water, wash dishes with a limited supply, etc. The new apartment we'll be moving to will cost less and have unlimited water and heat included in our rent (we pay separately for our current place) so we're pretty happy. We'll move in Thanksgiving weekend, so as you're all eating turkey we'll be giving thanks for heat and water. It's kind of nice to be reminded of things that we usually take for granted.

Sorry these posts are so lengthy, we were sold on the idea of a blog by a friend (Heather:) who showed us the books that she's printed that capture a beautiful history for her family. We've never been good at journaling, so this is our attempt to rectify that and stay in touch at the same time.  Hope you're all doing well.