Moose, Mosquitos And Bears...oh my

I Left My Heart (and my coat) In Alaska

2010-05-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning I left Aniak, very sad to go and leave the beautiful area and friends old and new. I got up on Saturday morning to find that the river outside the window which had been mostly unmoving ice for the rest of my stay was now flowing freely. Break-up had arrived and they were all looking forward to being able to go out in their boats at last. People would just stand and watch the river and see the big ice mountains caused by ice crashing into ice.

Cheryl took me for a final ride around the village and I took a few photos, including this one of the fairground, submerged in water and suffering the wear and tear of winter storms.

And then it was off back to Anchorage, on planes that I wasn't allowed to fly any more. It was strange being back in a city. There were cars and people and shops and real airports and roads. As I sat on the plane I felt a jab up my nose. I couldn't work out what it was. I looked down and the underwire from my bra had poked itself free and was making a bid for freedom. I tried surreptitiously to shove it back but it was having none of it so I casually whipped it out and stuffed it in the back of the seat pocket. The next person in that seat will think it's a vital piece of safety equipment.

My hotel in downtown Anchorage was the gorgeous Historic Anchorage hotel. For some reason I was upgraded to a suite. Shame I wasn't going to be able to make the most of that as I had to leave Anchorage at 4.30 the next morning. I dumped my bags and it was off for a flying visit to Nordstroms. I had an hour and a half to buy presents and shoes. Several presents and four pairs of shoes later it was off for a quick trip to see my friend Sylvia. It was all too brief but a lovely visit all the same, and then I met up with some of the lovely Alaska Sisters in Crime members for a meal and drinks at Rumrunners.

After that, it was off to my plush suite to finish packing (luckily, all the books and pens and sweets and biscuits I had taken had been given away so I now had room in my suitcase for my new shoes) and a few hours sleep - interrupted at 2am by a drunk man outside my window shouting "I'm a mean mother****** and I can kick anyone's ass." He shouted it about 4 times then apparently fell over because his next shouted phrase was "Ow, I hurt my knee." Yep. Some mean mother****** he was.

Last time I was in America I left my coat in San Francisco. This time, I left it in Anchorage airport. I will soon have a coat in every state.

The trip home was uneventful - unless you count the stramash one of the gifts I had bought caused at security in Amsterdam. Four big men with guns surrounded my hand luggage. They put it back through the security thing three times, then eventually opened it, took stuff out and put it back through. Still apparently the same problem. I waited patiently, slightly worried because I had stupidly put my powdered butter in my hand luggage. Powdered butter is not yellow. It's white. I had what looked like a plastic bag full of cocaine in my handluggage. I was starting to sweat. One of the security men delved into my bag and pulled something out, looking at me accusingly. Luckily it wasn't my powderred butter. It was a brown plastic rubber toy shaped like a dogbone that had 'Alaska' written on it. He squeezed it. It squeaked. That seemed to satisfy them and they re-packed my hand luggage and waved me on. So let that be a lesson, kids. Just say no to rubber dog toys.

And so, I am home, and back to normality. I've already had several e-mails from the students - some have sent me stories and poems, some are just saying hello, and my friend Brad wants me to go to his graduation next year. I will go back, and if there's any way I can be there I will be at Brad's graduation. It feels like my second home.

I love the place - the surrounding scenery is majestic and very beautiful, the schools are a bright and positive place to be, everyone is extremely welcoming and friendly and, above all, the students are very very special to me. I left a little piece of my heart behind the very first year I went and I've added more each time I've been since. Plus, of course, there's a little bit of my stomach from where I flew the damn plane. In place of body parts I have loads of wonderful memories of places visited, old friends re-visited, new friends made, hugs given and received, new experiences, adventures galore, some wonderful writing, lots of laughs, and a few tears.

Bye for now Kuspuk School District. I'll see you again soon.

Lots of love, Donna xxxxx

Learning 'I Have No Brain' in Yup'ik

2010-05-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

And so to the last village on my trip - Stony River - a lovely little island about an hour upriver from Aniak. I'd never been here before but already knew some of the students from previous visits.

Cheryl and I had slept well in the school library, next to a classroom with chirping chicks. I found out afterwards that tradition says that all the schools are haunted by the children of adults who attended the school. The only children I saw were very much flesh and blood, however. We got up early and went for a walk around the village. It was a gorgeous day - chilly but sunny. First we visited the little village church and then we decided to go a different way from that we had gone the night before. We may have gone somewhere we shouldn't have. Whoops. It's a gorgeous place. Very quiet and pretty.

When the students arrived for breakfast, it was lovely to see Brad and Robert again. Brad and Robert are brothers - 16 and 17 years old - friendly, polite, gentle, funny and both of them extremely talented writers. Since I was there last time they have both sent me some of their writing. Brad, in particular, regularly sends me the most wonderful poetry - all about nature and the outdoors. During the day I had a chance to have a good chat with each of them. Both want to go to college. Robert wants to be a police officer (and hopefully SWAT!), Brad is possibly going to study to be a construction manager. They both love being outdoors and building things. They helped their dad build a cabin for their grandparents, and they are going to build a boat this year. There's something about both of them that makes them very special to me and I was really sad to leave them as I hugged them goodbye on Friday. I think I probably embarrassed them both as I told them that they are two of the nicest young men I have ever met, that they are talented and special and capable of doing anything they dream of, but they humoured me :o) The rest of the children in the family are equally lovely, and also very talented. Nichole, age 13, has written a really long story which she is going to send me. Michael, age 9, was a real star in class. He was in the elementary group that I had and I gave them cards with character and setting on and he wrote me a really imaginative story. At the end of the class he asked me if he could have more cards to write another story. And the youngest boy is Nels, who is 7. He's very bright and cute and surprised me and his teacher with the story he wrote for me. This picture is of the four brothers and their sister plus Simeon, known as Junior. The older boys really look out for their younger siblings.

In the High School class I had both Brad and Robert were there and one of the little exercises I got them to do was write about a memory. Robert wrote one about Brad, saying that he was getting on his nerves and wouldn't stop talking. When he walked away from him, Robert found that his pockets were filled with sawdust. He said "I asked my Mom if I could beat him up, but she said no." You can really feel the love they have for each other.

Over the two days I had each class twice - grades 1-4, 6-8 and then all the older students. The Arts Festival had all sorts of good stuff - tie-dying (you can see some of the results in the pictures here, beading (I had a go at that and was rubbish - they were all laughing at me. One of the girls, Crimson, took pity on me and made me a bracelet because my efforts were so bad), making keyrings, decorating boxes, boomwhackers, painting...I'm sure the writing bits were the least interesting, but they all submitted with humour and good grace and I had fun, even if they didn't :o)

With the two younger groups I did the character/setting cards and they wrote me stories, and I also did the character sheets. As usual, I got some that made me cry and some that made me laugh. Some of the students seemed to use the exercise as a way of exploring their feelings, others really stretched their imaginations- I had a character who was a bear but wanted to be a wolf, one who was the abominable snowman but was really a boy in disguise, one who was an alien girl who wanted to come to a planet that had proper air so she could save her family. With the older group I did an exercise where they had to get into groups and pretend to do a radio advert for a book, which they then had to perform for the rest of the class - trying to persuade us to buy the book. I was giving a prize for this one (cold, hard cash). In the end I gave two prizes as they were all so good. A group of 4 students did a very funny one about the Monkey Bar Gym and they won a prize to share. Brad did one on his own - he pretended to be the radio host and really made the book sound exciting. And he said that his author was going to donate money to a childrens' charity for every book sold. When I gave him his prize he said "I can't take that." "Of course you can," I said "You won it." He is such a sweet young man.

I also got them to write some non fiction. Maria wrote 3 wishes that were so lovely. She wouldn't let me read them out but I wish she had done - I think the other students would have been impressed. In every class I left it up to the students as to whether they read things out, I read them out, or I didn't read them out at all. Most of them let me read them out - surprisingly, even the personal ones. Needless to say, on a couple of occasions I struggled to hold back the tears. On one occasion, I didn't manage it.

The toilets at the school couldn't cope with the large influx of people so we had to have a new rule when the showers overflowed "If it's yellow, keep it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." I don't think I need to say more, do I?

Maria spoke more yup'ik than anyone I have met out here. She would come up to me and try and teach me something else. I can now answer the question "Do you have a brain with "I have no brain." (It sounds something like bah-TREE-toh) She also very patiently tried to teach me to count from 1 to 10 but when you consider that numbers 8 and 9 are Pingayunlegen (pronounced 'Ping-ay-OON-ligen' (with the g in the back of the throat as though you've swallowed a tennis ball)) and Qulngunritaar (pronounced 'I can't bloody say that') And then she would ask me all sorts of questions about me and where I lived. Each answer would be met with "Holy cow." She was so funny and sweet. I got lots of questions about whether I had a boyfriend and children. They all thought Ewan was a really weird name :o)

I am a gussack - basically a non-native. However, Maria and her friends said I was now a gusskimo - someone who is half white, half eskimo. I was very honoured.

In the evening, some of the boys built a bonfire outside. Worryingly, as you can see from this photo, it was only a few feet from a sign that basically said "For goodness sake, don't get fire anywhere near these tanks full of gas." We cooked marshmallows and made S'mores - two cooked marshmallows on top of a big chunk of chocolate and put between two graham crackers. Delicious. Some of us just ate marshmallows, as you can see from this picture. We finally went inside when the mosquitos came out. I may not have seen a bear, but I've seen a mosquito the size of one. Good grief - they're enormous. For some reason, they seemed to like me, and I'm now the proud owner of mosquito bites the size of Scotland.

That night we all camped out in the school. Crimson, the girl who had made me the bracelet, wanted to sleep next to me, so she hauled a mat out of the gym and put it next to my sleeping mat. I kept waking up to find her little face about an inch from mine.

When it came time to say goodbye the next day I was very sad. It was a very special couple of days. We went down to the airfield and waited for the planes to come and pick us up. Cheryl and I were travelling back to Aniak together.

Happily for me, it was Fred, my favourite pilot. For the first few minutes he flew really close to the water so we had a wonderful view of the sun sparkling on the water, and the ice breaking up. It really was spectacular. At one point I was about to say "How low are we, exactly?" when I saw him checking out of the window at my side. "Just making sure I don't dip the wing in the water," he said. I guess that answered my question - about 5 inches.

Fred and I both had headsets, Cheryl couldn't hear us. I turned to him and said "Cheryl said she'd really like to do that G-Force weightlessness thing."

"Are you sure she said that she would be OK with that?

"Yep." I crossed my fingers, hoping that when I had told Cheryl about my previous experience last year and she said "Oh my, that sounds absolutely terrifying" what she actually meant was "I would love to do that." But it was too late to worry. Fred, still flying low over the water, picked up speed and headed along the river. Just as it looked as though he was going to fly straight into a bunch of trees (and I'm sure at this point I heard a faint yelp from Cheryl in the back, the plane lifted into the air, my stomach turned over, and I came out of my seat as though I was in space. I laughed gleefully.

And then Fred said the magic words. "I guess we're going to have to take it higher if you're going to fly the rest of the way back."

"I guess we are", I said, casually, passing my camera back to Cheryl with a shite-eating grin on my face.

So, there I was, merrily flying at my usual 500 feet, following the river when Fred said "Are you scared?"

"No, should I be?" As I said it the plane started yawing (oh yes, people, I know the terminology - just call me Biggles) from left to right and Fred was grinning. "You bloody stop that," I said. "That's not fair."

"If you had your feet in the correct place, you'd know what I was doing."

I just stuck my tongue out and carried on. After another little while he said "Are you ready for a challenge?"

I looked at him. That entails me either gaining or losing height and going off course, so I try not to do it too often.

"You wanna fly over those mountains?"

He pointed to these enormous great buggers in the distance.

"How high would I need to go?"

"About 4000 feet."

"OK, if you're sure."

The next few minutes consisted of me saying "Am I high enough yet?" in an increasingly panicked voice and Fred saying "Nope" in an increasingly calm one. Honestly, the man's unflappable. He just rests his arm on the dashboard thingy (technical term, sorry) and gazes out of the window at the scenery.

But I did it. I got high enough to fly over the mountain. Didn't see a bloody thing except the spot in front of me, but Cheryl got some photos. Then we started to descend.

"Come down at about 300 feet a minute and head for that bit of the river. By the time you get there, we'll be ready to come in to land."

"OK," I said, watching my little descending dial. Or so I thought.

"Donna, why are you still climbing?"

"I'm not! Look that little needle is going down."

"That little needle's the wrong little needle. It's this one you should be looking at."

"Oh." I watched the correct little needle.

A minute later Fred said, "Well, you made up for climbing that last minute."

"How do you mean?"

"You came down 700 feet in that minute there."

"Look, I have all these bloody dials to watch." By this time, Fred had added another dial for me to watch - I was up to 4 now. "You can't expect me to get all of them exactly right."

"It would just be nice to know what height you're going to fly at so I can tell Aniak we're coming in at a certain height. It's nice for all the other planes to know."

I thought for a moment. "Can't you just tell them we'll be coming in somewhere between 500 and 3000 feet?"

But I managed to get my act together and start a slow descent. After a few minutes Fred said "We've got about 1300 feet to descend."

"How long will that take?" I said.

He looked at me. "Oh any thing between an hour and 5 seconds, since it's you."

"Oh haha very funny."

It was truly brilliant. I have never had so much fun in my life. Cheryl was looking a tad green by the time we landed though. I gave Fred a big hug and thanked him for making my trips such a wonderful experience and for being such a good sport.

Emily had gone off to a graduation, so I was going to be staying at her house on my own. Jim picked us up from the airport. "Where does Emily live?" he said.

"Errrrrr...near the river," I said, helpful as ever.

He looked at me pityingly. "Donna, we're on an island. Everyone lives near the river."

Waqaa Cangacit From Stony River

2010-05-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

Back from a wonderful couple of days in Stony River, so time to catch up on my last day in Kalskag. This will be a fairly brief post as I am absolutely shattered.

On Wednesday I got up and walked all of 5 yards to work with the High Schoolers in Lower Kalskag. The High Schoolers out here are probably the most challenging but also the most rewarding to work with. Today I was in Melanie's Class and the students rotated around to me. With one class, I had them for two periods so we got to do loads of stuff and I got to know them a bit.

As ever, they surprised me with the openness, honesty and willingness to talk about really tough things, as well as with their humour and good nature.

When I started this blog two and a half years ago, before my first trip, I said that I wasn't just going to talk about the good things, but I was going to try and give a full picture of life here. But, while I am happy to talk at length about the happy things, and the great stories that some of the students did for me, and tell you exactly who they are, there's a lot of things where I won't give the students' names and a lot that I find out that I wouldn't mention on here. Some of it's really sad and makes my heart ache for these students.

There are a lot of things which make life so difficult for them out here - alcohol problems in the families, physical and sexual abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, self-harm, suicide. It's not just the adults who drink, sometimes the students do too. One I spoke to has just come out of a rehab programme. And it's not just the high-schoolers. There's a drug called 'punk' which basically sounds like magic mushrooms. They add it to the chewing tobacco. And it's on sale at the village store.

One of the exercises I do is where I get the students to make up a character and get to know them by answering questions about that character - what they look like, what their favourite things are, what their bad habits and best personality traits are, what they are most afraid of, what they want out of life and what their biggest secret is. The results of this exercise have really surprised me - a lot of the students, instead of making up a character, have used it to talk about something close to them. One student in one of the villages made me cry because, while I was talking to her about the character, and telling her how powerful and painful some of the things she had written were, she told me that it was actually her. The experiences were something that an adult should never have to suffer, let alone a small child. Sometimes it's hard not to cry. Sometimes I just cry. I want to take them home and keep them safe. All I can do is hug them, what good is that to them?

And then there are the students who write me brilliantly funny stories or descriptive or inventive stories. And they do it with great enthusiasm. A couple of students who didn't finish their stories in the class have since e-mailed me their finished stories with an "I hope you like it." There is some real talent here - one sixteen-year old, Martin, showed me a film he had made. I told him he should enter one of his films for a competition - he's really good.

While I was in between lessons one of the students brought me in a note from her cousin - little Catherine who I had met the day before. "I will never forget you. Call me." She gave me her number again. So, as I had an hour or so after school and before the plane came to pick me up to go up to Stony River, I called her and she and her friends came over to hang out. This is us, with a tiny little puppy. I don't know how you spell his name but it's pronounced something like 'Slaqtaaq' and it means 'Little dog who wanders around the village'. Before I left Karen gave me a beaded pen holder, made in Kalskag, and a card signed by every one of the kindergarten and elementary students. Yes, I cried.

And then it was off to Stony River which is about an hour and a half upstream. Part of the flight was with Steve, part was with Matt. As I didn't get to fly it meant I could watch the scenery and take loads of pictures.

We flew through the mountains - practically into the mountains. I could almost reach out and touch this peak. I'd never been to Stony before so was really excited. It's a beautiful little island of about 3 and a half acres. The scenery pictures in this post are from Stony. There are only about 50 people who live in the village. This is the petrol station. One of the teachers, Rick, took us for a walk around half of the island and then Cheryl and I settled down in the school overnight. I've never slept in a school before (well, only at my desk when I wasn't supposed to).

We then had two days of an Arts Festival to which the other small schools upriver flew their students into. More of that in the next post, along with making S'mores, learning bad words in Yup'ik, an overflowing toilet, and a hair-raising flight over the mountains. It was a lot of fun.

Today I Cried Buckets

2010-05-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Well, before I tell you about my day in the Elementary School in Kalskag yesterday, let me show you something really really special. This evening, there was a "Meet the Author" event at the High School, and they presented me with the most beautiful plaque. This was made by some of the students in Aniak and Bruce, the shop teacher there (by the way, for non-Americans, 'shop' is not teaching people how to go and buy shoes, it's basically industrial arts). It's made of wood, all carved and varnished. And it is now covered in my tears. Honestly, when they presented it to me I just burst into tears. And I told the students who were there that if they dared tell everyone else at the school tomorrow that I was crying, then they would be in trouble :o) Just in case you can't read it, it says: "Ms Donna Moore, Kuspuk School District's Favorite Author" Apparently, they spent ages trying to work out what to put on the plaque - whether it should be a salmon, or a moose, but then they decided a bear because I'd mentioned wanting to see a bear on my blog. It's the best thing I have ever received and I'm going to hang it in pride of place when I get back home. Every time I look at it, or think about it, I start crying again. Am I, or am I not, the luckiest person imaginable?

