Home for Christmas

Miracle of miracles! I made it out of Alaska for Christmas.
      

Modeling the flannel pants my dad received
for Christmas. They were a bit large, so I used
the drawstring to tie them around my neck.

Interior Alaska was plagued with major snowstorms in the week leading up to Christmas. The majority of our students' flights had to be cancelled and rescheduled. Some flights were cancelled four days in a row. This meant that the residential staff had to work an additional four days to take care of the stranded students.

On the morning of Christmas Eve I arrived at our tiny airport to discover that my flight was delayed because of the weather. I eventually made it to Fairbanks, then to Anchorage, and then to Seattle for a lengthy layover.

Then I spent Christmas Eve in the Seattle airport. By this time it was 7:00 pm, and I had not eaten since breakfast. Unfortunately for me, every single restaurant or food vendor was closed for the holiday. In fact, the airport was a ghost town. I wandered the empty airport for the next 12 hours.

The final leg of my journey was the flight from Seattle to Minneapolis, where I was picked up by my dad to celebrate Christmas Day! After 24 hours of sleepless travel-time I was overjoyed to be with my family for Christmas.

Santa was generous enough to fill up a giant stocking for me,
complete with wool socks and a Happy Light!

I practically cried when I stepped outside and saw the sun. (And felt warm 20 degree air for the first time in months!)

My dad drove me to my parents' apartment where I got to see my mom, sisters, and Mei Mei (my dear little cat) for the first time since August. As much as I love Alaska, it is psychologically refreshing to get out for a little while.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Four odd things

• Eyebrow talk
       In Alaskan Native culture people communicate using their eyebrows. A slight raise of the eyebrows means "yes." An exaggerated raising of the eyebrows means "obviously" or "of course." To say "no" people slightly scrunch their nose.
        In my first few weeks working here I had many confusing conversations with students because of this. They would answer a yes/no question with their eyebrows and I would stand there oblivious, waiting for a response. There were also times I would unintentionally move my eyebrows.
       For example, a student would ask me for a favor and I would raise my eyebrows in an "Are you kidding me?" expression. Then their face would light up, "Thanks Brittany! You're the best!" I would stand there confused, wondering why they thought I accepted.
      It is now becoming much easier to pick up on the subtle communication.
  
• No toilet paper
        Alaskans do not call toilet paper "toilet paper." Instead they call it tissue.
        I learned this my first week working in the dorms. I was sitting on the girls' floor after lights out and a student walked out of her room towards me. "I need tissue," she said.
        I responded, "It's after lights out; just use toilet paper."
        The student stared at me in confusion. After a pause she said, "No, I need more tissue."
        Now it was my turn to be confused. "Why do you need tissue? We don't have boxes of Kleenix up here. Can't you use toilet paper?"
        This poor tortured student stood there and it suddenly dawned on me that she was talking about toilet paper. I apologized and helped her restock her bathroom with "tissue."
         The students have told me that they had never heard it called toilet paper until meeting white people from the Lower 48.
  
• No recycling    You would think that Alaska would be one of the most environmentally-conscious states, given all of the untouched beauty of the Alaskan wilderness. However, I have learned that recycling is not only uncommon here, it is almost unheard of.
         No one recycles. Our school does not even recycle paper. It may be because there are no recycling plants for hundreds of miles, so we would have to pay to fly our recyclables out of Galena. But even my coworkers from Fairbanks or Anchorage said that no one recycles.
         Instead we have a dump on the edge of the village where everything is piled. It is a great place to watch bears.

• Crooked teeth      In the Lower 48 crooked teeth are not very common, because almost everyone with crooked teeth gets braces. In Alaskan villages there are no orthodontists, so almost everyone has crooked teeth.
        Only the wealthy can afford to get their kids braces, because each visit to the orthodontist involves a plane ticket to Fairbanks or Anchorage. That is a minimum of $420 for one person's flight alone. Now imagine paying for that flight each month for two years, plus the cost of braces. 

