"Can We Visit?"

From the very first day Mike and I moved in, we have had people knocking on our door constantly! Okay, maybe it has slowed down a little bit... an ency weensy tiny bit. But none-the-less, after working a 12 hour day, we come home, sit down, take a breath, and the inevitable knock comes... followed by, "Can we visit?!"

This has taken some getting used to, but don't get us wrong, we do enjoy it! It surprises us how many times our door gets knocked on and at what times too! Our most frequent visitors are the kids. Whom we love to see their smiling faces on our door step.

This is how a usual door conversation will a little kiddie will go: 

Knock! Knock! Knock! 

Opens door. 

"Can we visit!" shout the children in their sing song voices. 

"Not tonight." We reply as tired old people. 

"How come?" they ask in return. 

"Because we just got home and are making dinner."

"Can we visit after dinner?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, we'll wait out here."

"Well, it still has 15 minutes to cook and then we have to eat it so it's going to be a little while, why don't you go play and come back in about a half hour?"

"Okay..." Then when you think they might actually do what you suggested, "Want to know something?"
"What?"

Then they proceed to tell us some silly story about something.

"Oh, wow, okay, I'm going to close the door because I'm getting cold!"

"Is Mike there?" They say, doing anything to delay you closing the door.

"Yes, he is cooking dinner."

"Oh, we want to tell him something."

So I go and get Mike because I know that me relaying the message will not be good enough for them.

Mike comes to the door.

"Can we visit?"

"Not right now?"

"How come?" They ask again, as if my word wasn't good enough for them. : )

"Because we're making dinner."

"Guess what?"

"What?"

They then proceed to tell or show Mike something silly such as how they can slide down our banister.

"Cool, okay, I'm going to go because I need to finish making dinner."

"Tell Lisa to come back..."

And so on.

Usually the kids forget to come back. And they usually tell us that they plan on just waiting on our little porch until we let them visit. We have tested this and they will stay on the porch unless we tell them to do otherwise! They used to be able to climb on the railing and peek in our window to make sure we were actually doing what we said we were doing but then my wonderful mother sent us curtains so this can no longer take up their waiting time! Sometimes they show up minutes later with more children thinking that perhaps we cannot turn them down since there are more children this time! Sometimes they come back several times with different children, as if we would let certain ones visit and not others. Sometimes a simple, "not right now," is good enough and they leave, other times they kick their shoe in the door before we close it forcing us to open it again.

We have also come to know certain peoples knocks and we make a prediction before we open the door. "Sounds like and Erick knock," we might say before nosing who has to get off the couch. Or, "sounds like child knock." Two of my students in particular, I can always tell if it's them because one knocks nice and respectfully (we always mistake her for an adult when she is alone) and the other kicks the door three times. "Oh ________ and ________ are at the door!"

If it's not a child wanting to visit, the second most common person to knock on our door will be someone who wants to sell us a piece of art. These are usually men, sometimes they are Mike's students. We usually admire the work and ask them some questions, sometimes we buy and sometimes we don't. Then the seller takes off right after we decide. We have one person though who always comes right on in (we recognize his knock : ) ) and he sits down for a little. He will tell us about the art, what it is made of and if there is a story behind it. He also shares stories with us about his family and Shishmaref. He always tells us what he is making for dinner. Today he told us he just finished eating a, "white man sandwich" which made me smile. 

The third most common visitors are the other teachers, mainly Erick, who wants to come over and shoot zombies with Mike and play Left 4 Dead II. 

I think we get more little girls who want to visit than boys, we don't let them in very often, because we really are busy, and when we do let them in we set a time limit of about 5 minutes. It beats me why they would want to visit their teachers on the weekend anyways! The boys used to visit a lot because they wanted to play XBox with Mike and they would ask me in the middle of the day, "Can we come and play XBox after school?!" My one student always asks me, "Can I come play XMen at your house?" We don't even have XMen but he said he will bring his copy. Today, I had the best visitor though because it was two of my students (the mature knocker and the three kicker) and when I opened the door they said they had made me something. The one's mom had been teaching them to knit and she knitted me a bracelet! It made me so happy because usually, I can tell, they color a picture and then decide they don't want it so they give it to me. But sometimes they make a card or something and I know it was for me because it has my name on it and I know it wasn't an after thought. So I thought the bracelet was so sweet!

 

At first we didn't really know what to do when they visited so we did thinks like color, or play a game. Now we know they basically just want to come in and look around and ask you questions such as what things are and why you have them.

Mike playing XBox with some of our visitors.

 At first when they came in we noticed them saying, "real tiny." We thought they were talking about our house even though theirs are about the same size. Since then though, we have learned they were talking about our TV!

Playing with the magnets.

Besides wanting to visit, sometimes, well actually every time we are walking around and a child comes across us they ask, "Can we follow?" Which means, "Can we tag-along." Well of course we can't say, "No!" So no matter where we walk we almost always have little ones trailing along with us but they keep us company. It is especially fun if they follow us to the store because they then all want to carry our bags back for us : ) One time, I went to the post office and a little boy insisted on carrying my heavy box back for me. I didn't even know who he was yet. It was so heavy he actually fell over once while carrying it, not that it was a far fall, and he had soft sand to land on, and even though I felt bad he wouldn't let me help and he insisted on doing it! What a gentleman!

So cute!

So until next time, "You cannot visit right now, why don't you come back in about a half an hour?"