So, back to yesterday. I spent the day with the Elementary School in Kalskag, arriving via 4-wheel ATV which was brilliant fun. The elementary school is a new school. The High School in Kalskag burned down last year, so the High School has moved to the Elementary School and for a while they all crammed in together - Elementary pupils going to school in the morning, starting really early, and High School starting at lunchtime and going into the evening.

My first class was Karen's first and second grade class. Here they are. Seeing this picture reminds me of something Karen told me. The little boy at the back is called Sanka. His Uppa, Crim, was a kidnapped child in the 40s and 50s. During that period, and right up to the 1970s Native Alaskan children were abducted from the villages and sent to boarding schools where they would have to learn English, become Christian, and, essentially, lose every aspect of their culture. Apparently this forced assimilation happened to all the Native American peoples from the 1870s onwards. From what Karen says, I don't think the experience was particularly happy for most of those children.

Also in Karen's class is my little friend Catherine. She is a very bright and funny girl. She made me draw her pictures, which she stuck on the wall by her desk, and she wrote me a note, giving me her phone number and telling me she wanted to come and visit. I took the school bus home and she hugged me all the way. She then brought over her harmonica to show me how she played it. And today, one of her cousins in the high school turned up with a letter for me. It said "To Donna, I love you, from Catherine. I won't forget you, love Catherine and if you tell me your number I will call you. Would you like to call me at my house here is the number." And she gave me her number. We're currently in Kalskag waiting for the plane to take us to Stony River (where it is probable that I won't be able to post from), so before we go I'm going to go and call her and tell her goodbye for now.

The children in first and second grade taught me how to say the days of the week in yup'ik and laughed when I got stuck. They said I was pretty good at Monday (Pekyun - pronounced Bak-YOO-n) and Saturday (Maqineq - pronounce Mak-EE-nak) and rubbish at Friday (Tallimirin - pronounced fjdksjdieufnvncshfehfscnmnkalfndkfhemadb, as far as I could make out). May is Anutiit (pronounced a-noo-TEE-t) which means 'the month the eggs are starting to hatch.

The third and fourth grade had lots of questions for me - are there dinosaurs in Scotland? Are there dragons in Scotland? Is there a king? Is the Queen really bossy? My answer to that one was that yes, she is, and you have to obey her. There was then a little furrowed brow and the worried question "If I come to visit you will she boss me about too?" I promised that I would make sure she didn't.

In the fifth grade everyone wrote some great stories for me. The teacher said that he had a couple of students who had never written a story before, and that he was going to use a couple of the exercises I did with them as they enjoyed them.

After school was over, it was off to the event where I got my lovely plaque. Some of the students and teachers and community were there and I talked for a few minutes and then they asked questions and then I asked them questions about themselves. One of the Elders was there and I asked her to tell me more about Slaviq, which was excellent. The students enjoy Slaviq because they get loads of candy. I also asked the 4 students who were there about hunting. One of the girls shot her first moose when she was 12. When you hunt your first animal you don't eat it yourself, you give it away. Needless to say, Jaclyn's grandmother was very happy to receive a moose! As I mentioned in an earlier post, each family is only allowed to catch and kill one moose each year.

Two of the boys and I discussed music afterwards - both really nice boys - 15 and 16. One of them has lots of problems and is currently in rehab but he was the nicest, politest boy and he also did some great writing for me which was also very touching. The other boy is a big fan of Slipknot and would dearly love to see them in concert so I told him to write to them and tell them about where he lives and that no-one ever comes here and to see what they say.

After the event we went to Marcia and Ray's for dinner. Dave and Ray are building a canoe and we went to see that, and for a walk around where they live which is in Upper Kalskag. Here are the girls out for a walk.

In tomorrow's post, I meet a talented film-maker and the students make me cry again. We're just heading off to Stony River though, where we are camping out in the school and internet access may be a thing of the past. Please keep commenting in the meantime and I'll respond as soon as I can!

If This Is Tuesday, This Must Be Kalskag

2010-05-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

The photos in this blog post are all from the flight to Kalskag and from Kalskag itself, of which more later.

Yesterday (Monday) I was at the High School in Aniak. I started at 9am and had classes all day until 3.30pm. It was lovely to see them all again and a lot of them remembered me. They’ve all grown up so much in the year and a half since I was here last. One of the girls who has e-mailed me poems occasionally since I was last year, brought me a whole bunch of poems to read. Her poems are very personal and she told me that she can write things down that she can't say in person to people. I told her that was a good way of doing it and that she expressed herself very well.

My first class of the day was a Junior High class. We did some character exercises. This was very funny – one of the boys in the class was a real joker – and then we did a ‘one sentence’ story. I gave them the first line of a story and they then had to write one sentence, before passing it on for the next person to write a line “This is hard, Miss Donna,” they said. But they did it, and they came up with some excellent stories.

The next four classes were senior High School students. With all of those I did a crime story in 5 paragraphs. I gave them instructions as to what to write about in each paragraph (para 1 – tell us what the crime is and introduce the protagonist, para 2 – who is the villain etc etc). It was a real challenge for some of them and they struggled at the start, but it was so wonderful when the idea just seemed to click with them and every single one of them wrote a story that had great things in it. Some of the stories were wonderful, and the students wrote pages and pages in the hour we had.

Then with each class I did a very short non-fiction exercise – one class I told them I was their fairy godmother and could grant them 3 wishes, one class I asked to tell me about a time they had been blamed for something they hadn’t done. Every year, here, somebody makes me cry. This time it was a girl who wrote a very touching piece. I had asked them to write something with the title “I Remember...” about a memory – any memory. Jaydean wrote a really nice piece about celebrating Slaviq (Russion Orthodox Christmas, held on January 7th) with a friend of hers called Jason. She obviously cared for Jason very much and her story made me smile – it was very descriptive and gave me a real insight into Slaviq. What I didn’t know until the end was that Jason was a Marine and had died recently in battle. I couldn’t hold back the tears, and neither could she. Afterwards I thanked her for sharing such a personal story and asked her how she felt while she was writing it. She said that it felt good for her to write it, and she didn’t expect to cry. It touched me very much.

After each of the classes, some of the students brought me pieces of writing for me to comment on. These were excellent – one boy had a wonderfully descriptive piece about his summer vacation, the joker from the previous class had some fiction about an alien (I made him promise to e-mail it to me when it was done). My friend Juliana who I spent some time with last year, had a wonderfully imaginative story for me – she is a very talented writer. As was Francis – his poetry is stunning. I told him he must submit it to magazines and competitions. Very dark, very powerful. I asked him if it helped him to write poems about things that were troubling him and he said it did. I hate to think that he has so much trouble that he has to write such dark poetry but it was amazing writing.

In the last class of the day, as well as helping some of the students individually, we also talked about food (yes! my favourite topic). For some reason, they all went "Ew" when I told them what haggis was, but wondered why I did the same when they gave me the recipe for Stinkheads. And yes, Stinkheads are as bad as they sound. If you really want to make them here's the recipe: catch some fish, remove all the bits that you want to eat and put it to one side. Take all the bits that you think are rubbish, wrap them in a cloth and bury them in the ground. Forget about them for a couple of weeks, dig them up, eat, enjoy, throw up. Apparently, burying them in the ground makes them ferment. Or, as I prefer to call it, rot. The yup'ik have been eating them for hundrds of years with no ill effects. However, the advent of modern technology and invention of plastic bags meant that some people buried their fish in plastic bags. And died of botulism poisoning.

I love these students. It was an honour and a pleasure to spend the day with them.

Then it was a ten minute flight to Kalskag – 5 minutes of which I flew the plane. Cheryl was in the back and I didn’t make her sick at all. At one point Fred turned round to her and shrugged as though to say “What can I do?”

As we neared Kalskag, he said to me “Bring it in towards the runway, between those hills.”

So I aimed for between the hills and kept flying. After a couple of minutes I said “Where is the runway, anyway?”

Fred looked at me and laughed. “You can’t see it? You’re heading straight towards it.”

“Oh, well that’s lucky then.”

As usual, I gave the plane back as we were coming in to land. You have to do all sorts of technical stuff when you’re coming in to land. I’m not good at the technical stuff. I am rubbish at multi-tasking.

So we arrived in Kalskag, which is actually split into two cities - Lower Kalskag, where I'm staying, which has about 260 residents, and is primarily Russian Orthodox, and Upper Kalskag, about two miles away, which has around 230 residents and is primarily Catholic.

I'm staying with Karen and Dave, two of the teachers at the elementary school. I always stay with them while I'm here and they're lovely. Dave and the husband of one of the other teachers had caught a bear, so we had that for dinner. It tasted delicious. They caught it coming out of a blueberry patch, and that's why it tasted so good. They don't taste as nice when they've been caught by the river, and they taste even worse when they're caught in the town dump.

We also had something I never knew existed - powdered butter. Aniak, which has a large enough runway that the larger planes can come in from Anchorage and Bethel (and when I say 'larger' I mean relatively speaking) gets some fruit, vegetables, milk, butter, eggs and cheese. The other villages sometimes struggle to get it. So Karen and Dave use powdered butter. It's powder and you add water. And, most surprisingly, it tastes like butter

After dinner, we went for a walk around Lower Kalskag. Jenny, one of the teachers, has recently brought in some bees, so we went to see the hive. And then we walked around and about. This picture is rush hour in Lower Kalskag. There are very few trucks and cars here (and those that are here seem to not work any more, as you can see from other pictures, so most people use 4-wheeler ATVs.

This is a picture of Jenny and Porcupine the dog - so-called because he looks like a porcupine.

There are two Russian Orthodox churches here, only one is in use today.
On the picture, the graves outside the fence are the graves of babies who died before they could be baptised. They are not allowed to be buried in the churchyard itself.

The other church is ruined, but there are still graves there. I met Levi who was in one of my classes last year and he took a walk to the ruined church with me and told me where his Uppa (grandfather) and his Gram (grandma) and his uncle (uncle :o) ) are buried, and then we went down to the river where he pointed out an eagle and told me where he fishes and rows his boat and drives his snowmobile. On the way back to Karen and Dave's we saw another girl who was in my class last year - Anniemary - who came over and gave me a big hug.

Then it was back to Karen's. While I had been away for my walk she had made the most gorgeous biscuits. I deserved one after my walk so I had two.

Fasten Your Seatbelts, It's Going To Be a Bumpy Ride

2010-05-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

Let me just say right off that today I flew a plane. For a whole hour. Yes, I did. But first, to catch up from where I left off.

On Saturday I was supposed to be flying to Sleetmute. However, as happens in the Bush, the best laid plans of moose and men and all that... Friday was warmish, yesterday was freezing cold and snowing. We met Fred, our pilot, at the airport and he said "Well we could go. Two planes going upriver had to turn back, but if you're willing to try...We might be forced to land on the river. " He was surprisingly cheerful when he said this. Apparently, Fred is prepared to do things other pilots won't try.

I also mentioned about him letting me fly the plane last time and said "But I'm sure you kept your hands on the controls, just in case."

"Nope," he said, and laughed.

And there I thought the whole time that I wasn't actually in control and I was. Someone had mentioned to me the night before that Fred had said "Most people either go too high or too low, but she just kept straight on." I was very proud :o)

So, instead of going to Sleetmute, Emily and I went to a rummage sale at the school and I ended up with loads of bling - some gorgeous traditional earrings and bracelets made of beads. One pair of earrings has tiny mukluks on. Mukluks are little snowboots. Unfortunately, I got the word wrong and told Emily I had earrings with muktuk on. "You have earrings made of whale blubber?" she said. OK, so I need more practise at my yup'ik, obviously.

I then attended a birthday party for a 4-year old. An hour and a half later I could have slept for Alaska. And I was stuffed with cake and ice cream. Yum yum. However, I'm now very worried about having to give my weight on the next plane I fly on (that's another good thing about Fred - he never asks your weight).

Today, Sunday, I got up to find an inch of snow on the ground, but the weather had really cleared up so I could fly to Sleetmute, which is about an hour and a quarter upriver (if you fly in a straight line and don't follow the winding Kuskokwim River it's about 50 minutes). My pilot up was Matt, who's 22 and has been a Bush pilot since he was 16. (Did I mention I flew a plane? Well, that was on the way back, not on the way up). Matt gave me the safety demonstration - "Whatever you do, don't touch that lever," he said, pointing to a lever about one millimetre away from my knee.

Sleetmute is a very small village of around 100 people, and the school has 8 pupils. It's a very special place for me. I spent a couple of days there last time I was there, and one of my favourite people, Mary Effemka - one of the village Elders - lives there.

Bambi at the store very foolishly said I could borrow her ATV (even when I told her I don't drive), and off I set to visit Mary. Just call me Ayrton Senna Pod. I got into 2nd gear and a whole 12 miles an hour. The tracks are really bad at the moment and there are a lot of pot-holes and still a fair bit of snow. When I arrived at Mary's I actually went to the wrong house first and almost got eaten by the most enormous dog. When I knocked on the door I realised my mistake when a very sleepy looking man came to the door. Whoops, sorry George.

I had brought Mary some little gifts from Scotland and she gave me a beautiful suncatcher made of beads. We took a walk down to the river, and sat and visited for a while. Mary lost her husband to suicide a couple of years ago and this time she told me the story of how they had met, and how long she has lived in the village. It was fascinating. Mary is a wonderful lady and I always feel very sad when I say goodbye to her, but I was really glad that I had got to see her.

After that, I met up with Susan, who's the head of the Upriver schools and we went for a walk by the river. Susan travels quite a lot and, while she was away some time ago, one of the villagers brought her some fish and left them outside her house on the steps. Then, before Susan arrived back it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. Covering up the fish on her doorstep. They stayed nice and frozen until the snow started to thaw last week.Finally all the snow disappeared and Susan found 5 rotting fish on her doorstep. By this time, they were beginning to stink a tad, so today Susan threw them down by the river for the birds. As a result, I was able to get really really close to a bald eagle and see it drag off this huge fish in its beak. A couple of the eagles were wheeling above our heads for ages - it was an amazing sight.

Then we went over to the school and some of the students came by to say hello. It was lovely to see them again. After that, Susan, Bambi and I visited for a little while as we waited for my plane to arrive to take me back to Aniak. I learned a very valuable lesson. If someone says they want to give you a gift of oosik, just say no. Apparently it's a very popular thing to give as a gift. But why on earth would anyone want a whale's penis bone? I mean, what are you going to do with it? Do they come with batteries?

Then my favourite pilot arrived to take me home. Oh, did I mention that I flew this plane. I FLEW THIS PLANE!

"Can I sit next to you?" I said.

"Nope, you've got to sit all the way in back," he said. And then laughed very loudly when he saw my crestfallen face. So I got in and put on my headset (I felt like Biggles- it allows you to talk to the pilot and listen in to all the stuff that's going on), and got to shut my own door.

"Do you want to fly low and follow the river?" he said.

"Oh yes, that would be great. How low are we flying?"

"About 50 feet."

"Wow, that's low."

"We can go lower than that,", he said. And, believe me, when Fred says low, he means low. We flew for about 15 minutes 5 feet off the surface of the river. It makes you feel as though you're going really fast.

"This is Red Devil coming up," he said. "In front of us is the school." And when he said "in front of us" he meant that too. I was too petrified to take a photo but when we got to about what seemed to be a foot from the window of the school he took us up over the roof, rather than through it.

And then he said those magic words "I guess if you're going to fly we need to get a bit higher."

"Well, unless you want us to go plunging through the ice it might be a good idea," I said casually, as though flying a plane was an everyday occurrence.

So for the next hour (with one brief exception, of which more later), I flew the damn plane! The Kuskokwim is a very winding river so I got lots of chances to turn. I should say right now that turning while trying to keep at a steady altitude is not exactly easy. To go higher, you pull back on the steering wheel thingy (sorry for the technical term there, we pilots tend to use a lot of that), to go lower, you push it forward. Even a tiny little movement can have it moving up and down like a roller coaster. Or maybe that's just me...

I had two dials to watch. One was altitude, which I tried to keep between 400 and 500 feet. Quite successfully, I must say, at least after the first little while. Near the start we had to cross a mountain, instead of following the river and I was so scared of hitting the mountain (I have no spatial awareness) that I climbed a tad too far.

"Hey, we're up to 1000 feet, but that's cool," said my unfaze-able co-pilot.

"Whoops," I said, as I took the plane into a nose-dive to get back down to 500 feet.

The other dial I had to try and keep at zero.

"I'm doing not too bad on that one," I said, I've been watching it and it's hovering around zero all the time. I was so proud of myself.

"Yeah, it is...shame you're watching the wrong dial." Oh how we laughed.

After a little while I relaxed into it, my dials were fairly steady, and I made the mistake of telling Fred that I was getting quite comfortable.

"Then we'll make it a little more difficult," he said, the fiend. We went off course, to see whether one of the smaller rivers was breaking up yet. So now I had another dial to watch - this one had to point towards the west all the time. OK, so I mastered that one too.

"If you bank it really steeply upwards and then sharply downwards, you can go weightless," he said.

"Oh ha-ha, very funny."

"I'm going to take a photo of you flying the plane."

"I think you might prefer to watch what I'm doing," I said, but he didn't listen to me. Those white knuckles you see on the steering wheel thingy are mine. And the next photo was one that Fred took while I was banking sharply to the left - look at that angle.

Oh my goodness, you have no idea how brilliant it was. I'm still on a high. At one point, he took back control, so he could go in a circle and get really low again so I could see a moose and her calf by the side of the river. I tried to get a good photo but couldn't. Take my word for it though - it was wonderful to see them.

I brought the plane in towards the runway. "You just carry on," he said. Followed by "At the rate you're descending, we're not going to make the runway." He said it so calmly, too. There's something wrong with that man, I'm sure of it. So I gave control back and he landed it beautifully. And then he gave control back to me again. On the ground, you don't steer with the steering wheel thingy, you steer with pedal-y things. Right to go right, left to go left. It sounds logical but it was really hard. I told him if anyone was watching they would think he was drunk.

"Aim for between the telegraph pole and the hangar."

He had to be kidding, it was a six inch space.

"No, I didn't say aim for the telegraph pole, Donna."

"Did I tell you I gave up driving a car because I couldn't park?"

"By the time you leave, we'll have you landing the plane."

Hahahahahahahahaha.

I cannot get the huge grin off my face, and while we were flying I just couldn't stop myself laughing gleefully from time to time. It was an amazing experience. I am, officially, the luckiest person in the world.

"You Speak Funny"

2010-05-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

Post number three from the Bush. Oh, and I should point out that these posts get very little editing. I just write down my thoughts as they come out of my head. Iknow -scary thought.

First of all, here is a picture of my lovely hosts, Emily and Ronnie and their gorgeous new baby Ryder, who is 8 months old and has the cutest smile imaginable.