The Basics

I am working as a Resident Advisor at a boarding school in Galena, Alaska. Here is some basic information about where I live and what my job entails:
          
Galena
Population: About 400 residents
Location: Interior Alaska on the Yukon River

Demographics: The students are 95% Alaskan Native. There are just a handful of white students.
Recent History: There was a devastating flood in Galena in May of 2013 which caused extensive damage to the village. The flood was caused by an ice jam on the Yukon. Many aid groups have made trips into Galena to help rebuild homes.
        
The School
Type: Vocational Boarding School
Grades: 9th-12th
Student Enrollment: 230 students
Location: Former Air Force Base
   
Being an RA
Full-time position with benefits
Work hours: usually 3:00 pm-11:00 pm; Off days are Wednesday and Thursday.
     Before arriving in Galena I assumed that this job would be very similar to being an RA in college. I was wrong. It is much more involved. RAs act as dorm parents to the students, supervise areas of life on campus, assist with homework, plan extracurricular events, coach sports, lead clubs, counsel distraught girls, and even break up fights from time to time. More than a handful of students call me "mom."

Sitting along the bank of the Yukon, enjoying the summer weather while it lasts.

First Impressions

As someone who had never been to Alaska before, let alone a remote village in Alaska, I thought I would write about my first impressions from August 2013.

1. It is COLD.
You may be thinking, Well duh, it's Alaska. I knew it would be cold; I just did not expect the shock of winter weather in August. Compare these screen shots of my phone's weather app on the same day in August:

                

Minnesota's weather on the day I left.

             

Alaska's weather on the same day. 

           
Nothing brings home the fact that you moved to the Arctic Circle like stepping off of a plane and experiencing a 60 degree temperature drop.

2. No pollution!
When I stepped outside in Fairbanks the first thing that struck me was the air. It tasted so clean! I felt like I had been drinking tap water my entire life and suddenly was given a bottle of ice-cold Dasani water.

3. Alaska = Wilderness
My flight to Galena was made up of three flights: Minneapolis to Seattle, Seattle to Fairbanks, and then Fairbanks to Galena. I flew out of Seattle as the sun was setting, so by the time we flew into Fairbanks it was dark. It was a perfectly clear night, so I eagerly watched out the window as our arrival drew nearer.

The announcement came over the loudspeaker, "We are now beginning our descent into Fairbanks."

I peered out the window, expecting city lights to come into view. Fairbanks is, after all, the second largest city in Alaska.

Nothing.

We continued our descent and after ten minutes I still could not see a single light. Finally, as I felt the wheels come out, I spotted a handful of lights scattered around in the darkness. It was like a little village of cabins, each with a single lantern hanging in front of their homes.

Where is the city?! I thought. What kind of remote place am I moving to, if the nearest city looks like a small town?

We landed and taxied into one of the tiniest airports I have ever been to. That was when I realized that Alaska is a gigantic wilderness. Even its second largest city is smaller than the suburb I grew up in. (The population of Fairbanks is just 31,000.) I would be flying to a village 300 miles away, and Fairbanks would be the nearest city or hospital. And if this tiny city is called a city, what would a true village be like?
    
4. If this plane crashes, I'm dead.
After arriving in Fairbanks via Alaska Airlines I had to stay overnight, because my flight to Galena was not until 9:00 AM the next morning. Being cheap, I did not stay in a hotel. Instead I slept in the baggage claim area on a bench with my pile of luggage.

The next morning, I looked for the Era Aviation desk to check-in. After checking in they directed me to the "gate," which is really just a bunch of benches next to a door leading to the tarmac.

I took this picture in Anchorage, so this is not the plane I took into Galena.

"Don't I need to go through security?" I asked

"No, we don't do that," she replied.

This was shocking to me. Even in flights within China or within Egypt, we ALWAYS had to go through security before hopping on a plane. Not in Alaska I guess.

