A Walk After School

School starts at 8:45 each morning and ends at 4 PM. Our day is long, but the students don't seem to mind. My class really likes school. In fact, some days I need to remind them it's time to go home! On one particular day I told my class I wanted to go for a walk after school. Naturally, I had a few who wanted to tag along. They would show me the village. We did only half of the village. So here's their tour:





As we exit the front of the building, you can see the four wheelers in our parking lot. Since school had been over for quite some time, there were just a few vehicles left. We have little snow at the moment. Thus, the snow machines are difficult to drive. You can still drive them, but you take a risk with damaging them. Our boardwalk also shows signs of wear and tear from them. To the right of the door, you can see our way of measuring the snow. Yes, the sign does go up to 7 feet. (Mmm. . . I wonder if that will happen while I am here.) Next to the school we have our basketball court. It sits off the ground. Again, our land is tundra, and it is permafrost. Thus, it is like a marsh land - very muddy.

The boardwalk connects all the buildings of the village. It literally leads up to the door of each home. Our homes are small but very comfortable. Extended families live together. Many people live in one home. Cars and trucks can be driven once the river freezes. We use the river just as one would use a highway. The rivers connect all the villages.

My tour guides enjoyed taking me through the village. We stopped often to pose for pictures!

Here Katlyn poses. The blue building behind her is our grocery store. I thought it was rather large and well stocked. As you can imagine, the prices are quite high and some items are in high demand. When Jan went to the store for eggs a couple of weeks ago, she was able to buy two eggs - literally two eggs, not two dozen! When I looked at the prices, I found a plastic bottle of cranberry/grape juice for $10. I had purchased the same item a few weeks earlier at home for only $2. That's just the way it is out here.

We then continued to the church, which is a Russian Orthodox Church. The church plays a large role in the village. The majority of people do attend church. My room at school has been blessed by the priest. In January, he will go through the building and bless all the students and each room. We don't have separation of church and school out here.

Next to the church is the graveyard. The entrance is on the left side of the church.

This next graveyard is on the right side of the church. Notice that not all graves have crosses. Those that don't are the babies who were never baptized.

My tour guides had taken me as far as they could. We were next to the airstrip where they are not allowed to go. We turned back and headed back to school. The sun was setting, and it was time for me to go back to work. Time to prepare for tomorrow.