Today was my first day in the schools - the elementary school in Aniak. I spent an hour with each of the classes from kindergarten through to 5th and 6th grade (because there aren't many students, some of the grades are taught together).

It was wonderful to see so many old friends again and meet some new ones. I met Cheryl who is a wonderful lady and is the district's librarian, and who is going to accompany me to Kalskag, Sleetmute and Stony River. A lot of the students remembered me and I got hugs (maybe because they knew I had sweets and cookies and pencils.

This year, the district has a special library grant and the staff have worked really hard to improve literacy. In order to do so, the librarian, Carol (who is so keen and enthusiastic and really inspires the students), had devised a special competition where students who read more than 10 books in the last month, and passed a special quiz on each book, achieving over 80%, would get their names put into a hat and would win a prize. Between them the students read over 300 books. One student read more than 20 and another 11 read over 10 each. I was given the honour of drawing the names out today.

But first, it was classes. First of all, I had the second graders (age 7ish). We did an exercise called 'Box of Impossibilities'. First of all, we discussed all the things that wouldn't fit in a box (house, school, the sun, a star, rainbows) and then they all picked cards on which I had written characters (vampire, clown, teacher, baby, dog etc) and they had that character in their story, which had to be about a box of impossibilities. I had some great stories written for me - very imaginative and often very funny. One student's character card was 'grandmother'. He had a second grandmother jump out of the box and frighten the first grandmother. The student who picked a clown had a whole circus inside his box of impossibilities, complete with elephants and more clowns.

With the 3rd and 4th graders (age 8 and 9), we rewrote Cinderella. I had written an alternative Cinderella story set in the village (snowboot instead of glass slipper, and the ugly sisters had been to Anchorage to get botox and plastic surgery). Again, the students came up with some wonderful stories. We had male Cinderellas, Fairy God-babies and Fairy God-dogs, we had mean and nasty Cinderellas (in one case the Fairy Godmother gave her an attitude change rather than a makeover) and nice and kind stepsisters, we had Cinderella going to a Halloween Ball, we had her travelling in a carriage made out of an apple and an onion, we had mice turned into moose and cats turned into wolves. It was a lot of fun.

With the 5th and 6th graders I gave them each a character card (recycling the ones I used with the 2nd graders) but I added a setting card (tower, ocean, cave, castle, bridge, mountain) and a dilemma (someone loses something, someone is kidnapped, someone is being bullied, someone is followed). So we had a pirate who lost his treasure up a mountain, a king of an underwater kingdom who told a whale a lie. These students have great imaginations.

With the Kindergarten class I read them a story and they drew pictures of things that were happening in the story (it was one of this class who told me I talked funny :o) ), and with the 1st graders I gave them a magic stone which helped them to make up characters. As there were only four of them, we also did one of my favourite things with the youngest students which was to get them to draw an imaginary door and go through to a special planet. They then told me what they could see, hear and smell on the planet and they could bring one thing back. Last year, we ended up with lots of food items being brought back, this year it was a tiny blue tyrannosaurus rex, a lion, a pizza, and a large, unspecified dinosaur that had problems fitting through the door.

There's a lot of differences in the skill of the children. In one class, almost half the class has some level of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Many students are two or three grades below where they should be. Lots have missed 50 or 60 days of school. Sometimes they come to school having only had a few hours sleep because they've been up until 1am or 2am because their parents have been drinking. The teachers here are amazing. They are very special people and do so much to bring the students up to the level they should be at. They care so much about what they do and about the students. Like all the other schools here, Aniak Elementary is a bright and happy place to be. The kindergarten class were all keen to take me to see the sunflowers they are growing, the childrens' stories and pictures line the walls, and I was surrounded by happy smiling faces, all wanting to ask me questions. Despite their problems all the students are bright, funny, sweet, inquisitive and friendly. They do my heart good.

And, finally, a couple of photos of Aniak itself. This is the library - it's tiny - how wonderful though, I love it. Next to the library is a honey bucket (a very modern one though, compared to some).

And this is where I might have ended up had Emily and Ronnie not been so lovely and let me stay with them. This is a hotel. No, really it is. I know it looks like the set of a Stephen King movie, but it's a hotel. I wanted to go inside. Apparently the owner has 40 cats. Let's look at a close-up shall we? I wish I knew what was in the windows...or maybe I don't - it may be all that is left of past guests. Is that a shadowy hooded figure in the downstairs window? Standing behind what looks remarkably like the stand holding a sub-machine gun? I may just have to creep up and try the door one day while I am here.

I was quite sad to leave the school this afternoon. I know I'm going to other schools but the number of students who said to me "Will you be back in our school?" was amazing. I wish I could spend a week in each school. But I will come back.

As I sit at Emily's dining room table and type this post, the snow is gradually disappearing from the mountains on the other side of the river. A lot of people live right on the river, which is the lifeblood of the community. It makes for a gorgeous view but, more importantly, it's where a lot of their food comes from and is, apart from by plane, the only way to travel between villages - either by boat in summer, or snowmachine in winter. A couple of the students couldn't come into school today as they live on the opposite side of the river and the river is starting to melt so it's not safe to snowmachine across, but it's also not possible yet to come across by boat. Several people have said to me that when I go to the upriver schools I might be lucky enough to be here for breakup. I hope I am, it sounds spectacular.

This evening they had a "Meet the Author" (that's me by the way) event at the library. Adults and children from the community came and we sat around and chatted and they asked me questions about writing and Scotland. And we had cake. This banner was made by some of the High School students. It's really clever. The first O is full of flowers, the second is a fire, and the second N is a fish. It's really lovely and I wish I could have taken it home with me..

Half way across the river (which is about half a mile wide) there is an island. After dinner, Ronnie said "There's a moose on the island." I rushed to the window. I could see nothing but the reed-y things which cover the island.

"A moose?"

"Cow," said Ronnie.

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way Ronnie, fair enough, but where's the moose?"

"No, it's a female moose."

"I can't even see the bloody moose, let alone what sex it is."

So Ronnie took pity on me and passed me a pair of binoculars. And there was the moose. My first moose in the wild, it was really exciting. Apparently, you can only hunt moose between 1st and 20th September (unfortunately, at that time, they've stopped eating and are only drinking (sounds like Glasgow, only without the kebab on the way home) and they are all rolling in their own pee, (it's something to do with sex - it happens in Glasgow all the time - do men think that women will be attracted to them after they fall over in the urinals) so the meat can sometimes be a little weird tasting), and you're only allowed to catch one a year (moose, not Glaswegian male).

Talking of food, I'm going to add another thing to the - admittedly short - list of Things I Do Not Wish To Try. Along with Stinkheads (trust me, you don't want to know), I have now added beaver feet. Mind you, I have to say that if someone actually offered me a Stinkhead or a beaver foot, I would have to try it, just because I would never forgive myself if I didn't. I'm just hoping they are never on offer.

Wolves, Honey Buckets and Wanted Posters

2010-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am in Aniak. The flight was great fun. When I got on the plane, I realised that my seat did not have a window, so I asked the flight attendant if I could move forward to the very front.

"Of course," she said "We like to have as much weight as possible at the front."

"Thank you very much, glad to be of assistance," said Airplane Ballast.

Then we went through the usual flight safety demonstrations - "This is how you work the seatbelt." She used my knee as a rest for the intercom phone as she demonstrated. "Here are the emergency exits. Sick bags are up the front here - you'll need them." She was right. It was, shall we say, a slightly bumpy ride. I loved it.

She also announced the co-pilot as Warren Beatty. "No, wait, that's not right, it's Joe Beatty - he's not as good looking as Warren." It turned out that only I and the flight attendant knew who Warren Beatty was, so she announced to the rest of the plane. "This lady and I know - it's our age."

"So not only am I fat, but I am old and fat?" I said. She laughed and passed me a bag of potato chips (see how easily I slip into American?) to shut me up.

My luggage all arrived safely, and after settling in at Emily's I went down to the river for a walk. It's still iced over, but there are patches where the ice is very thin. It's also really, really muddy, and my pink Doc wellies sank up to the ankles in gloriously squelchy mud. Here are a couple of pictures - it's totally different from when I saw it last time. This photo was taken in the same place as the two photos that say Kuskokwim River 16 October and Kuskokwim River 23 October. While I was out on my walk I waved to a few people and they waved back. It's an amazingly friendly place - everyone leaves their door unlocked - if I was to do that in Glasgow I'd come back to find the place stripped and all the paint missing from the walls, swapped for a huge steaming keech in the middle of the living room floor.

Emily's husband made us the most gorgeous dinner with some of the salmon he caught last season (apparently, one day he caught 22 fish in an hour - what were they doing - jumping into his arms?) and we had a glass of wine (Aniak is a damp village - you can own alcohol but not sell it. Most of the villages in the area are dry - it's illegal to possess alcohol at all).

Emily and I also went to the store where I checked out the outrageously priced fruit and veg. As we went in, I got a bit of a shock. There was a poster on the notice board announcing "Donna Moore is Back!" I checked, but there was no "Reward Offered - Dead or Alive" at the bottom which was a bit of a relief, especially since most people round here have guns, knives and, very probably (and, of most concern to Airplane Ballast,) harpoons.

Last night it was still light at 11pm when I went to bed. I opened my window (it's really not that cold here, despite the ice and the remnants of the snow).

This morning Emily said to me "Did you hear the neighbours last night? I think they were having a party." The neighbours do not have running water or a flushing toilet, so, apparently, they were running the honey bucket out several times to empty it (where, I did not ask).

"No," I said. "But I heard the wolves howling at about 6am."

"Wolves?" said Emily, puzzled. "I think you'll find they were huskies."

I was almost as upset as when I found out last time I was here that what I had thought were the Northern Lights were actually the lights from the airport. The regular sweeping motion should probably have given it away, but there you go.

Today I am off to the Auntie Mary Nicoli Elementary School (all the schools here are named after an Elder). Happy, happy Donna - I get to spend the day with 55 four to eleven-year olds. More tomorrow.

Tata

The Fat Bird Has Landed

2010-04-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's not often I get to say this but...I arrived safely in Anchorage and so, miraculously, did my luggage. I think the luggage fairies spared me this time. Instead, they had another little treat for me. At every single security check I went through (Glasgow, Amsterdam and Seattle), a little clutch of security people gathered around the x-ray machine to stare at my luggage. I was then made to open it and explain why my wellies were full of pens, chocolates and underwear. I knew it was a mistake when I did it, but a pair of wellies can hold a lot of pens and chocolates. The underwear was just to stop the pens and chocolate falling out. As always, I got my usual heavy petting at security at Schipol airport. This time, they also fingered my knickers.

In another Yin/Yang type moment, on the plane from Amsterdam I had two seats to myself. Delicious. On the other hand, on the plane from Seattle to Anchorage I was seated between two large men whose testicles were, apparently, the size of watermelons, since they did that whole, annoying "I'm going to sit with my legs as far open as I can and squeeze you into a tiny little space" thing. By the time we arrived, I was squidged, pretzel-like into a two inch space in my own bloody seat. Still, I got my own back - I managed to spill cranberry juice on one of them and jabbed the other one in the ribs with my elbow when I was opening my peanuts. I also fell asleep and drooled all over one of them.

When I arrived at Anchorage, I was met by the lovely Elisa from Alaska Sisters in Crime who took me to Office Depot where I bought $200 of pens, pencils and paper. She then deposited me back at my hotel where it was room service and sleep. Of course, I woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 2am this morning (11am in the real world).

Today I am off to Aniak, the biggest of the villages I am visiting, and the only one which has an airport that can take a large plane (when I say 'large' I mean one that seats more than 12 people. I am currently sitting at the airport. And so begins the whole trauma of telling complete strangers your weight. The last time I was here, every time someone asked my weight, I shaved 20lbs off it, but added in "but I have heavy boots."

This time, I decided to be truthful, mainly because I could see the dawning look of horror on the face of the only man on our flight as, when each female passenger went up to the counter, they all, without fail...well, quite frankly, they lied. One woman must have shaved a whole 100lbs off her weight. She quite clearly was not 110lbs - unless she had bones made of helium. So, feeling very self-righteous, I told the truth. I walked up to that counter and said "Hello, my name is Donna and I weigh a horrible number of pounds." (Yes, dear reader, I will tell the Pen-Air staff all over Alaska, and people I am travelling with (who are, no doubt going to arrive in Aniak and tell everyone else - it's a small place after all), but I will not tell you.) Oh, and when I say I told the truth, I mean I only shaved 5lbs off my weight. Or maybe 10lbs, after that delicious Alaskan beer battered halibut and fries I had for dinner the night before. Despite my honesty, the Pen-Air check-in person looked at me dubiously and wrote in her notes - I'm not very good at reading upside down but I'm sure it said 'Passenger appears to be a compulsive liar - add at least 20lbs - 'heavy boots' my butt.'

So there we are. I am here, on my way to the villages and feeling very excited. Tonight there is a 'meet the author' event at the High School community library (I'm not sure which author they're bringing in for that, I hope they don't throw up out of nerves). And tomorrow I spend the day at the Auntie Mary Nicoli Elementary School in Aniak, which has around 60 students. Assuming I can get a wireless connection, more soon.

Bye for now, your Alaskan correspondent.

I Came THIS Close To A Bear...

2008-10-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

...oh yes I did. And its breath stank of fish.

No post yesterday. I had a horrendous migraine, so didn't get a chance to do anything.

So I managed to cram two days events into one. I went shopping to Nordstroms. Ah...home.

Oh, this is the front window of my hotel by the way. I was welcomed by the image of death in the window. I don't think it was anything personal.

Today the lovely Karen and her husband and son came to take me out for the day.

We took a scenic drive and we went to a rehab centre for Alaskan wildlife. The bear in the photo above is a recovering crack cocaine addict.

And I touched this moose. It was sitting right next to the fence and I reached in and stroked its fur.

It is so cold here that even the waterfalls freeze over - like this one. Luckily, I was wearing the usual 17 layers of clothes. In Aniak the day before I left it was so cold that the hairs inside my nose froze. That was a really weird feeling and no, I don't have a picture of it.

And for today I will leave you with some pictures of the glorious scenery we saw today. I'm now off to try and sit on my suitcases so that I can close them. See, I knew that eating all that food would come in handy.

More when I get home. Tata for now.

Aqutak For Breakfast

2008-10-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I am just waiting for my flight to Anchorage. It was snowing heavily yesterday and when I rang Penair to find out what time I needed to check in and how bad the snow needed to be before they stopped the planes flying the guy at the airline said "Do you need a ride to the airport?" People are so nice around here.

Yesterday I was lamenting the fact that I had not had aqutak - aka Eskimo Ice Cream(pronounced a-GOO-duck) this trip. This morning as I arrived at the High School one of the teachers came up and said "Donna, there's aqutak in the kitchen for lunch, but you can have some for breakfast. So I did. And it was yummy. Here is the recipe - take a white fish, boil it, squeeze all the water out of it until it's dry flakes, add a pound of lard, a pound of sugar, a bit of condensed milk if you're feeling decadent and fluff the mixture up until it's light and airy. Then add loads and loads of berries. Eat, and listen to your arteries as they harden. It really doesn't taste of fish or lard. The berries burst on your tongue (I think this one is blueberry and salmonberry). It was scrummy. Of course, the downside is that I now have to declare a stomach full of aqutak when I weigh in at the airport.

I did, apparently, miss out on a delicious dish - moose nose soup. The recipe appears to be 'cut off a moose's nose and boil it with some water and vegetables. Mmmmmmmm. Delish. This is Pizza Hut Alaska Bush style. Esther makes the most delicious pizzas here. Apparently she can never have a day off.

Yesterday I was speaking to two of the teachers from Stony River which is the furthest upriver school. They were saying that they like coming to Aniak because they see fruit and veg here (remember the price of that celery?!) There is no store in Stony River - they have a flying grocery store come in. One banana costs over $1. I would miss fruit and veg if I lived here. I seem to be existing on meat, meat and more meat.

I went down to the shore yesterday and took pictures in the same place as I did when I arrived. So here are the before and after pictures in the same position to show how the river has now completely frozen and the change of weather in 8 days.

Kuskokwim River 16 October

Kuskokwim River 23 October

One of the teachers from here in Aniak paid me the highest compliment yesterday. There is one High School girl who sat through 2 exercises not wanting to do anything. I found out later that she has a very troubled home life, and not much to hope for. Then, during the third exercise she really got interested, started smiling, and ended up writing 2 stories for me. The teacher said that everyone at the school was amazed, and the teachers have started viewing her differently becuae of what she did in that class. That made me happy. And now, I think I'm going to try and sneak some more aqutak and then call the nice man at the airport to give me a ride.

More from Anchorage.
Tata,
Donna

Needless To Say...I Cried

2008-10-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

But first...Donna Messes Up.

So, last night I finally got back to Aniak after being fog-bound in Kalskag. Before we left, all the teachers left me in the school in Kalskag to answer the phone (so, Ewan, you were right - first I was a pilot, yesterday afternoon I was a teacher's assistant (one of the teaching assistants didn't turn up so I got to spend all afternoon with one class). I read to them, helped them with maths (oh-oh - the poor kids are going to fail their next test, and drew a picture of a vampire spider for Halloween), and then I was school receptionist. Strangely enough, no-one who called was remotely surprised to hear a very English voice answering the phone with "Hello, Lower Kalskag Elementary School."

We arrived in Aniak and came to the school and had something to eat, and I spent time with the lovely sisters Juliana, Kendel, Miranda and Emily. At this stage I did not know where I was staying. Emily, who I was staying with, has broken her wrist so she and her boyfriend Ronnie had gone to Anchorage to have her wrist operated on (another problem of living in the bush - you can sometimes wait nearly a day before you can get to hospital).

Well, it turned out that I was still staying at their house. Ronnie had left a message at the school saying "The door is open, help yourself to anything in the fridge." Yes - bad idea (Paulie Walnuts - you will be pleased to know that there is a chunk of cheese in there the size of a small house). They left for Anchorage on Sunday and their house has been unlocked ever since - one of the lovely things about living in the bush.

I didn't really want to stay there on my own - a bear might come in and eat all the cheese, so Sue came to stay too. Being the big city girl I am I locked the door when we were inside...and forgot to take the lock off this morning and locked us out. With visions of having to break a window to get my suitcase Sue and I set off for the school. I managed to get hold of Ronnie's sister (everyone knows everyone else here) and she's going to go round and unlock it again - or maybe just break in - I'm not quite sure.