I sat on one of the benches and eventually a few middle-aged bearded men joined me. I felt like I was entering an episode of Yukon Men. Eventually a pilot walked inside and told us to follow him outside. We stepped onto the tarmac and walked out to a tiny 9-passenger Caravan plane. We climb inside, crouching down as we attempt to fit inside and maneuver into our little seats.

The pilot climbs inside, shuts the door and tells us to buckle up. Then my first true Alaskan flight begins. Thanks be to God, there was minimal turbulence.

As we fly over mile after mile of pure wilderness, I am struck again at just how big Alaska is. I am reminded of the Alaskan survival movies I watched as a kid, and suddenly the idea of being stranded in the wilderness is much more immediate and terrifying. Even if I survived a plane crash, there would be nothing for hundreds of miles in any direction.

Brittany, welcome to Alaska.

I moved to Alaska

On Friday, August 23rd I received a call from Interior Alaska, offering me a job on the residential staff of a boarding school. I accepted, packed two bags, and was on a plane by Monday.

Because this happened so fast, I did not have enough time to explain to everyone what I was doing. Therefore this much-needed blog is finally being typed.

As most of you know, I graduated from Moody this spring and was planning to take a gap-year in order to save for graduate school. I examined a variety of options for this year, including living with friends in Louisville, moving in with my brother in Tucson, returning to the parents in Minnesota, or staying in Chicago. During the summer I worked at Camp Cherith in Minnesota, praying that something would fall into place in August.

After camp I was staying with my parents and looking into local job opportunities when I heard from my good friend and former roommate Carrie. She and her husband Matt were moving to Alaska to work as resident advisors at a boarding school. As soon as I heard this, I felt a pang of jealousy. I had always wanted to go to Alaska. In fact, Carrie & I had researched Alaskan summer jobs when we were roommates. And now she was moving to Alaska while I was looking up low-paying jobs near my parents' apartment.

A minute later the jealousy was gone, replaced with sudden inspiration. I pulled up the school website on my laptop and looked up the number for the Dean of Students. A minute later I was on the phone with him, politely asking if there were any open positions on the residential staff. He said that they usually finish hiring in the spring, but in an unusual turn of events they had just received board approval to hire one more staff member for the residential team. They would be accepting applications for two more days.

In that moment I knew that this position was the job I wanted.

I immediately pulled up the Alaska Teacher Placement website and began filling out the long online application. I worked on it for the next few hours straight, perfecting my cover letter and resume. After examining gap-year options for several months and feeling so uncertain, suddenly this Alaskan opportunity popped up and just felt right. I  woke up early the next morning to double-check everything and send it off. I spent most of the day researching life in Alaska and information about the school.

The next day I received a call from Alaska, asking to schedule a phone interview. I was so excited that I jumped for joy around the living room. A couple days later I was pacing back and forth in my parents' apartment answering tricky interview questions about how to work with teenagers. About 40 minutes later the interview concluded and I was told that they would be contacting my references. I would hear from them in about a week.

Leaving 100 degree Minnesota for 40 degree Alaska!

Then the torturous waiting began. Each day that went by made me realize how badly I wanted the job. I felt so excited about the prospect of working with high school students in Alaska that any other option seemed miserable in comparison. I was hesitant to tell anyone about the job, in case it was not offered to me, but after a few days I could not resist talking about it because it was consuming my thought-life.

The waiting was made a little easier by traveling to Chicago to see the Osborns and then going on a family camping trip. On the last day of camping trip I received the much-anticipated phone call, offering me the job and asking how soon I would be able to fly out. I said I only needed two days.

So I pulled out my winter clothes from storage, made a couple trips to REI to scour the clearance racks for Arctic gear, and began packing. By Monday morning I had two monstrous duffel bags (at about 60 lbs each) and my carry-on stuffed with everything I would need for the year. That afternoon I hugged my family goodbye and hopped on a plane.

I have no idea what Alaska will hold for me, but I look forward to sharing some of my experiences with you in this blog.