"How long is that? We need a watch."

"Go run around the island one time and then it will be about a half an hour."

The Geography of Sish

These pictures are from a few different walks around Shishmaref. Shish is an island that is more long than wide. It's short going east to west and long going north to south. On the west side it looks to the Chukchi Sea north of the Bering Strait and on the east you can look out over the "lagoon." Across the lagoon you can see the main land. These pictures are mostly along the long part of the island running north to south. South goes towards the dump. 

This first walk is towards the south.

The sea wall that was put up to keep the island from eroding into the sea. In other places the sea wall is much larger and some places it is nonexistent.

You can see how close the sea wall is to some of the housing. This building is teacher housing and is part of the old school.

I do not remember what these racks are called but they use them to hang animals out to "dry." The child's wagon made a cool picture I thought.

You can see some of the ribs and things drying. The salt from the ocean in the air helps preserve the meat.

Just some old broken down buildings. This one has a Winnie-the-pooh plush on the door.

If you get close enough you can see the little blue sign that says, "police."

A boat frame. As we walk around we sometimes see people building boats. It is just amazing to us how they craft them from hand out of scratch.

Yup.

Haha. I don't think they actually use this chair but we thought it was a funny picture to take.

This is the post office! We check the mail religiously! We believe the Post master lives upstairs and the post office is on the bottom story. If we walked around to the other side you could see our house.

While walking around we ran into one of the other teachers who said she was going over to watch this person cut up some fish so we tagged along. She is originally from Shishmaref but now lives in the lower 48 with her husband and family. She comes home ever summer with her kids so they know the culture and visit their family.

A close up. The tool she is using in called an ulu.

 This is now the North side of the island.

Look how thick the insulation for the winter!

The old runway and the people we were walking with.

These dogs will be used for dog mushing! They stay outside all year long but all the dogs are tied up.

Just a pretty picture : )

Mike walking along the Chukchi Sea.

Looking back at Shishmaref.

We found this old decomposing walrus!

The last tree of Shishmaref.

Note: This is not a tree but a stick stuck in the sand. There are no trees in Shishmaref.

Our Shadows!

Erick, from Florida who was still getting used to the cold, Lani, from Oregon, and Amy, from Ohio. They are all teachers and we were exploring together.

Lisa and Mike on the sound. This is the very tip of the north of the island.

Walking back along the "lagoon" side. You can see Ear Mountain which is on the mainland.

Most of the island is just sand so it was nice to see some flowers.

Walking back through the marsh as a short cut but it got too marshy so we had to go back along the coast.

All of the boats in the setting sun.

We came across this caribou that someone had shot.

Mike feeling the antlers. There is a kind of fur on them which makes them smooth.

The old air strip, it has eroded right into the water. The new air strip now runs north to south, the longer way the island goes, but is not as ideal for landing on with the way the wind blows.

This basketball hoop is right on the old air strip.

Notice the cute little dog on the steps!

We don't know how this got there! We have learned, that since it is so difficult to get things on the island, when something stops working, such as this airplane, they don't take it to the dump or get rid of it because the parts may be able to be used for something else. Which makes sense but then you end of with a lot of old things sitting in random places.

The setting sun.

This building here is the church.

Hence, the random things sitting everywhere! Note: Ear mountain in the background.

As we were walking we had to be tourists when we saw this polar bear fur hanging out. Yes, we asked permission before we just started taking pictures.

Now you have had a tour of the outskirts of Shishmaref! It is Mike's job to take you on the tour of the dump and we will attempt to get some more pictures inside the village for you to view in the near future!

The Polar Bear Plunge

The before shot. Nice and warm and dry. From left to right: Colleen, Erick, Lani, Lisa, Mike, Amy, Pastor's Friend (I don't remember his name : / )

The week before school, Amy knocked on our door, "Are you ready for the polar bear plunge?" So Mike and I put on our "just in case swimsuits" and prepared for the cold of the Chukchi sea.

Another before shot, when we are at the beach and about to take the plunge. Mike is nervous.

 There are apparently rules for the plunge. In order for it to count you have to run out at least waist high, completely submerge under water and take at least a few strokes before you run back out. Our designated photographer took this photo. I may be way in front of the rest of people, but I would like to point out that Mike and Erick, the boys, were the first ones out.

Running out of the sea

 The coldest part of the whole adventure was the ride there. We rode in the back of a pick up truck, dreading the cold ride back. When running into the sea, it is as cold as you think it will be, however once your head is underwater you feel at peace and warm, the run back out of the sea just feels warmer and warmer and when standing on the ocean you don't feel as cold as you did before you went in the water. Maybe your body is just at shock and doesn't know how cold it is.

The after shot. Not quite a honeymoon in Punta Cana, but we did get a little sun in!

Another after shot. It's not really that cold, you just feel like you should be : )

After shot of the whole group.

The worst part was trying to get the sand off, because you knew you would be cold on the way back so you wanted to put socks and shoes and clothes on but not with sand in them!

 We drove very far from town before Colleen and Amy decided we were at the perfect part of the beach, about a 20 minute ride. The farther we went, the more we first timers were concerned we would be frostbitten on the way back.

Some high schoolers on a four wheeler decided to follow us down the beach to watch.

 Surprisingly the ride home actually felt warmer than the ride there!

Lani and Mike on the way back. We made it safe and sound and no one caught a cold : )

Great way to end our summer vacation before beginning or first real teaching jobs!