Today is 'in service' for all the teachers from all the Kuskokwim villages in the Kuspuk school district (Ewan - if you like the word Kuskokwim, you would love Chuathbaluk, which is pronounced Chuccchhhbalucccchhh as though you are getting something horrible out of your throat. It's really hard to pronounce and I keep getting people to repeat it to me. It means 'Big Blueberry Hill' in Yup'ik and non natives just call it Chewy). Schools are off and all the teachers and teachers' aides are here, so there are about 40 or 50 all gathered together. They have training sessions on various things and a bit later this morning I am doing a session on creative writing.

Just now the Superintendent spoke and as part of his speech he presented me with a Certificate which says:

"Certificate of Recognition - On October 14, 2008, the Kuspuk School District Board of Education would like to recognise Donna Moore for a multi-year Writing Literacy Partnership between Scotland and 10 village schools along Alaska's Mid Kuskokwim River that inspired students to write their own creative stories. You believed in them, gave them praise and confidence and they will always remember you for that."

I just cried in front of 40 or 50 people. How embarrassed do I feel?!

By the way 'The Bush' in Alaska is any community not on the road system. There's a guy here from Texas who has come to speak to the teachers about a computer system they use. He was telling me this morning that when he was arranging his transport he spoke to the administrator from the school district and said "So, when I get to Anchorage should I just hire a car?" She laughed uproariously and explained that he would need to fly to Aniak. "So, when I get to Aniak should I just hire a car then?" Oh, the poor, poor fool :o)

And Aniak has more roads than anywhere else. Kalskag is the next biggest and has a couple of roads but most people still travel by ATV or snow machine. There are some trucks there - they either bring them in by barge in the summer, or drive them down the ice road (the river) in the winter. But once they break down, they just die there and stay there forever. Parts of Kalskag are a truck graveyard.

I forgot - in Sleetmute I ate raw turnip and it was yummy.

Tata my lovelies,
Donna

Goodbye Sleetmute, Hello Kalskag

2008-10-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Some of my favourite sisters from Aniak - Juliana (age 12), Miranda (age 7), Kendel (age 10) - photo taken by Miranda's twin sister Emily. Miranda and Emily have both written me stories, Juliana is a wonderful poet, Kendel loves books. Lovely, bright and funny girls.

By the way, did I mention that I flew a plane? :o)

Yesterday's commute to Lower Kalskag Elementary School was a huge one - 30 seconds across the snowy playground. Karen had told me that the students had been awaiting my arrival yesterday and were disappointed that my plane was late. A lot of the older students in Sue's class (age 11-13) had written me e-mail and stories last year so I was looking forward to seeing them.

But first it was off to the younger classes for the morning. Then, at lunchtime when I went in for lunch I got hugged to death by Sue's class :o) I spent a couple of hours with them in the afternoon and we had fun doing some exercises. Again, they showed great imagination and humour and really came up with some great stuff. They were excited to see their books and one of the boys, Joey, said "I think I will send it to my grandma". So I gave him another copy. I told them I was doing another competition and he said "How much do I have to pay you to let me win this time?" LOL.

For the final hour of the day it was off to the youngest class. One of the little girls, Julia, had fun impersonating me. I think she has a future in entertainment. She's 6 and she managed my accent perfectly. "How do you know our names?" said one little girl, amazed, when I said "Why don't you come up next Axenia?" Their names are written in big lettters on the front of their desks :o)

After school Sue came to take me for a walk with her dogs. We tromped through the forest, saw moose tracks, I fell over in a snowdrift. It was lovely. We then walked down to the river. Down here it's completely frozen over and they will soon be able to drive on it. It was amazing to see this really wide river just stopped in its tracks.

Then it was over to Sue's for burgers over a fire pit in her back yard. Yes, we ate outside at 20 degrees below freezing. I am so intrepid. I am also bloody freezing. Some of the children came over - Levi, Menzo, Russell, Eliza and Richard. They had no gloves. I was wearing 2 pairs of gloves, scarf, hat, and 3 sweaters. They kept saying they weren't cold - what are their hands made of out here? It's not human flesh, at any rate. They put hotdogs on sticks and cooked them in the fire, and then toasted marshmallows. I did Eliza's because she is only 5 but I burned them to a cinder so Menzo (age 6) had to take over, raising his eyebrows at me. He's promised to draw me a snow machine, a sled, and a big truck that apparently I will like a lot.

Levi told me he will be 13 in January. When he's 13 he told me his mom is going to allow him to chew. I thought he meant chewing gum. What he actually meant was tobacco. The children roam about the village at all hours. A lot of their mothers go to bingo and the children are called 'bingo orphans'. Children change hands a lot. They are sort of 'adopted out' from family to family. Most girls have their first child at 14 or 15 and have a couple of children by the age of 18. For the most part the children are well looked after and very much loved - by everyone in the village. However, there are a number of registered sex offenders here. Mostly, again, due to alcohol. There are about 400 residents in the village. When I asked Karen what percentage of families have problems with alcohol she said "All of them." FAS is a big issue. It's quite easy to spot the children who show signs of it. A lot of the children are very bright. Others have real difficulties.

Apart from anything else a lot of the families live in one room. When mum and dad are up all night drinking, fighting and shouting at each other then there's not much chance of you arriving on time at school the next day, let alone concentrating on your school work. But the happy faces I saw today mean that someone is doing something right. They have good things happening in their lives too, and the teachers here are amazing.

Today I was supposed to be flying out of Kalskag first thing to come back to Aniak, but Aniak was snowed in, so I went back to the Elementary School for more hugs. I also got a trip around Kalskag with Earl who has lived there all his life and he told me all sorts of things about Kalskag then and now. Kalskag is actually split into two villages - Lower and Upper and they are 3 miles apart. The Elementary School is in Lower Kalskag, the High School in Upper. Each village has its own clinic, shop, tribal council, and post office. There are no doctors, no police. The only village with a State Trooper is Aniak. Most of the villages are trying to recruit VPSOs (Village Public Safety Officers) who are essentially the first responders to any crime or emergency - to stabilise situations and protect crime scenes until the State Troopers can get there. However, it's difficult to get people - the State Troopers are not well liked, and if you are a native Alaskan VPSO then a lot of the people you are supposed to be arresting are your relatives and friends.

Lower Kalskag is predominantly Russian Orthodox, Upper is predominantly Catholic. Russian Orthodox weddings can last 2 hours ~(and some of the Elders moan that the priest is too quick "In my day a good wedding lasted 4 hours"!! Everyone stands - men on one side, women on the other. And that's also how people are buried - although more and more, married couples are being buried side by side. The ground here is permafrost at 12-18 inches below ground. So even in the summer when they dig a grave, they need to use a jackhammer!

Many houses still use a honeybucket (which is basically a bucket with a seat on top. If you're lucky, your neighbour goes to the wood to empty his, if you're unlucky, they empty it out in the back yard. Even some recently built houses, while they had a bathroom built in, there is no plumbing. So the toilet, sink and bath can't be used. Sometimes they boil water and use the sink or bath, and just let it out under the house (most of which are on stilts). It would cost about $2m to put in a proper sewage system here (getting the equipment to the village, the pipes need a lot of insulation, plus the difficulty of burying the pipes given the permafrost), so only a few houses have proper working bathrooms.

There is no fresh milk in Kalskag, people use dried milk or long life stuff. There is very seldom fresh eggs either. Fruit and veg is even more expensive, and even less fresh than in Aniak, because it has to come that much further. When Karen and Dave go to Anchorage they go to Costco and spend $200 on stuff...and another $200 transporting it to Kalskag. Yeast and Vanilla Extract are kept behind the counter in the shops - yeast because it is used to make illegal alcohol. Vanilla extract because it has alcohol in. Karen was warned to watch her mouthwash if people visited.

Today I went to the airport 5 times. I finally got out. Oh the ignominy. Usually when asked my weight at the airport I can at least answer discreetly at the check in counter. Well, in Kalskag you basically drive out to the plane, stick your luggage in the hold yourself and then get in the plane. So there we were, about 8 of us sitting in the plane and the pilot asked us each in turn how much we weighed. "Donna Moore - how heavy are you?" (What I actually heard was "Donna - how much do you weigh fatso?" )I whimpered. A woman who was bigger than me said she weighed less, so I am afraid that I shaved 20lbs off my weight and then worried all the way back to Aniak (a 10 minute flight) that we would crash into the Kuskokwim because we didn't have enough fuel because I had lied. I could see the accusatory faces of my fellow passengers as they eyed me up and down. I DID warn the pilot about my heavy boots though.

Here are Kendel and Juliana at the back and Miranda and Emily in front. I now have a list of things they want from Scotland - chocolate, books, necklace like mine, candy.

"This is Your Captain Speaking"

2008-10-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I flew a plane. No...wait...let me say that again because I'm not sure you heard it correctly. YESTERDAY I FLEW A PLANE!!!!! Just call me Biggles.

I was supposed to be flying out of Sleetmute on Sunday, back to Aniak so that I could fly to Kalskag first thing on Monday. However, a couple of the planes were down with mechanical trouble (the duck tape had come off the window or something :o) ) so they were going to fly me out on Monday instead. "Your plane will be there at about 11 or half 11 or maybe earlier." So on Monday morning I was all ready by 10 and decided to go for a last walk down to the river. I called in at the school to be met by a message "They're sending Fred's plane for you. When you hear it scurry out to the runway." Oh, those pesky check-in procedures.

So I waited and waited and eventually at 1pm the plane came. This was fine. I was due to fly out of Aniak at 3.15 to go to Kalskag. Fred had to pick up a water sample in Chuathbaluk which was about 45 minutes away. Since I love take offs and landings out here, that was excellent news.

So, there we were. I sat next to Fred, put on my headset and we took off. It had been snowing lightly in Sleetmute and the sky was grey, but as we got to about 5 minutes out of Sleetmute the weather cleared up and it was lovely. "Would you like to fly the plane?" said Fred. I twisted around in my seat, just in case there was a co-pilot stretched out in the back who I hadn't noticed. "ME??? Fred, I don't even drive a car!"

"It's easy. Just steer us along the course of the river. Move this." he pointed to what I shall call the steering wheel, since I don't know the technical term (they didn't teach us that in flying school)."to the left when you want to go left, and right when you want to go right. Pull it back when you want to go up and push it down when you want to go lower." Or was it the other way round...? This dial tells you where we are - try and keep that in the middle except when we're turning. This dial tells you what height we're at. Try and keep it around 900 feet except when we're going through the hills. If the fog rolls in, take it lower so that you can see the river." I looked at him. "Sometimes it gets so foggy that you can't see one side of the river from the other." I whimpered. "I'm not expecting that to happen."

So I took control of the plane. I FLEW THE DAMN PLANE! For about half an hour I was in control. Keeping at a steady 900 feet...OK, at first it was an UNSTEADY 750 to 1300 feet (looking at TWO dials AND where I was going was really tough, you know...I flew along the line of the river. At one point Fred said "You're doing great. Just follow the river and you'll get to Aniak. Wake me up when we get there."

Because the river meanders and twists there were a couple of times where we took a short cut through the hills. I swear I thought I was going to crash us into the trees. "How do you aim the plane when you're not following the river." Fred set a dial for 250 W and said "Keep it at that setting."

"THREE dials? You want me to watch THREE dials?" So I did. We flew in between hills and then back along the river.

"Just point the plane at that patch of white there. That's the runway in Chuathbaluk."

"You're going to take over now, right Fred?"

"Nope, you're doing just great." He went onto the radio and said we were 5 minutes out of Chuathbaluk. "Now bring it down steadily at about 100 feet a minute." I concentrated hard. "Donna, that's 300 feet in 30 seconds. We're going to be there 3 minutes early." Whoops. As we came in over the trees I reluctantly handed control back and Fred brought it into land.

As he was taxi-ingalong the runway ready to take off again he said "Do you like roller coasters?" "Oh yes," I said. So he sped along the runway towards the trees at the end. As I opened my mouth to say "There's a squirrel sitting on that branch and I can see the whites of its eyes and it looks as petrified as I am." the plane lifted sharply into the air and my stomach did a back flip. I'm very glad I didn't have that piece of blueberry cheesecake for breakfast.

He then flew about 50 feet over the river so I could see the ice floes. This far down the river they have stopped, blocked up at Aniak. The ice is all lumpy at the moment, made up of little separate floes. At some point the weather will warm up, the ice will melt a bit, and it will smooth out.. He then sped up and did the stomach churning bit again. This time, I went weightless and came out of my seat. "That's cos I got us to 2 Gs" he said "Do it again! Do it again!" I squealed.

Flying will never be the same again. I took a few photos but not as many as I usually do becaause, I'm not sure if I mentioned it but I WAS FLYING THE PLANE!

I had to wait a while for the flight to Kalskag as they took me off the earlier one and put me on one at 4pm. It was really a novel experience for the airport manager to say "Donna - there's a phone call for you."

I arrived in Kalskag and was taken to Karen and Dave's house. Lovely people - I stayed with them last year. Dave made dinner - Caribou and bear. Yes, I have added Winnie The Pooh to my growing list of epicurean sins. Dave caught the bear. It was a black bear so I made sure to get its credentials before I ate it, as bear meat takes on the flavour of whatever it had been eating. Luckily, this one wasn't found at the town dump but sitting in the blueberry patch with its furry little lips all blue and juicy. And it tasted dee-lish-us. And very tender. Why do I sound like Hannibal Lecter?

Photos will be added and comments will be commented on (I'm looking at YOU Ewan and Paulie Walnuts), but right now I am late for school :o)

Tata my lovelies.
Donna

A Day With My Friend Mary

2008-10-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

This is Mary Effemka, who is one of the loveliest people it has ever been my pleasure to meet. She is a cook at the school here and when I left last year she gave me a lovely note and gift. I saw her briefly on Thursday as I arrived and she left for an in-service day and I was sad that I wasn't going to get to see her for longer. But she stopped by the B&B on her way home last night and asked me to come and visit her today. I had brought her some gifts from Scotland, which I gave her when I saw her as I wasn't sure when my plane was coming to pick me up, but luckily there were no planes out of Sleetmute on Sunday, so I was pleased to get a chance to spend some time with her.

So I set off for her house this morning. It was gorgeously sunny but the coldest day here yet. It called for scarf, hat, 3 sweaters and 2 pairs of gloves.

When I arrived she was waiting at the window for me to arrive and welcomed me into her home which was as warm as toast and smelled of cinnamon, as she was baking.

She has hundreds of photos all around the walls. These are photos of her parents and sister in the 1940s (the picture on the right) and pictures of her husband's family. She's a widow now - her husband killed himself earlier this year. She was telling me that it is tradition when someone dies that you not sleep alone in the house where they have died for a year after their death. Most of the time she has one of her grand-daughters to stay with her at night, but as they are away in Anchorage at the moment, last night she went over and stayed with a neighbour. On the one year anniversary of his death there will be a big 'Feed' and then she can stay there alone again.

She had made me fry bread - which is like funnel cake/doughnuts, twisted and dipped in icing sugar and we sat and drank tea and chatted. Yup'ik people speak very slowly and thoughtfully and it is really relaxing being in their company. She was telling me all about her family, where she grew up, her childhood, and how things have changed since she was young. I stayed for hours. She gave me a beautiful gift - a little handmade tray made of bark, a candle in a pretty egg-shaped pot, and some fancy soap. She also gave me the most wonderful note that made me cry (yes, Vincent, I KNOW everything makes me cry but this was really special). It says, in part, "...I don't want to be at the airport if Donna go. I have no self control when my tears start falling." Every time I think about it I tear up. And while I was there she said to me "I'm afraid you won't ever come back." I told her that somehow I think I'll be back one day :o)

After I left Mary I had another wander around the village. This is the road up to Blueberry Hill...or Cranberry Hill as Alfreda calls it, since there are no blueberries there :o) There was the wonderful smell of woodsmoke throughout the village today as there was a slight wind.

I then walked right down to the other end of the village and cut through to the shore and walked back along. This time I took a couple of videos with my camera so I hope they come out OK.

I shall be sorry to leave Sleetmute. It is a very special place. Harsh but beautiful - in all sorts of ways. A place of many contradictions.

On the other hand, I've been eating about 5 meals a day, as everyone keeps feeding me, so it's probably a good thing that I am going! This is for Ewan - yesterday I had eggs, bacon and toast, frybread and cookies, moose stir fry, moose steak, mock lobster and sirloin steak...OK, that was SIX meals. They'd better not push me down a hill or I will become a huge snowball.

Snow Is Very Cold...

2008-10-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

...when you fall flat on your face in it.

This will be a post with a lot of random stuff that I have forgotten to mention before. Yesterday, being a Saturday, there was no school. So Alfreda and Samuel had said that they would take me for a walk around the village. So I walked uptown to pick them up, then we went downtown, then we went back uptown again. It's a very small place but we stopped to play with the dogs, throw snowballs at icicles and visit with people, so it took us about 3 hours.

There are 3 or 4 houses where the teachers live, and the B&B/store where I am staying, and then there are about 20 other houses. The total population of the village is about 80. 17 of those 20 houses have families with alcohol problems. All 20 have lost someone to alcohol - whether it's suicide, accident or murder. A number of villagers are in jail for arson or manslaughter - all alcohol related. One of my students from last year is in a treatment centre after trying to kill himself. He ended up shooting part of his face off.

Someone once asked the lady who owns the B&B whether it was not depressing that there are so many alcohol related deaths but she said that she was surprised there are not more. She said that when she hears partying late into the night she's always happy the next morning when there ISN'T a report of someone falling into the river and drowning, or being found frozen to death at the town dump.
A couple of weeks ago, 2 of the villagers went down to Aniak to pick up a new ATV that one of them had bought with the family's Permanent Fund Dividend. Down in Aniak they picked up the ATV, got drunk, and then tipped the boat over on the way back. Luckily they were OK but the new $7K machine is now down at the bottom of the Kuskokwim.

This is a damp village. They're allowed to drink alcohol, but not sell it. As a result, there's a lot of bootlegging. Scotch that would cost $11 in Anchorage costs between $60 and $100 here.

This is a picture of Susan's husband Doug, and his friend Scott. I forgot to mention that Doug has some brilliant phrases. He told me a Marine Corps toast that I'm not sure I should repeat here, given the fact that my mum is reading it :o) He has been up here since he was 23 and before he met his wife he went to the lower 48 to meet another woman he had been corresponding with. He'd never seen her before and he said that when he met her "She looked like 7 bags of a**holes and they'd taken out all the pretty ones" :o)

Here is my transport of Friday night. It was excellent fun. After Sam and Alfreda and I had roamed the village I dropped them off and then walked down to the shore.

I keep being drawn to the river. It's about 1/8th of a mile across and even in the few days I have been here, it's freezing up more and more.
This part is now frozen half across. As I stood on the shore I could hear the ice shifting and creaking and banging together and the sound echoes around. Apparently the river is completely frozen down below Aniak. So I'm hoping that when I get to Kalskag on Monday I will be able to go out on the river.

