A Little Perspective

A colleague on the next island got a pilot to take these pictures of Atka for her. They show better than I could ever tell just how small the world seems from here. The "cul-de-sac" is the "new" village, where nearly everyone lives, except of course the teachers, who live near the school. The buildings along the beach road include the store and the post office. Just at the end of the road, before it turns to the right, is the cannery. It's a seafood processing plant that doesn't actual produce anything in cans, but I guess "cannery" is easier to say than "seafood processing plant."

This is a closer view of the cannery. They employ fishermen who bring their loads up to the dock, as well as people to work on the line. They also take finished product out to the dock where it goes on boats to barges in the next bay.

This is a view of the village from the bay. At the far right is the airport. The red roofed building beside the airport is the school. My house is the one on the right in front of the school. Then come the store, post office, and assorted buildings.

When I figure out how, I'll repost these pics with symbols to identify all the various locations. Meanwhile, maybe this will give you a better frame of reference for how tiny our village really is, as well as how beautiful it is!

Learning to Ride a Bike

The blue building on the right is the airport. The white one
on the left is the school. My house is in front of the school.

There are no paved roads on Atka, unless you count the airport runway. There are maintained gravel roads and unmaintained gravel roads. You could probably count the cars on one hand. Most people get around using 4 wheelers, or bikes in the local vernacular.

I have access to a bike. It was languishing in the garage for a few years, until the District's maintenance guy fixed her up with a bit of this and that. Mostly, she works fine. Getting into reverse is a bit tricky, since you can't really shift into it. Instead, there's a cable running beside the seat that you have to pull on.

The village as seen from across the bay

My friend, a.k.a. the maintenance guy, taught me how to ride the bike today. It's really the only way to get around the island, especially if you want to go where the critters are, i.e. reindeer and sea lions. We drove around the bay, riding in the hills and along the beach. We stopped about halfway at the city dock, which is well-removed from the village itself. I was able to look back across the bay and see the airport, the school, and the village. That's also where my friend took pics of me.

We didn't time our ride too well. The tide was coming in, so we rode through a lot of surf on

I can ride a bike! It's hard to tell that's me under all that
clothing. Of course it's me; I'm wearing purple!

the way back. Other than that, though, it was a lot of fun. Although riding through the surf and chasing waves was a lot of fun, too! I wore all the clothing that I'd been told to get before I got here but haven't needed. Long underwear, top and bottom. A fleece-lined flannel shirt. Jeans. Heavy socks. A fleece jacket. Balaclava (that's the hood that goes over the head and neck). Goggles. Neoprene gloves. I needed every bit of it. I forgot to put my gloves back on after taking a picture; my hands felt like ice by the next time we stopped! It wasn't all that chilly, but even riding at 15-20 mph, the wind was vicious!

An adult and juvenile bald eagle on top of a little cliff.
Probably a parent and child.

Next time I go out alone, I'll take the dogs with me. There's a basket for Shadow to ride in if he has to, but I'm betting he can keep up. Cody can probably keep up, too. Or they can both go back home and wait.

Halloween Carnival

Refreshments table, before donations.
I loved the Purell bottle! The student's
idea, not mine.

Very soon after the school year started, the kids asked me if we would be doing a Halloween carnival. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I told them yes, we'd probably do whatever they had done in the past. If I'd realized that I'd be the one responsible for doing it, I might not have agreed so quickly!

Having the responsibility for staging an event with a history is a delicate matter of balancing how it was done in the past and how logic dictates it should be done. Some concerns are easily ignored, like the suggestion that tickets needed to be red because that's the color they were last year. Other concerns have to be carefully considered. I found some flyers from last year, so I knew the event ran for 3 hours last year. I also knew from, hmm, let's say unsolicited advice from the community, that there were spans of time when nothing was happening. I also heard that some of the games, which are run by the secondary students, had no one attending them.

I wanted the kids to be responsible for putting on the carnival, but also accountable for how it turned out. I cut the hours back to 2. I also refused to have more games and activities than we had people to run them. I made signs that had the name of each game and the name of the student running it. Any student who wasn't at their station would be known by all to be shirking. I had 2 floaters to relieve the kids running the games so that they could play the other games. I changed the way we voted for "Best Costumes," so that everyone got to vote, but I limited the prizes to one in each age category: Child, Youth, Adult.

The kids were part of every decision, whether I made it or we decided as a group. They did all the actual labor in setting up and tearing down the carnival. The student in charge of refreshments baked all the cookies and cakes, made the popcorn, and kept the coffee coming. Some members of the community donated baked goods for the refreshments, along with prizes for the Cake Walk. I encouraged the kids to think of different ways to decorate, that we didn't have to do things the way they'd been done before. I also demanded a higher standard of appearance, like covering tables with paper in black, yellow, purple, or orange, rather than having bare furniture.

I'd say the event was a success. Many of the elders came, although they didn't play the games. They brought things for the Cake Walk, bought game tickets that they distributed to the younger kids, and then sat and watched the community as a whole have fun. When it was time to pull a ticket for the Split-the-Pot raffle, I asked the oldest of the elders to do the honors. We earned something like $350. Next year, we'll do some things differently, but I know what I'm getting into! Now the parents are asking about a Christmas pageant!