I walked back through the snow along the shore. At one point I walked up the hill to take photos of an abandoned house. I was carefully trudging upwards when suddenly a dog barked right behind me. I jumped and fell flat on my face, and slid, face first, back down the hill! It was REALLY REALLY cold. You'd better appreciate these 2 photos. You have no idea what I went though to get them!

"I Had The Bestest Day"

2008-10-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

After a peaceful sleep in what has to be the quietest place on earth, and a yummy breakfast of eggs over easy it was time for the long commute to school. It was all of a minute's walk!

Only two of the Sleetmute students were in this morning. A lot of the families have got their dividend cheques so they are off to Anchorage. So Samuel (age 9), Alfreda (age 7) and I read stories and played games until the other students arrived from the other upriver schools - Stony River and Red Devil. The students from Crroked Creek had their plane cancelled so they couldn't come. So this morning I had 5 elementary children. I read them a couple of stories and we did the Magic Door exercise. We did a forest, then a planet and then Alfreda said "please, please please can we do another one. I want to do a cloud." So they all picked their own location. I told them there was going to be a prize for the best thing brought back from behind the magic door. So we had fairies, bunnies, and crabs from the forest, stars from the planet, baby dragons...all sorts of good things. It was excellent fun and the childrens' imaginations really shone through.

At lunchtime one of my favourite students from last year, Vernon, came to say hello. He has a story in the anthology so I gave him a copy of it and made him promise to write me another one. He and his friend should have been at school but they had to chop wood for their families. School is not really a priority for some families out here.

In the afternoon I had the High School students for a couple of hours - 4 boys age 14 and 15 and 1 boy age 19. I thought "Oh-oh - this is going to be fun - 5 grumpy teenage boys who don't want to be here." Well, that couldn't have been further from the truth. They were funny, polite, intelligent, interested, worked hard and were great fun to work with. They taught me some Yup'ik words, we did several exercises and we had a lot of fun. We did exercises on plot, character and setting. Here's the start of one of the boys' pieces on setting - "The sound of a small creek keeps the silence out. The crunching of small paws on the fallen leaves...". How lovely is that? This is a picture of them all - Brad and Robert (brothers) Logan (or Pink as he calls himself!),Andrew and Eric. Great kids. They all promised to write me a story and I've told them I shall be after them if they don't.

After school I went for a walk around the village. Alfreda came running after me and showed me around. "This is Nicolai's house, this is Samuel's, that one is Mary's." On the way back she said "Do you remember whose house this is?" "Errrr, no..." "It begins with an S. Now do you remember?" This is Alfreda standing in front of a honey bucket outhouse.

In the evening I went to Susan's house for dinner. Her husband Doug is ex Marine Corps, Vietnam vet, and a guide and trapper. And one of the funniest people I have ever made. Says what he means, straight down the line and extremely well-read. He's a history buff and knows all sorts of fascinating stuff. After dinner I got to ride on the snow machine! Susan took me out on hers. She has a little wooden sled behind it and first of all I stood on the back of that (like you see mushers doing) and that was great fun. Then I actually got to drive it which was even more fun :o) The scariest part was rounding the bottom of a hill when I thought I was going to tip it over. It felt as though I was going really fast but since I didn't ever need to use the brake a one legged centipede would probably have had no problem passing me!

It was sooooo cold. I was wearing 2 pairs of gloves and the tips of my fingers still started to burn with the cold. The river was flowing more slowly this evening - a sign that it's starting to freeze up and getting jammed some place down river. I bravely stood on the iced over river and here is the proof. Back at Susan's we sat and drank whisky and chatted and laughed for a while and then they gave me a torch to come home. "It's next door - I won't need a torch" said the big city girl. They made me take one and I'm glad I did. It was pitch dark, despite the almost full moon. The stars are so bright here because there is no artificial light diluting the starlight.

As we were walking round this afternoon Alfreda said "I liked going through the magic door." "Did you?" I said, "Was it fun?" She nodded and said with a big beaming smile, "I had the bestest day." So did I, Alfreda, so did I.

Serene in Sleetmute

2008-10-16T21:54:00.000-07:00

This is the beautiful Kuskokwim River from the air. It's wide and winding and has loads of narrow tributaries running off it. But I am running ahead of myself. I got up this morning and packed for my afternoon trip to Sleetmute. Ronnie's little boy came over for a few minutes in the morning before he went to his grandma's (Oma). He's 2 and a half and very bright. He has a costume for Halloween which he is very excited about as it's a pilot's outfit and he loves planes (apparently he can recognise every plane that lands here!) Emily asked him what he was going to be for Halloween and he said "Scared" :o)

Then it was off to Aniak High School. It was a day full of emotion. This morning I had the Seniors for about 2 and a half hours solid. I thought they were going to be sooooooo bored but we had fun. One student started off as a bit of a grumpy teenager. We did 3 exercises and for the first 2 she basically sat there uninterested and uncommunicative. When I went round to speak to the students in turn as they were writing, I included her in, but didn't make her write anything. Then, all of a sudden, on the third exercise she suddenly started to participate and to enjoy it! It was a good fun exercise. I got them all to write a sentence to start a story and then with each sentence we passed the papers round and they had to write another sentence in the next story. There were 7 students and the one who started the story finished it. So each story was eight sentences long, and they were all surprised about the direction the stories went in. The recalcitrant student was also in my next class, with the Juniors, and she wrote me a GREAT story, and then went and typed it up and gave it to me. The teachers were shocked as they said that they could never get her to write anything, so that was really nice. I found out later that she has had a really tough life with not much to look forward to. She's a lovely girl and I hope things get better for her.

In the Junior class one of the girls made me cry with something that she wrote relating to her own life. A beautiful, sweet girl who remembered me from last year. We did an exercise where they filled in a sheet I had drawn up detailing various questions about a character - so physical aspects, favourite food, hobbies, best character trait, worst character trait, bad habits, likes and dislikes and the last question - what is your character's secret? She wrote something for me, and as I read it she had a tear rolling down her face and my eyes filled up. We talked about what she had written. At the end of the class we read some of the pieces out. Most of the students didn't want to read their pieces themselves but they were happy for me to read them out to the rest of the class. She said she wanted me to read it. I asked her if she was sure as it was very personal but she insisted that she was sure. I read it and it touched the whole class. I could feel my voice shaking as I read the last bit and it was hard not to burst into tears. We had some funny ones too. One boy had written about a character who was a Martian. His bad habit was 'eating humans'. His hobby was 'eating humans'. His secret was...he was a vegetarian :o) They all burst out laughing at that one!

Then it was off to the airport to check in to fly to Sleetmute. "And how much do you weigh, Donna?" I'm adding another 5lbs each time I get asked. I did the heavy boots thing but the lady checking me in said "I've already added an allowance for bad weather gear." Oh, OK - looks like I'm not going to be getting away with THAT one any more. I sat next to the pilot. Safety demonstration - "Don't touch the red button, miss." This picture shows my plane, plus my method of transport to the B&B in Sleetmute. Yes! My first ATV trip of the week, and hopefully not my last.

At the...ahem...airport in Sleetmute, Mary the cook who gave me the ornaments made of tea bag covers last year was getting ready to leave for a cooks in-service day. She said she was hoping to see me on Saturday when she gets back. I hope so - she is a truly lovely lady. I have a gift for her from Scotland, and also the tea bag covers I have been saving up all year. She gave me a hug and we waved her off.

This is my Bed and Breakfast. It's lovely and the views over the river are stunning. Henry and Bambi who run it are really nice. Over dinner we talked about all sorts and I learned more about the area, about how people live, and about the wildlife. After dinner, I dressed myself in 17 layers of clothes, including, scarf, hat and 2 pairs of gloves and took myself down to the river to watch the sun set.

It was stunning down there. I watched the ice floes as they sped along. Some go faster than others and they join up with the ones in front, making bigger ice floes all the time. That's what makes the creaking and crashing noises. As I walked on the snow at the edge of the water my boot scraped against something and I looked down. It was ice! I was no longer walking on the shore, I was walking on the edge of the frozen river. Needless to say, I quickly moved back onto terra firma!

I walked for ages. It was so peaceful. Bloody freezing! But peaceful. I walked back up, gazing longingly at peoples' snowmobiles as I passed them. Tomorrow it's off to Sleetmute school. The 6 pupils here are being joined by pupils from the various upriver villages, so I should have about 25 students in total tomorrow. More tomorrow night hopefully. Excuse the errors in theis post. The wireless connection is a bit dodgy and keeps going out so I am hurriedly typing everything and not checking it for errors.

Toodle-oo the noo.

Donna

A Lovely Bit Of Fish, That

2008-10-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

A brief interlude as I am not sure how much (or even whether) I will be able to post over the next few days. Straight after school today (High School this morning, Junior High this afternoon) I am getting on a tiny plane for Sleetmute and I am not sure if I will have internet access. So I thought I would post a wee update on yesterday evening before I head off, just in case. I am looking forward to my plane ride - the snowy scenery will be stunning as we fly low over the river.

Ronnie cooked a silver salmon he had caught and it was absolutely delicious. I had 3 huge pieces. I'm sure I am growing scales. And Emily had made apple pie and ice cream. When I get asked THIS time how much I weigh before I get on the plane I'm going to have to add an extra 20 pounds. Still, at least if my excess weight makes the plane crash into the river I am round and will float.

We had visitors last night - Trenton (age 8) and Dre (age 6). Trenton is my little friend from my last visit and Dre is his cousin. Dre was in my second grade class yesterday and is just this cute little boy with no front teeth. They kept us amused playing with Emily's Wii.

When we took them home, Ronnie took me on a tour around the village. There are 600 people living here. I couldn't see any street names but Aniak has two areas - downtown and housing. We went past the Pizza Hut...no, wait, make that pizza hut. It's this little wooden shack where Esther makes the most delicious pizza (food reference for Ewan). I'm hoping to get a photo of it during the day.

Because it's so dark here the stars seem extra bright. As we drove round we saw a fox and Ronnie gave me some bear tips for my trip to Sleetmute. He says that a lot of them will be hibernating right now but there will still be some around - especially the young males who are too stupid and macho to hibernate. So, it's a cross-species thing then? So I just have to rememebr one thing - if I come across a black bear I have to fight back (I'm going to stick a brick in my handbag just in case), and if I see a brown bear I have to lay down and play dead. Not that I'm going to have much choice - if I see a ten foot bear coming towards me I shall just keel over in shock anyway. Apparently, brown bears kill their prey and then go off and leave it for a week or so, so if they think I'm dead they will just remember where they left me and toddle off to...well...to do whatever a bear does in the woods. Or, if I make a lot of noise they might just avoid me. Since my singing makes everyone else run away, I'm thinking that it might work on bears too. I've been practising Blitzkrieg Bop in the hope that they are not big fans of The Ramones.

We drove down to the river and listened to the creaking and shifting of the ice for a while. I asked Ronnie how fast you can drive on the ice when the river is frozen. He says he has done 90mph on it! Remind me never to go driving on the ice with anyone from Aniak. Apparently, I have to come back in the summer so that I can go on a boat trip. They warned me about the mosquitos here though - seemingly known as Alaska's airline.

It's now 8am and we are soon going o be heading off to school. It's pitch black outside and completely silent. I hope I will be able to post from Sleetmute, but if not, expect the most ginormous post when I get back :o)

Oh - and apparently I sound like Ratatouille :o)

Tata,
Donna x

Ah...this is what it's all about

2008-10-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a glorious day for all sorts of reasons. This morning it was off to Aniak Elementary School and I knew I was in for a treat. I had such a lovely time with them last year. I packed up my rucksack with books, candy, pens and pencils, as well as copies of the anthology of childrens' stories, as I was going to be seeing some of the students who have stories in it. I was looking forward to their reaction.

My first port of call was the Kindergarten and first graders. I read them a story about a boy who goes into the forest looking for his teddy bear, and then I had them all step (one by one) through a magic door into the forest, tell me what they could see and hear and smell and then pick up something to bring back for the class. They brought back flowers, leaves, pizza, cookies, soda and an elephant. We had several pizzas but only one elephant :o) It was great fun.

Later that afternoon, when I was sitting in the classroom a group of them came in and gave me a present on behalf of Thomas and Gwen (the teachers) and all of the children in the class. It was stuffed full of goodies - books, pens, bookmarks, erasers...it was a real treasure trove of wonderful things. Best of all were the hugs I got from all of the children. OK, so I cried :o)

It was amazing how, walking the hall of the school, there were so many students who remembered me, which was lovely. After the Kindergarten and 1st grade, it was off to a class I had never seen before - the pre-schoolers - a class of the most gorgeous little 4 year olds. I read a couple of books to them, we did the forest thing again and one little boy shot an imaginary bear when I told him I would be afraid of it! One of the books I have has sound effects so, while they started off sitting by my feet, by the end of the story they were all crowded around - it was hilarious.

Next was the second grade class. We did an exercise where I had written down two sets of words and cut them up and they picked one from each pile and put the two words together and that was their story title. They then wrote a story for me based on that title, and then read out their stories - Fantastic Kitten, Angriest Dog, Invisible Mountain, Messy Marshamallow, Sparkling Baby. It made for some fun stories. I also showed them a copy of the anthology. They were too young last year to write stories but they were really excited by the book because it had stories from people they knew. One little girl was thrilled because there was a story by her sister in the book. I read them 3 of the stories that were written by people in their school. I wish I could have got those students in to look at the enthralled little faces as the stories were read out. It was so lovely.

Then it was off to a class where 5 of the students had stories in the anthology. I got them all to sign my copy of the anthology, they got me to sign theirs. They all read their own stories. Here they are holding up their copy of the book. They are currently in the middle of writing another story and I went round and helped them all with their stories. One of them in particular is soooooooooo good. They are going to send me them for the competition I am doing again this year.

At the end of school Emily came to pick me up. Today is so gorgeous that I took a walk down to the river when we got home. Away from the river it's chilly, and definitely glove weather, but it's not too bad (-13 celsius). As I went over the small hill that leads down to the river it got colder and colder. I have never been so cold in my life - so cold it hurts to breathe. My camera froze up. Luckily I managed to get a couple of photos before it did.

The river is pretty fast flowing - right now, the ice floes that you can see a fairly whizzing past. In another couple of weeks, the river will be totally frozen over and can be driven on. I walked right down to the edge of the water and already there is about 2 feet of thick ice at the edge. I gingerly put one foot on it to see if it held - it did. The snow at the edge of the water is about 6-8 inches deep. I walked along the side of the river through unbroken snow. It was so quiet, the only sound was of my Dr Frankenstein feet squeaking and crunching through the snow. I'm very glad of my ugly boots. Out there, my feet were the only part of me that was warm!

And now, I am sitting in the cosy little house next to Buzz the cat who is purring away with his head on my lap. This is definitely the life.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

2008-10-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

So, as predicted I arrived at the airport to be greeted by the dreaded words "So, how much do you weigh Donna?" I showed the nice lady my boots and we agreed that they were, indeed, very heavy looking. I then toddled off to the gate. When flying inside Alaska, you don't go through the usual security procedures. You just go and sit in the gate. This, presumably, is how the man sitting next to me managed to have an item of carry on luggage that I have never seen before. An axe. A big, shiny looking, yellow handled axe. That was all he had - obviously travelling light. The gate area was also full of men in camouflage who smelled of moose. Most of them looked me up and down as though I was a plump and juicy prey that they wanted to chase through the forest - and not in a good way. I could almost feel the shotgun pellets whizzing past my head.

There were also a couple of fishermen there on their way to Dutch Harbour. One was lamenting the fact that he had forgotten to bring a sheet and last time he slept on the ship's bed without a sheet he got an infection because of the dirty mattress. The other one said that last time he'd slept on that ship the mattress was covered in fungus. Lovely. I moved away, scratching myself. Remind me never to go fishing. Or sit next to fishermen.

As we queued up at the gate to get on the plane the lady who had checked me in upstairs waved away my outstretched passport. "I remember you from upstairs - the lady with the heavy boots." On my flight was one of the high school students from Aniak. He'd broken his leg playing volleyball and then had to wait for a Medivac plane to take him to Anchorage. Ouch. When anyone here is pregnant they have to leave the villages a month before they are due to give birth and go and stay in Anchorage or Bethel. They CAN stay but they need to sign a disclaimer that they understand they will not be evacuated in an emergency. It's beautiful here but it's a tough life in many ways.

I was slightly worried about the weather. It was snowing quite hard and the only way you knew there was a runway outside was the faint lights shining through the 4 inches of snow. The visibility was also pretty bad in the air. Planes were taking off and then disappearing within seconds. Back home, the whole country would have ground to a halt. Here, it is all just business as usual.

So, as we flew into a blizzard we had the safety demonstration "Ear plugs and sick bags are in the seatback in front of you. Anyone want a drink, just let me know." There was a breeze coming in from somewhere, but I was too afraid to ask where. I just kept my gloves on for the whole flight. We landed in Aniak - again in 4 inches of snow and walked into the terminal building (posh name for a shed) where Emily was waiting for me. She drove me to my home for the next couple of days.

We then went back to the school district where the school board was having their monthly meeting and wanted to meet me. So I had to say a few words about my trip last year and what I was intending to do this time, and I also showed them the anthology which they thought was great. They have lost over 40 students this year. High fuel prices and lack of jobs have meant that quite a few families have taken advantage of the extra high Permanent Fund Dividend they received this year to move into the cities. As a result, one of the schools in the area has less than the regulation number of pupils to stay open, so at some point it may have to close. As you can imagine, the closing of a school signals a bit of a death knell to a village, which is a real shame.

After the school board meeting, Emily let me sit in on her teleconference class which was excellent. The students can join in from schools in the school district by video conference and computer. They all have laptops as part of a program out here. We then went off to the only shop in the village. A pack of celery is $4.99. Another negative of living here - fruit and veg is excessively expensive. On the positive side, Emily left the truck in the parking lot with the engine running to keep it warm, just as she had left the door of the house unlocked when we went back to the school board meeting. How wonderful is that? If you stand still in Glasgow, someone will steal your shoes from your feet while you're still wearing them. I can't imagine leaving my home door unlocked or the car with the engine running.

This morning I am off to the Elementary School. I can't wait.

Tata for now.

Donna

Sorry Kids, Christmas Is Cancelled - I Just Ate Rudolf

2008-10-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

This is for Ewan, who thinks I am mentioning food far too much - my pizza last night was reindeer and feta cheese and it was delicious, although I feel vaguely guilty about tucking into Rudolf. Lunch today was Alaskan King Crab, halibut, oysters, scallops and salmon at this place, which is a really quaint Alaskan restaurant.

Inside it are lots of stuffed things (including ME by the end of the meal). This, I am sure, is the closest I will come to a bear during this trip. And then for dinner tonight, I had Rudolf sausage, and various cheeses at the presentation thing - of which more later.

Karen came to pick me up this morning and we did a bit of shopping. We went to Office Depot so that I could pick up loads of pens and pencils for the children. I have about 300 now, so, with the chocolate and biscuits, that should be enough for all the children to get something. It was a gorgeous day. Fancy having this scenery as the backdrop to your working day.

This evening was the presentation thingy. I was VERY nervous - which was not improved by getting to the place where it was being held and seeing the size of the screen. But it went OK. People laughed, no one fell asleep, and I only almost cried once during my speech.

One of the older students, Nick, was there along with his family. They have now moved to Anchorage and he was able to come along. During my time in the villages last year, when I had said that I was going to be holding a short story competition, Nick had been dubious about whether he was going to be able to write anything. He had a book on his desk and I asked him about it. It turns out he is a big fan of fantasy and science fiction. So I told him he should write me a story that HE would like to read. So he did. It was a huge, sprawlig epic of a story. And then he wrote me another. And another. And he's still writing me stories.

I gave him a couple of copies of the anthology of the childrens' stories and got him to sign my copy (I'm going to get all the children to sign their stories in my copy). His mum said that she had never read any of his writing so she immediately opened the book and read Nick's story. It was lovely. After I had done my presentation Nick got up and made a short speech. Here is what he said:

"I wish to thank Donna Moore for helping me discover the joy of writing. I have never thought that I would like to write until she challenged me to write a story. I had so much fun with it that I wrote another story. She has been a key to a door that I never knew existed. I can’t thank her enough for showing me what I can do with my writing ability. I have not always liked writing until she showed me that I can do it. When I write I lose myself in the story and everything that is going on. Sometime I don’t even think about what I’m writing I just write. When I write I feel like a part of me is being put on paper. I am almost sure if Miss. Moore hadn’t visited the class I wouldn’t ever have started to write. Thank you Miss. Donna Moore"

How brilliant is that?! I am not ashamed to say that I cried. And I'm not the only one - a couple of the people who were there said that they shed a tear or two. And I am tearing up again just writing it down!

So it was a very memorable and lovely day. But I am sincerely sorry about Rudolf. Please forgive me. On the plus side, I let Donner and Blitzen and Prancer and Dancer and ...errrrr...the other ones...live.

Tomorrow it's off to Aniak. I am already practising my checking-in speech at the airport. Because it's a small plane they not only weight your luggage, but they weigh you, too. "Hi my name is Donna and I weigh a hideous number of pounds, but look, my boots are huge and really heavy."

North By Northwest

2008-10-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I am now in Alaska and it is snowing! Woohoo! The Dr Frankenstein snowboots (why do they not come in a kittenheel?), ugly hat and all that strange stuff I got from that weird outdoor shop are going to come in useful after all. This was the scene from my hotel room on arrival - it has since got even deeper!

But more of arctic Alaska in a little while. First of all some more bits on balmy Baltimore. It is really strange to come from somewhere where the night before I was sitting outside eating crabcakes on a warm evening by the bay. Carl, Maddy, Dame Judith and I went out for dinner to a wonderful seafood place on the bay. The crabcakes were delicious and they did a thing called a wine flight - which was basically a taster menu of wine which was an excellent idea and really delicious.

The rest of Bouchercon passed in the usual blur. The best thing about it is the people. I always know that I am going to meet up with old friends (my long suffering room mate Jan, all the 4MAers of course, and some of my favourite people who it's great to catch up with - Declan Burke, Christa Faust, Ken Bruen, Twist Phelan, Rosemary Stevens, Reed Farrel Colman, Russel McLean, my poker buddies who humour me and put up with my stupid questions), the huge treat of meeting people for the first time - the big treats this year were Angie-Johnson Schmidt, John McFetridge and Peter Rozovsky. And then there are the people who I just don't see often enough. It's been years since I'd seen Eddie Muller, so getting to spend time with him was wonderful (and he STILL always manages to make me cry!). I'm sad to have left, but happy to be in Alaska for the next part of my adventure.

I'm not sure how this happened but, after sending 2 boxes of books and candy to the Bush, ready for my arrival, plus a box of books to Karen's, my luggage was STILL overweight. I had to pay excess baggage, natch. The lovely Karen Laubenstein picked me up from the airport and delivered me to my snowy hotel. The room I was given turned out to be Murder Central (ground floor, last room on the corridor, next to the fire exit so, after a few minutes thought I toddled off to Reception to see if I could get moved (yes mum, don't worry - I'm now in an alternative room!)

I am now going to order pizza and sit by the window and watch the snow fall.

Toodle-oo for noo.
Donna

One-Eyed Donna

2008-10-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it was the first full day of Bouchercon yesterday. I didn't make any panels in the morning, instead learning the ins and outs of the US postal system to send some books to Alaska in time for my arrival. The theory was that it would make my over-the-weight-limit luggage back into normal territory again. Sadly, I have replaced the books I sent with more books, so my cunning plan was foiled. I also went to Walgreens. For some reason I LOVE American drug stores. So I spent $100 on crap I don't need (and half of it I don't actually know what it is - it just sounded good).

Then it was back to an afternoon of panels - all excellent. Judy has done an excellent job with the panels. There were loads I wanted to go to. Unfortunately, I could only be in one room at a time and just had to make some tough choices. It's brilliant seeing everyone again - some I see regularly and others who I haven't seen for years. The mystery community just has to be made up of the nicest, funniest, sweetest and most supportive people imaginable.

We went out to dinner last night at what was, apparently, a tapas place (although unlike any tapas place I've ever been to). Before we went I asked my long suffering room-mate Jan which skirt she thought I should wear. "Do you want me to be brutally honest?" she said. Oh-oh.

"Actually Jan, maybe not, maybe you could--"

"That skirt makes you look REALLY big through the hips. Really big. I know that's not what you want to hear, but..."

"No. That's just what I want to hear, thank you. I would hate to go out and for people to say 'Oh my god, look at those hips. Still, at least it takes the attention off her face, the poor girl."

So I changed my skirt, screwing the huge-hipped skirt into a ball and consigning it to the trash.

"There," I said in my slim-hipped skirt, feeling lithe and slim and with the hips of an eel. "That's me."

"Aren't you going to change that skirt after all?"

Soooooooooooo - it wasn't the skirt. It actually WAS my hips. As I turned sideways through the door to allow my hips enough space to squeeze through the doorway I mused idly about whether the have one lettuce leaf or two for dinner.

When the concierge in the hotel found out where we were going he said he would order us a couple of taxis. "It's 12 blocks and the ladies have high heels. Besides, it's getting late." It was half past 7. Apparently, the mean streets of Baltimore can get really mean after dark. I probably shouldn't have said that BEFORE I left Baltimore. My mum will now have put away the thoughts of me being eaten by a bear and will be fashioning new nightmares of her daughter becoming a drugs mule (although with THESE hips it would be more like a drugs camel), donning a jaunty bandana and joining the Crips.

The restaurant - Pazo - was excellent. The cocktail menu was to die for. I had a raspberry martini followed by a white chocolate martini which was pure bliss. Oh, and we had food too. I could not resist the dijon mustard ice cream. That it came with steak tartare gave me pause for about a nano-second. It was delicious. To follow, I had the tenderest steak I have ever eaten (cooked, this time), with blue cheese butter and creamy mashed potatoes. I could feel my arteries hardening as I ordered it.

Then it was back to the bar in the hotel for a few drinks, before heading off to the usual late night poker game. I play poker only at Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime and, as a result, I have to have the rules explained to me all over again (I've still not quite grasped the hand rankings ("Oh, you mean my pair of twos DOESN'T beat that Royal Flush?") Worse, there are about a million different versions of it. I can just about manage, when it's my turn to deal, to deal Texas Hold 'Em (I've seen it on the telly after all :o) ) But then someone will say "Let's play Upsy Daisy Omaha One-Eyed Jacks Are Wild But Only On A Wednesday When There's An R In The Month And The Wind's Coming In From The West Ocho with the Eight Rule Bet Declare Bet." And I am none the wiser when they explain it.

Despite this, last night I won. Not only did I win but I more than doubled my stake and cashed out quids in...well...dollars in. One of these days they are not going to believe that I don't actually know how to play and then where will I be? By now, my mum not only has me down as a gang member, but a card sharp. She will be lying prone on the sofa with my father wafting smelling salts under her nose and offering her a small glass of sherry.

This morning I was up bright and early for a half past 8 panel. This morning's panels were excellent and I went to one every session, and got a couple of books signed. This evening it's out to another restaurant - this one apparently one which does great crab cakes (can't come to Maryland and not have crabcakes). Then it's back to the bar for a wee chat, and then another poker game. A couple of my poker buddies have told me they are going to win their money back off me tonight. We shall see.

So that's the news from Baltimore for today. Chin chin for now. More tomorrow hopefully.

Love,

Donna

The Dodo Has Landed

2008-10-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I am here safe and sound in Baltimore. And I know that this will come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but SO IS MY LUGGAGE! Yes, this time it didn't take a wee side trip to somewhere else on the way. And the whole trip went very smoothly, despite arriving in Amsterdam 5 minutes after my plane to Washington started boarding. I have to say that I love Washington Dulles Airport. They have these little sheds on wheels with pneumatic lifts that look like trailer trash tanks and which take you from one place to another. It was like being on the set of a science fiction film. OK, a really crap science fiction film from the mid 60s. I thought I'd stepped onto the set of Thunderbirds. I was waiting for Virgil to tap me on the shoulder and say "F.A.B. Lady Donna."

The flight itself was a sort of good news/bad news scenario. On the plus side, I had 2 seats to myself so I could spread out and not dribble over anyone when I fell asleep. On the minus side the guy in front of me had marinated himself in the vilest cheap aftershave imaginable. It kept wafting back in a sickening miasma of foulness. Every now and again though, another smell took over. This, by the way, is not on the good news side of the equation. No. The guy behind me had, apparently been eating stale cabbage the night before. Every now and again the waves of flatulence would meet the waves of Eau De Nasty and do battle. Right in front of my nose. Still, I should look on the bright side - it could have been worse - the guy in front might have been wearing an aftershave called FART.

Sorry mum - I know I'm going to get in trouble for using the word 'fart'. When I was young you told me that I was only ever to use the verb 'to pop' in relation to breaking wind. Well, I'm sorry, but popping does not even begin to do this guy's flatulence justice.

Anyhow, onto more savoury matters. The lovely little trailer tank dropped us all off at immigration where the queue was full of huddled masses wishing to be let in. So I went to the loo, which meant that I was then at the end of the queue and, consequently, the last person to be let into the US - not the last person EVER you understand, just for that batch. At least, I don't THINK I've spoiled it for everyone else although, given the immigration official's response to me, maybe I have. For some reason, I always babble aimlessly when faced by people in uniforms. Except chefs.

"You've come from Amsterdam?"

"Well, not technically. I started off in Glasgow and had to go east to Amsterdam to come west to Washington - isn't that silly? I live in Scotland, but I'm actually English, but I've lived in Glasgow for the last 19 years. I don't have the accent though."

"Amsterdam," he said, writing something down. He then asked me where I was staying in Washington. "Well, I'm not actually staying in Washington. First I'm off to Bouchercon in Baltimore, which is the biggest crime fiction convention in the world. Then I'm going to Anchorage - I'll be there for a couple of days and then I'm off to--" He held up his hand.

"Ma'am, I meant what is the address of the place you are staying? And ma'am, if you could keep it brief I'd be grateful. I finish my shift in an hour."

He then turned to my Customs declaration form. As a visitor to the US you are only allowed to bring $100 of goods into the country. I had decided to be truthful on my form a) because I am rubbish at telling lies and b) because anyone who opened my suitcases would know that there was more than $100 of stuff there. So I had been truthful about the childrens' books, the gifts and the chocolate. He looked at the form and then looked at me in horror.

"You've brought $75 of candy and cookies into the country? Are they all for you?" I opened my mouth to protest indignantly. "No, it's OK ma'am. I'm not sure I want to know."

Eventually I was let in and went to get my shuttle to Baltimore, which took 3 hours or so, as we went all around the houses. I arrived, checked in and then went into the restaurant all smelly and horrible after hours of travelling with Mr Stinky and his friend Mr Even Stinkier. It was lovely to see all the 4MAers again. This is why I love these conventions. I get a chance to hug and spend time with some of my favourite people.

I said before I came that I wasn't going to come home with ANY books. Nope. Not a one. I wasn't buying any books. So, here's today's book haul:
Laura Lippman - HARDLY KNEW HER (in book bag)
John Harvey - DARKNESS AND LIGHT (in book bag)
Gyles Brandreth - OSCAR WILDE AND A GAME CALLED MURDER (book bag)(mum - that one's coming home to you)

John McFetridge - DIRTY SWEET
Duane Swierczynski - SEVERANCE PACKAGE
Henry Chang - CHINATOWN BEAT
Richard S Prather - TAKE A MURDER, DARLING

Tata,
Donna

All Points West To Alaska

2008-10-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time to dust off the old blog in preparation for my upcoming trip to Bouchercon in Baltimore and then on to Alaska (well, it was a good excuse since Baltimore is on the way to Alaska, right?)

When I told my mum I was going to be going back she said "Will you be doing that BLUG thingy again?" So here, especially for my mother, is 'that blug thingy'. (I know I'm going to get into trouble for that when she reads this but, ah well, I shall soon be thousands of miles away and besides, mum - at least no-one knows about the time you put the phone in the fridge. Well, not many people anyway :o) )

Having had such a wonderful time in Alaska in 2007, and especially in the villages I visited last time, I decided to go back, and have been looking forward to it for months. And now it's finally nearly here.

So I shall be catching up with old friends and new at Bouchercon in Baltimore, and then heading off to Alaska. My first stop will be in Anchorage where there is a reception being put on by Alaska Sisters In Crime and at which I have to make a presentation (gulp). Then it's off in a small plane out to the Bush for 11 days. I have enough cookies and candy for 180 children, and enough pens, pencils and paper for the rest. I've also been buying a few childrens' books every month since the beginning of the year. I have packed one and a half suitcases and so far there are no clothes in either of them! They are full of goodies, warm socks and an enormous pair of walking boots that Frankenstein's monster would feel at home in.

I'm also very excited about a little treat I have for them. Last year, I held a competition and got some wonderful short stories, so I have had the stories made into a book, using a picture one of the girls drew for me of she and I going berry picking as the cover. I've had 80 copies shipped to Alaska and am looking forward to giving them out. I've also got loads of creative writing exercises planned, and I think it will be a lot of fun. I can't wait to see them all again.

I then have 2 more days in Anchorage. One will be a trip to Nordstroms for some retail therapy shoe shopping. The next, I'm doing this again. Oh yessssssssssss. I rang to ask if they were doing a trip that weekend and my wonderful guide Kevin from last year has said that even if there's no tour arranged, he will take me out on the ATV for the day anyway. How wonderful is that? I can't get over how nice people are. That will finish off my trip just perfectly.

So I am leaving on Wednesday. I will try and post daily, but Mum - if I can't please don't automatically assume I have been eaten by a bear. Only assume that if you get a letter written in an unknown and barely literate paw, saying "Dere Missis Moore, yore dorter was very tastee. She tasted just lik chiken (onlee with mor fat). However, I hav had indeegestyun ever since." Please feel free to post in the comments section (Dad, I would be grateful if you could try and be nice to me this time).

Love,
Donna

Back To Reality

2007-10-12T02:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday I got up and looked out of my window at Emily and Dwayne's house. More snow had fallen overnight. They took me to the airport and, needless to say, I had a good cry.

Back in Anchorage there were cars and roads and people and bustle - all the things I had got used to being without in the past week. Marti from the Authors To Schools programme kindly picked me up and took me to my hotel. On the way we stopped off at her house and, as we were driving along her street, there was a moose and her baby casually standing in someone's front garden. I went all the way to the Bush and never saw a moose. Then, in a suburb of Anchorage here were two about 6 feet away from me. I expected to round the corner and see a black bear sitting on a porch with a can of Budweiser and a bag of Cheetos.

I was at the airport at 3.30 the next morning. Checking in with absolutely no voice was good fun. When I got on the plane in Seattle I was starting to feel a little rough. I had the window seat - J. This Spanish (I thought) guy got on and said "I think you're in the wrong seat." "No", I said, "I'm seat J". "I'm H, and that comes after J unless I didn't study well at school." I refrained from saying that yes indeed, he didn't study well at school and just said "G is there, J is here." Had he politely said "Oh, I really wanted a window seat" I would have got up and let him have it. But he was so rude. He was still ranting on when the big sweaty guy in front of me got up and said "She's in J. It's the window seat. That's G over there." Thank you, my knight in sweaty armour.

So, Mr Annoying sat down. Despite the fact that my nose was blocked, the stench of the cheap aftershave that he had apparently bathed in about five minutes before wafted over me like...well...like a really strong smelling cheap aftershave. There is no suitable simile to describe the fug of gag-inducing Eau De Stink. Oh goodie, 9 and a half hours. By the end of it, I was going to be hallucinating about diving into a swimming pool filled with the stuff. It couldn't possibly get worse. He turned to the guy on the other side of him "I'm from Sicily." Excellent. I had seriously pissed off a mafia don. There would be no sleep for me just in case I woke up with a horse's head on the headrest next to me.

I had a look at the list of films I could watch. Very unlike me I chose a horror film. Now, I'm not good with horror so I seldom watch it. I'll admit it, I'm a wuss. But the listing had a film called 1408, based on a Stephen King film, and starring John Cusack. Now, I like John Cusack and I thought "OK, I'm on a plane with 600 other people, the screen is 2 inches square, I'm sitting next to a man who smells like a sewer - how scary can this film be?" So I started to watch it, and it was pretty good. Not too scary although I did squeak a couple of times. They brought the food round, I carried on watching. They came to collect the trays. My eyes were glued to the screen. I lifted up my tray to pass to the air stewardess as she came round. Something really REALLY scary happened in the film. Well, what else could I do? I shrieked (which luckily came out a mix between croak and squeak), and flung my tray up in the air. Bits of food, plastic cutlery, cups, little plastic trays, and a roll which was so hard I could have battered my seatmate to death with it, flew into the air. Sadly, what goes up must come down. And it did. All over Don Smelleone and the couple in the row in front. They were picking bits of pasta out of their hair for the rest of the flight. Whoops.

So, that was the end of my wonderful vacation. I had the time of my life. So many special memories, so many friends made, so many new experiences. The scenery was breathtaking, but even that was dwarfed by the amazing experience I had in the Bush. I loved speaking to the children in the schools and came home with a huge bag full of drawings and stories. I have a few of them stuck to my fridge and will be rotating them regularly. I left some money as prizes in a writing competition and I've already had a few entries - some of them really good.

Apart from the trip being a lot of fun, I learned so many things - including that you can eat brown bears but not black bears, that I need more practice driving an ATV, that I can embarrass myself by crying every day, that ice cream made of fish and Crisco tastes delicious, and that the duct tape holding in the window of a plane doesn't need to be scary. Mostly, I learned that I would love to go back to Alaska one day, and if I do, I will definitely be going back to Aniak, Kalskag and Sleetmute.

Thank you to everyone for bearing with me and reading my nonsense, and for your comments either here or via e-mail. It's been a lot of fun, and almost made me wish I kept a regular blog. I shall be updating the blog at least once more, mid November time, just to report on the competition and updates on things happening in the Bush - I'm keeping in touch with as many of the teachers and children who can put up with me. If anyone wants me to let them know when the post goes up (or if you just want to say hi), please e-mail me at donnaem at gmail dot com.

Until then, I shall leave you with some more photos of gorgeous scenery, friends made, and the wonderful teachers and children of the Kuskokwim River villages.

Love,
Donna

Last Day In The Bush

2007-10-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

Friday was spent at the High School in Aniak, doing writing exercises with several classes of the older children. I varied the exercises depending on the class. It was a fun day. I found that the High Schoolers in general during my visit were some of the most difficult to get through to, but also some of the most rewarding. You could just tell when they got it, and the light went on, and they started to enjoy it. There are some very intelligent and creative students. One told me he wasn't going to be able to write me a story, he just couldn't do it. Two days later he sent me a really imaginative and well written story.

The last class of the day was especially interesting as it was conducted by video conference, with 3 students in the room, and 3 at 2 other schools. It made for an interesting hour. In that one we talked about music and how songs can hae stories in them, and be the jumping off point for ideas. We discussed the lyrics of a Nickelback song (Rock Star). Great fun. When I was their age, I would have loved to have had their teacher - he was great.

This picture shows one of the aspects of life in the Bush I really like. All the schools have pictures around the walls of the teachers and elders who have been important to the school and the village.

Every day I've had at least one 'stop me in my tracks' moment. This one was when I was doing the radio commercial exercise with one of the classes and the 4 boys who made up one of the groups were sitting with blank stares and blank pieces of paper. "OK, if you were picking up a book right now, what sort of story would you like to read about?" "Cryptozoology" said one. "Errrr, and what's that?" said I. So he then went into a very articulate and technical speech about what it is - having to do with creatures whose existence has not been proved. So they ended up coming up with a really inventive story about Bigfoot.

These students have lots of hidden depths. One of the girls is in an organisation called the Dragon Slayers - a teen volunteer around-the-clock emergency rescue team set up by the fire chief. They fight fires and respond to medical emergencies in Aniak and the surrounding towns. They are all aged between 13-18 and are mostly girls. Again, I was struck by how these young people have done so much more in their lives than I have, despite the fact that they live in a small village, cut off from what we would consider civilisation.

I gave out the rest of my gifts. I was pleased that I had had enough pens, pencils, notebooks and cookies so that all of the children I met got something. And since the aspersions have been cast by Paulie Walnuts - one of my dearest friends - and by my own FATHER, here is a photo of some of the children with their treats. I think, gents, that you will now have to give up on spreading this vicious rumour that I ate all the biscuits.

In the afternoon there was a pep rally for the whole school for a girls volleyball game being held that evening (between the Aniak Halfbreeds and the Kalskag Grizzlies. There was a poetry reading, a volleyball game between the teachers and the girls' team, and they also gave me a round of applause, which was lovely, if blush-inducing. It was a lovely wind down to my week and, as well as watching proceedings I sat chatting to one of the High School students - Amanda, and we were going ga-ga over a chihuahua puppy that someone had brought in. Ginger was dressed in a little coat that said 'Brunettes have more fun'.

After the pep rally it was home for a quick bite to eat before the volleyball game. Aniak's only restaurant closed down recently, and is currently awaiting new ownership. They do, however, have a fast food outlet. They have a pizza hut. I don't mean Pizza Hut, I mean a hut where Esther makes the most delicious pizzas. Really yummy.

The volleyball game was good fun. It's a real village event, and the hottest thing happening in Aniak on a Friday night. Children from the Elementary School were coming in and out and when they saw me I got hugs and waves. And one little boy with a cheeky face came and sat next to me and said "I enjoyed writing stories. When are you coming back?"

A little girl came up and said "My sister wants to see you outside." Blimey - the last time I was at school and someone said 'my sister wants to see you outside' a girl twice as big as me wanted to steal my lunch money and my maths homework (ha! more fool HER since I can't count). So, heart in mouth I went out and, phew, Amanda was there with her husky Sunshine. The family has about 10 dogs, but Sunshine is her special one. So we chatted for a while and I got licked to death by Sunshine. I really liked Amanda. She is a quiet, caring, thoughtful girl, wise beyond her 13 years, and with a smile that lights up her face.

After a while I went back inside and watched the Halfbreeds beat the Grizzlies, which went down well in the gym. A lot of the spectators had relatives who played on both teams, but the loyalty seems to be to your village rather than your relatives and friends :o)

Back at Emily and Dwayne's there was a knock at the door. "Donna, it's for you" said Emily. For me? Has the patience of the villagers finally been exhausted? Have they come en masse to run me out of town? But no - it was Amanda. In her quiet voice she said "When I took Sunshine back home I thought, 'what would Donna not have back in Scotland?' so I made you this." 'This' was a piece of caribou antler which she had sawed off one of the caribou her family had caught, and she had scratched on one side 'Aniak' and on the other 'Alaska'. Also a little box of beautiful shiny stones. I burst into tears and gave her a huge hug. What a way to end my last day in the Bush, with the friendship and generosity that I encountered everywhere during my week here.

And on my last day here it snowed. Just a bit, but that's now the start of winter. By the end of October the place will be covered in snow, and it will last until about april time. The wide, fast flowing Kuskokwim River will freeze to a depth of 5 or 6 feet, and it will be thick enough to drive on. Hard to believe. I would love to see it. And I'd love to whiz up and down the frozen river in a snowmobile.

Well, only one or two more posts left to go - I'm sure you will be pleased to know. If you've stuck with me so far...what the hell's wrong with you people?!

Mmmm...Blubber For Dinner

2007-10-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

This is a picture outside the back of Emily's house. I could see both ends of this rainbow - it was beautiful.

Today I was on familiar territory - back in Aniak in the Elementary School where I had spent Monday afternoon. Surprisingly enough, the teachers and children all seemed happy to see me back. There were cries of "You came back!" And "How long will you be here?" and "I drew you a picture Miss Donna." It was like coming home :o)

Some classes had written stories for me after I had visited them earlier in the week. Mr Brock's kindergarten class sat like little angels while I read to them one of the books I had brought for them.

Mr Henry's First Graders recited along with me as we read out the story 'We're Going on A Bear Hunt'. They knew all the words and it was great fun. They then all drew pictures for me, and finally they each read out a page of the book they are working on about bears (here they are pictured with a page from their book.

With the 5th and 6th graders in the afternoon, I had taken along a set of Harris Burdick posters and as a group the children made up a story about one of those. It shows someone coming down the stairs, a tiny door in the wall, and a rolled up carpet that appears to have something inside it, and has the caption "He could have sworn he had seen the doorknob turn." I asked the children questions, for suggestions as to what was behind the door (an elf, a baby, a mouse, a bear, an alien) and what was wrapped up inside the carpet (a ghost, some treasure, a giant, the alien again (another class decided it was Mike Myers which was hilarious). We took votes where there were lots of suggestions for how the story should go. They came up with the most wonderful story about a boy who opened the door to find an evil elf standing there. The elf said "Give me my treasure." The carpet was a magic carpet and the gold goins were hidden inside, so the boy got on the magic carpet (not realising that the elf had caught hold of the carpet and was flying along with him). The magic carpet went to Iraq (we had lots of suggestions including Anchorage, Disneyland, Scotland and Antartica but the vote went to Iraq). As they were flying over a village in Iraq a missile hit the carpet and the pot containing the old coins broke. "What happened next?" I asked. "It was raining gold coins over the village" said one of the girls. Wow.

The teacher went onto Amazon and immediately ordered a set of the posters (I would have left her them but I had already promised them to one of the teachers in Kalskag once I had finished with them - they went down really well with all ages - all the children loved making up stories. With the older ones I sometimes then showed them another and we talked about it for a few minutes and I then asked them to write a short story about it. Having done the same exercise in a group, they then had the confidence to let their imaginations really run wild. One of the other posters is a man holding a chair over his head, and a lump under the rug. I got some great stories for that one.

So the day passed all too quickly. That evening it was the potlatch supper. Lots of Dwayne's relations came over. I lost track of who was who, but there were aunts and uncles and cousins, and Dwayne's grandma, who was a wonderful lady. Some of the children brough me gifts of pictures, and some of the adults also bought me gifts. I got 2 jars of preserved salmon, and a pack of the lovely salmon jerky stuff I'd had earlier in the week. One lady brought me some salmon recipes that she had made into a card with pictures of the family's fish camp, which was lovely. A couple of the recipes were for dishes which people had brough - including the most delicious salmon dip which I really MUST make...as soon as I can find out where I can buy the 'liquid smoke' the recipe calls for.

Also on the menu was baked salmon, Russian pie (salmon and vegetables with a pastry lid (delicious), salmon in breadcrumbs, and then the two things I was half dreading, half dying to try - muktuk and aqutak (a-GOO-duk). The muktuk were little slivers of meat - about two thirds pale pink and a third black. The pale pink was whale blubber, the black was whale skin. The pink had a really nice taste but the whole thing was decidedly chewy. It didn't expand in my mouth, as threatened, but you certainly couldn't bite it - it had to be swallowed whole.

Finally - aqutak, or eskimo ice cream - which I had been really looking forward to. There were two different kinds - one with blueberries and salmonberries, one with low bush cranberries and high bush cranberries. So, as a spoonful of crisco, sugar, fish and berries made its way to my mouth they all watched me. It was DELICIOUS. More delicious than a desert consisting of fat and fish should really be. It didn't taste of fish. It also didn't taste of lard. It was light and fluffy and bursting with fruit. I might get this wrong but I believe the recipe is as follows: you boil a white fish, take all the head and skin and bones etc out and squeeze the fish until all the water comes out and all you are left with is little flakes of white fish. Then add about 3 tablespoons of Crisco (more if you like, a bit of milk (I think, and some people add a tin of condensed milk), sugar to taste and then use your hands to beat it until it's light and fluffy (no, really, it DOES go light and fluffy). The add fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. I'm not sure whether you freeze it or just chill it. It was really lovely. I would make it at home but it would probably end up tasting like fish and lard...

I was told that they had thought of bringing Stinkheads but thought they would spare me that. Even hearing the name made me feel extremely grateful, but when I found out the recipe, I was even more so. (Note: Maddy, you might want to look away NOW) Take some fish heads (OK, you can stop there), wrap them in fish entrails (no, really, I do NOT find this remotely tempting), then bury the whole lot for a couple of weeks. If you dare, you can then dig it up and apparently the fish heads will have cooked (no, actually they will have fomented and festered) and the fish heads will be nice and soft. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Pass the ketchup. And a sick bag. Judy was glad to discover that I have my limits. I might eat half a pound of lard and oodles of whale blubber, but I have my standards. I do draw the line somewhere. That line is very slightly above rotten, stinking, mouldy fish heads. Actually, I think my line is drawn at fish heads, full stop.

Before we ate, Dwayne collected a little of each dish and set it aside. Later on he burned the food in the wood stove as an offering to those who had passed. I went first, and then the other guest (a nun from the local parish), and then Dwayne's Grandma. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that some of the important village elders have schools named after them and this lovely lady was one of those as she had taught all ages of village children during her life, and also taught yup'ik. A great end to a great day.

Sleetmute - Part 2

2007-10-08T04:39:00.000-07:00

So, after the High Schoolers in the morning, it was the Elementary children in the afternoon. We drew pictures, told stories, and I read them one of the books I had brought for them from Scotland. We had fun and, again, I came away with loads of pictures of all sorts of things - bears, fish (the boy who had over lunch told me how to kill and gut a ptarmigan, and what the best gun was to use for shooting bear, drew me something dripping in blood. I don't THINK it was me, but I can't be 100% certain... One of the girls (aged 9) drew the most wonderful picture of she and I going berrypicking. The picture was full of blueberries. She also sent me an e-mail later that same day saying she hoped I remembered her. At the end of the e-mail she said "What I want to be when I grow up.....is alive." These children really filled my heart with all sorts of emotions.

At the end of the school day the children went home and the airline picking me up rang to say they would be collecting me in 50 minutes. Ah, the usual check in hassles of going out to stand on the gravel runway :o)

Sue, one of the teachers gave me the present and letter from the cook, Mary, that I mentioned in an earlier post, saying that Mary was too shy to give it me herself. Luckily I didn't open it then or I would have just burst into tears. However I did go back inside and thank her and she gave me a hug. Then Lorna, the other teacher lent me an ATV and took me for a trip around the village. It's a lovely little place. First of all we went down to the river, and I took loads of pictures as it was gorgeous down there.

While we were there a native Alaskan man came down - he was taking some people downriver to another village in his boat. What a character. His name was Joe and when he realised who I was his eyes lit up. He was Ryan's Dad. I told him that his son was very bright and had a great imagination. He wanted to have his picture taken with me and he gave me his address, telling me that I had to put him in my next book and send him a copy. He also gave me a lucky pebble from the beach. Well strictly speaking it was just a pebble, but we decided it was a lucky one. He was hilarious.

We then drove around the village some more and Lorna showed me a bath house and a honey bucket. The honey bucket is the toilet they use if they don't have a toilet indoors. I'm very glad I didn't need to use one. Honey is not a particularly apt description. The bath house is like a sauna only, apparently, 1000 degrees hotter. Men and women bathe naked, but separately. Even without the stove on the room smelled fresh and sauna-like, but I'm not sure I could have coped with the heat.

While we were there, a native Alaskan lady who worked at the school came out of her home and invited us in to look around, which was a real honour. Most of the houses there have the most glorious view of the river, and she told us that she was born across the river. She pointed out a spot where she had been surprised by a bear when she was about 13. She was berry picking at the time when suddenly a bear appeared in front of her. She siad her mind went like a rolodex as she flicked through everything her father had told her about what to do. She stayed totally still. When the bear lowered its head she remembered that her dad had said that with its head like that it wouldn't be able to see her, so she moved slowly backwards. When it raised its head she stopped again. It took her about 15 minutes to get away. When she went back the next day her pail full of berries was still there.

Listening to her story was very relaxing. Yup'ik people talk very softly, very slowly, and with pauses to think. When you say something to them they pause and consider before answering.

All too soon it was back to the plane. My pilot for the journey back was so young I have chicken in my freezer older than him. "You're...ummmm...very young for a pilot" I said. He just grinned. "Everyone tells me that. Want to sit next to me? Just don't touch the red button." OK, I get it now. Don't touch the red button. Yes,yes, OK, I get the message that bush pilots don't trust me with the red button.

On the way back to Aniak - a flight of just over an hour, we had a stop to pick people up in Crooked Creek, which he warned me had one of the worst runways in the area. In comparison to the gravel and potholes I had already encountered? How bad could it be? I wondered. It was like landing on a roller coaster. Great fun.

The rain started on the way back. Even if I had had my eyes closed I would have realised. Mostly because spots of rain were hitting my face. And I wasn't sitting outside on the wing. Nope, it was raining INSIDE the plane. Now I realised what the duct tape was for.

I had a wonderful day in Sleetmute. Very special for all sorts of reasons.

Face For The Radio

2007-10-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well, my Mum always said I had a face for the radio. Now it's time to discover that I also have a voice for mime. Before I went out to the Bush I did a radio interview and it's now up here: http://www.akradio.org/archive/index.html (just click on the Murder and Mayhem programme date 10/06/07. And I no longer sound like that - I have absolutely NO voice left at all. Why does everyone else with a sore throat sound like Lauren Bacall, and I sound like Squeaky The Stupid Sounding Squeaky Thing From Squeakville?

And i just found out that the radio station has a link to my blog, so if anyone is reading this - welcome. I love your state, your scenery and, most of all, your people.

Sleetmute

2007-10-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

So, after spending a day in the school in Kalskag, I flew back to Aniak. The next morning I was being picked up early to fly to Sleetmute - one of the smallest villages along this bit of the Kuskokwim. They only have 15 students in the whole school, but were flying students in from Red Devil, Stony River, Crooked Creek and Chuathbaluk, so altogether with Elementary and High School there were going to be about 35 students.

Since the rule was the more flights I take, the smaller the plane gets, this was to be my smallest plane - which meant I got to clamber in and sit next to the pilot, Steve, and to wear a pair of earphones and talk to him on the microphone. "Don't push the red button." That was the safety demonstration. I even shut and locked my own door. I felt like Biggles.

So, sitting on my hands so I didn't touch the red button, we set off. Steve told me that the fog meant that we had to fly low over the river. "If you see a bear or a moose will you point it out?" I said "Of course" said Steve, confidently. Needless to say, we didn't see so much as Winnie The Pooh, let alone one of these 14 foot bears with the huge heads the children keep telling me about.I now think there are no bears in Alaska. Steve asked me if I wanted to take the scenic tour. Well, duh...So we stopped off in Red Devil and Stony River along the way. If I thought Aniak and Kuspuk airports were small, they were nothing compared to these. Aniak has a proper runway. It's about 6 feet long but it has tarmac and white lines. Most of the runways in the small villages are basically just a track in a field. If you're lucky there's gravel. If you're UNlucky, they are full of potholes filled with water. Each time he was coming in to land Steve would say into the radio something like "5 miles from Stony River, landing from the north". Of course, when we landed, there was absolutely nothing around -- no other planes, no people, and definitely no control tower. "Who are you telling?" I said, "The bears? So they can disappear before I get here?" He just laughed.

Steve is employed by the school district and his job is to fly people and supplies to and from the various schools, so I got to visit a couple of the schools I wasn't actually going to be talking to the children at. In Red Devil all the pupils except one (ie, about 10 of them) had actually already flown off to Sleetmute to see me, so I went in and said hello to one poor lonely girl who was having a test. In Stony River (a lovely little place)I paid a quick visit to each of the classes, and had a chat with the Principal and the cook.

The schools are all named after people of importance in the villages, so there are schools called 'Gusty Michael School', 'Zackar Levi Elementary School', Auntie Mary Nicoli Elementary School', and each of them has ATVs out front - what a great way to arrive at school.

Eventually I arrived in Sleetmute. This was where Special Agent Vernon came to meet me and started my day off on such a high note. First of all I saw all the children together and introduced myself and had a question and answer session. Then it was an hour and a half with the high schoolers. This was my first experience of talking to High Schoolers, the other children I had seen had all been Kindergarten through Elementary. I was expecting grumpy teenagers. I started off with a couple :o) I had split them into four groups and told them they were going to do a radio commercial for a book (thanks Jools!). They had to make up a synopsis for a book, make up a title and an author name, and also tell us why we should buy their book as we all only had enough money to buy one book.

They started off with blank looks and blank pieces of paper. Some of them said they didn't know what to write but as I went round the four groups the most wonderful ideas started to emerge. Some of these students have great imaginations, and the things they were coming up with were funny and touching and interesting. One group decided to tell a story which was a mix between traditional and modern. The group consisted of 2 sets of sisters who were all cousins. (I have subsequently heard from them by e-mail. I told them I enjoyed their story and that they should maybe think about doing some stories based on yup'ik traditions but with their own twist. So they're going to interview the village elders and write down the stories, and hopefully do a book. I was thrilled).

I'm doing a competition for all of them. In every class I have been I told the students that if they write a story and send it to me, I'm going to be having a competition (I left some money with Emily for prizes). There are several that I hope will do, as they had such great ideas.

The older children all have laptops, which is part of a programme out here. They use them for music and fun and chatting, but they also use them for schoolwork. One boy of about 15, Ryan, showed me a story he had written called The Key. He has promised to send it to me - if he doesn't I will be badgering him for it because it was excellent.

All the High Schoolers really got into it and I think...hope...they enjoyed the morning. I've heard from Emily that the ones she spoke to said they did.
After the High School kids it was lunchtime. What I really like about these villages is that they invite the village Elders in for lunch. So sitting with the children are the village's senior citizens. I like that. In this picture, Vernon is the one with his hand up and the big grin on his face (which never left him the whole day - he's such a character, Ryan is the one in the white t-shirt staring into space, and the 4 girls writing the book (Bedu, Darien, Tracy and Wendy are at the back to the left of me).

Over lunch I sat with some of the Elementary children. I learned a lot - the est way to shoot a ptarmigan, what to do if I see a black bear. That you can eat brown bear but not black (they eat the trash in the dumps and their meat doesn't taste too good!). One boy of about 8 told me about his gun "I have a .223" he said. "Is that a rifle?" said the big city girl. He looked at me with disgust and said "No, it's a bolt action." His words were dripping with a "You're so stupid" subtext. "Oh," said I, not wanting to ask what a bolt action was and show my ignorance still further.

Well, I will stop here for now. I have much more to say about Sleetmute but need to pack my case as I am going back to anchorage today. I will be sad to leave. Very sad.

Kalskag

2007-10-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Before the Brief Interlude I left you, dear reader, as I was gettting off my duct taped plane in Kalskag. I was staying with two teachers - Karen and Dave - who had kindly invited this stranger into their home. It was a lovely home and full of things from the local area, plus the Far East where one of their sons lives. They have been there about seven years. Karen teaches at the elementary school and Dave teaches Special Ed at both schools.

After a brief respite to sit down and have a glass of water (with special instructions to only drink the filtered as the ordinary water contains arsenic and mercury), and a delicious home made cookie, it was off to the school for a potluck supper with the other teachers. Also, some of the children turned up which was fun.

It was also the one and only time I encountered the not so pleasant side of life, a side I had heard about while being briefed in Anchorage. I think I mentioned that alcohol is a problem here, which is why a lot of the villages are dry. People here for some reason can't drink socially, but instead they drink to get drunk. A young man turned up who the teachers seemed to be wary around, and they watched him closely. Afterwards, I was told that the Tribal Council had recently thrown him out of the village for abusing a child. He was back, it appeared, and only the tribal council could do something about this. Most of the children here seem to be happy and healthy and loved and well cared for (in fact, in one of the other villages, one of the teachers told me that the parents never hit their children), but it's a small village, and life is hard, and sometimes the children get left to fend for themselves. So they play out until all hours and when they do go home, a lot of them still live in one room so if their parents are drinking or arguing, then the children are tired for school the next day. The younger children sometimes don't turn up for school because no-one in the family has bothered to remind them they need to go. The older children are better at turning up. I found that very heartening - I was trying to imagine how many children in Glasgow, given a chance to either go to school or not, would actually go. I came across a number of children who live with their grandparents, and some have even been adopted by them - one lady told me that her daughter drinks too much, so her children now live with her, the grandmother.

I know that that evening I wanted to round up all those children I saw playing out and take them home with me to keep them safe.

Anyway, enough of the sad stuff, but I do want to tell everything I saw and felt on my trip, and not just the happy stuff (which has FAR outweighed the sad parts).

Karen and Dave don't have a car. Roads in Kalskag are hardly worthy of the name, so almost everyone travels by ATV. Yippee!! This meant I got to travel on the back of one. Dave drove and Karen and I sat on the back, covered by a warm rug, as we drove to the school. We passed a Russian Orthodox church (it seems that the two main religions around here are Russian Orthodox and Catholic. In church the men stand on the left, the women on the right (no seats, and services can last up to 4 hours!) In the churchyard the men are buried on the left, the women on the right. There were a couple of graves just outside the fence. Karen told me those were for unbaptised babies. Yu'pik traditions also play a huge part. When someone dies a 'feed' is held 7 days, 40 days, one year, two years etc after their death. It's a big feast where they honour the person who has passed on. In Kalskag (although not in all the other villages), the 7 day feed is held sitting on the ground, so the spirit of the person who has passed on can share the food.

The next day was spent in the school. I spent about an hour and a half with each of the 4 classes in the elementary school. I did different exercises in each one and it was such fun. The littlest children I read to, and we made up a story, and they drew pictures for me. With another group we did our fingerprints and made up stories based on Harris Burdick posters I had brought with me. With the oldest group we actually made up our own mystery story which was hilarious as we had the children in the class as witnesses, suspects, victim, police...The children completely made up the story and it was about the school turtles going missing. When I asked what sort of things the witnesses might see, one of the boys said "One of the suspects might be carrying a bag of turtle food." One of the suspects said "But he might be hungry." And when I asked one of the suspects what his alibi was for the night of the turtle theft he said "I was at the store." "Did anyone see you?" "No, it was dark and I was robbing it." It was great fun - they are all so bright and funny.

I took photos of all the classes, and some of the children wanted extra photos taken with me either in groups or on their own. I also had each class do something that I could bring home with me - so I have a pile of pictures and stories to remind me of my trip. From Kalskag, I also have a book that one class gave me, which is set in the area and is very like the lives they live so I can't wait to read that. And Karen gave me a gift of a Kuspuk - a traditional dress here. I'll take a photo of it and upload it when I get home.

The janitor in Kalskag has a hook instead of a hand. He was in Vietnam in a helicopter and they were shot. His hand was shot off and when he said to the helicopter pilot "Look, my hand has been blown off, the pilot fainted and the helicopter crashed.

When it was time to go I was told "The plane will call the school and tell us when it's going to land. It did. I definitely want that sort of service from Northwest when I fly home to Scotland. It's great just turning up at the field where the plane lands, driving up to it and then just getting in and taking off. Check-in and security take...oooooh....30 seconds. Before going to the plane the principal of the High School took me up to a high point where I had a beautiful view over the gorgeous Kuskokwim River.

I meant to say before, please excuse any typos etc. I have limited time to post and am just setting down my thoughts in a mish-mash and not checking over the post before I send it - so apologies.

If Anyone Wonders Why I am Here...

2007-10-03T19:38:00.000-07:00

This is just an interlude - longer posts will follow on my days in Kalskag yesterday and Sleetmute today but two things happened today which were so wonderful I had to share them.

First of all, I met a very bright and funny High Schooler called Vernon who is a real character (he came out to meet me from the Bush plane, told me he was my bodyguard, and that he could speak in a Scottish accent but he wasn't going to because he would never be able to get his own accent back) He is dyslexic but he was so happy to be telling stories and using his imagination (which is a wonderful one) that he decided he is going to write a story for me. (It's called 'Jonah and Vernon and The Wolves')

Secondly Mary the cook (a lot of the cooks in the schools are elderly native Alaskan ladies. Mary is profoundly deaf and very shy) gave me a present and a letter. I have taken pictures of it but for some reason I can't seem to upload my pictures to my laptop at the moment (now done!). It is three ornaments made out of the paper covers that individual tea bags come in. Wonderfully intricate circular ornaments made of hundreds of tea bag covers, folded, twisted and somehow fastened together, I have no idea how. And she wrote me a note which says:

"Donna - thank you very much for coming to Sleetmute. Our students enjoyed your company very much. I wish you could come again someday but maybe it's impossible. But you are more than welcome to come and entertain our schoolkids. Enclosed are souvenirs from Sleetmute, I made them out of tea bags. People use them as wall decorations. I hope you like them. Please take care and again, thank you very much for coming. Sincerely, Mary." And she gave me a hug. For an elder to do this is a real honour.

So there, amongst all the other hundreds of reasons why I am here, are just two. I'm not ashamed to say I cried.

Tales From The Bush

2007-10-02T23:48:00.001-07:00

Since I was fogged in in Aniak, Emily took me to the elementary school which is Kindergarten to 6th Grade (so, ages 5-10 I guess. The school was very accomodating and arranged for me to spend half an hour with each of the 5 classes (I go back on Thursday to spend all day with them). Needless to say, I was very nervous. I've never taught children before. Before we left Anchorage I was warned by people who had been to various villages that the children would probably be very shy, and that they wouldn't want to be touched (And, which brought a lump to my throat, that some of them would flinch if they WERE touched). Well, that so didn't happen. Every class was chatty and friendly and I was surrounded by excited faces and asked lots of question (was I married, where did I get my necklace from, did I know their auntie Sarah/uncle Nikolai/mother/sister/grandfather, if not, why not, and could I stay and teach them every day).

The first class was Second Grade - ages 6/7 and I read them a story. They started off several feet away. By the end of the story they were all crowded around my knees :o) My second class was a kindergarten class. We talked about bears and moose and fishing, and they showed me purple potatoes. And at the end of the class they came and gave me hugs. I almost cried. They were so sweet.

I asked every class I went to how many of them had seen a bear, how many had seen a moose, who had gone fishing, who went out to pick berries and in most classes all their hands went up. Then I told them I had never seen a bear (or, as Gary would say...a BAT), or a moose or done any of those things and that I wanted to hear about their lives and their families and what they did. So I got great tales of moose hunts and huge bears and someone whose face was clawed by a bear, and going to fish camp...it was wonderful.

When I was in the final class of the day, Emily came to tell me that the afternoon plane to Kalskag was able to leave so she drove me to the airport and I checked in. In the Alaskan Bush this basically means going up to the counter and saying "Hi, I'm Donna and I weigh a horrible number of pounds." The planes get smaller and the airports less airport like every village I go to.

So I got into the plane with 5 other people for the 20 minute flight to Kalskag. I was taking pictures of the scenery when I happened to notice that every window in the plane was held together with tape. And since I know nobody will believe that I took a couple of pictures which I will upload at a later date. Seriously, the plane was held together with duct tape.

Now, I said the airports got less recognisable with every trip. Well, in Kalskag there IS no airport, just a gravel field. The plane landed, the pilot walked across the wing, jumped down and took my bags off and the principal of the school drove up next to the plane and picked me up. No interminable walk to the terminal, no long waits at the luggage carousel and, yes, every single flight I have taken in the Bush, my luggage has come with me.

My trip to Kalskag deserves a post of its own so more in the next couple of days, but just to update you on a delicacy I have to come on Thursday at the supper, let me tell you that I am having Aqutak (pronounced A-goo-duk), otherwise known as Eskimo Ice Cream. Mmmmmmm, sounds good doesn't it? Well, let me tell you the recipe as far as I can make it out from what some of the children have told me. First you take berries of various sorts (sounds yummy so far, right?), then you get a salmon (or seal, or whale blubber or reindeer fat) and you squeeze it until all the fat and juices run out. Because that's really not enough fat, why not go ahead and add a couple of pounds of Crisco or lard, then beat it all up with your hand until it's light and fluffy (no, really, it DOES get light and fluffy apparently). Enjoy. Then take a trip to the Emergency Room to get your arteries unclogged. Apparently it's delicious, and does not taste of fish. And since I live in Scotland, the home of the deep friend snickers bar, I can't wait to try some.

I love this place and these people. It would be a tough place to live but everyone is so wonderful and welcoming and happy to see me. And the children are bright and funny and affectionate and just so very very warm. All my joking aside, this is a very humbling, fulfilling and fun experience and I am so unbelievably fortunate to be here.

Waqaa Cangacit From Aniak

2007-10-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

That means 'Hello, how are you'' in Yu'pik by the way. Well here I am sitting in the school district offices in Aniak. I'm supposed to be flying to Kalskag today but I am on 'weather hold', which means that Kalskag is fogged in and the planes can't fly. They're going to give us a call if it lifts.

I flew into Aniak yesterday. There were 6 people on my flight, and my hand luggage had its own seat. The safety demonstration was very casual. "There's a sickbag and earplugs in the seatback in front of you. Help yourself to coffee and snacks." Taking off and landing in a small plane is VERY different to the float plane. Much bumpier and great fun. While flying, every part of you that touches the plane vibrates. It was like having a very fast hard massage on my bottom. I wish the journey had lasted 15 hours :o)

Aniak is on the Kuskokwim River and there are lots of small rivers running off it, so the scenery is lovely (still no bears, but apparently they are around). Emily picked me up at the very tiny airport and drove me to her home. She lives by the river in a lovely house. Her boyfriend Duane made dinner and some of their friends joined us. Duane has a 7 year old son who is a real cutie and they have 2 dogs and 2 cats (one of which slept with me which was lovely). Duane made the most delicious moose soup and some smoked salmon that was very dark and like salmon jerky. Really tasty. They told me that each summer there is a fish camp which the whole village goes to. They catch the salmon, gut and clean and prepare them and then some is dried in smoke houses for a week or two, and then that lasts them during the winter. It's very expensive to live here with milk and fresh food costing a lot. One of the guys who was here is currently building his own home and he said that the cost of shipping in materials doubles the cost of building a house. Duane's family is coming over on Thursday for a traditional dinner, with everyone bringing something. Now, when I say family, I MEAN family. Duane has 88 cousins on his mother's side, most of whom live in the village (which has about 600 residents). It's a non dry village, which means that it's not illegal to have alcohol. Emily was telling me that when she first moved to Alaska to teach she was in a dry village and her social life was very curtailed because, as a teacher, if she was even in the company of people who were drinking she could have had her teaching license revoked. Alcohol can be a big problem in the villages, with a fair amount of children affected by it.

Last night when I went to bed it was so dark and quiet out. In the winter there are about 4 hours of daylight and Emily was saying that in the summer it gets dark for a little while about 2am and then gets light shortly thereafter. There are no street lamps in the area and the only light I could see from my window was one from the airport (which I at first thought was the Northern Lights until I realised that the Northern Lights probably didn't swing from side to side like that (oh, the tribulations of being a city girl!)

Today and tomorrow I am supposed to be in Kalskag, which is a very traditional village, so I am hoping to learn some more Yu'pik words. Wednesday I am in a village called Sleepmute, where the school has just 15 children, but they are flying children in from other small villages. I'm looking forward to talking to the children, and am a little nervous, but I have lots of exercises that I have planned that I can do with them, and I have books and pens and sweets for the children, so even if my teaching is crap, at least they will get treats! Everyone has been really lovely and it's a real thrill for me to be here.

More later in the week I hope. If I could say goodbye in Yu'pik I would but so far my vocabulary is restricted to hello, how are you, five and crap :o)

Leaving ...On A No Jet Plane

2007-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well, actually, it's a teeny tiny single engined plane. Wish me luck that my pilot is old, and not bold, as there are no old, bold Bush pilots.

In about half an hour I leave for the Bush. Mum - just let me say once again that if I do not manage to post until Saturday 6th (or possibly not until I get home on Monday 8th) it does not mean that I have been:
a) Eaten by a bear
b) Been invited for dinner not realising *I* am the main course (feeding 8 villages for a month). Thanks to Judy for this suggestion to add to the list of Things Donna Needs to Worry About
c) Become the wife of the shaman (thanks Gary and Ted - please send a wedding gift - a couple of walrus heads would be nice - we need something for the mantlepiece.

I am heading off to Aniak, Upper Kalskag, Lower Kalskag, and a village which appears to be called 'If We Can Get You There, Cripple Creek' since that's how everyone refers to it. I haven't asked why it's so difficult to get to (Mum - I'm sure it doesn't involve rappelling).

I'm very much looking forward to my adventure and I discovered that I have been granted a huge honour, which I am enormously grateful for. I am being thrown a potlatch supper, which is a ceremonial meal. As guest of honour I have to eat everything I am offered. Not normally a problem, except I understand that fish heads dipped in seal fat may be on the menu.

Seriously, I am very excited about this opportunity and everyone has been wonderful.

It is most unlikely that I will be able to blog while I am there but if I can I will; otherwise, see you in about a week.

Oh, and by the way, the interview I did may be appearing on here:
http://www.akradio.org/
next Saturday (and they are going to give me a call while I am in the Bush to see how things are going). Not sure whether it WILL be Saturday but it will be fairly soon.

The Fat Bird Has Landed

2007-09-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm catching up on my blog posts here as I had a little internet problem yesterday (aka known as Donna Is Thick As Two Short Planks). So this post is about Wednesday's plane trip.

We got into the van on our short trip to the airfield, and Judy started handing out travel sickness tablets like a very maternal drug pusher ("the first one is free, lady"). I was popping those little suckers like smarties until Judy belatedly read the back of the packet "Oh, wait, it says only 2 in 24 hours...how do you feel?" We'd left the hotel and gone about ten minutes up the road when we came across three moose (mooses? meese?) at the side of the road, just as happy as you please. You know that joke about the horse that goes into the bar and the barman says "Why the long face"? Well, I think that could be written even better about meese. Their faces are HUGE.

(This picture and the next one are taken from the plane as we went INSIDE the mountain by the way).

I started to worry about my upcoming radio interview (more about that in the next post) when I was telling Gary that I wanted to see a bear. "You want to see a WHAT?" "A bear." "A WHAT?" (I have never seen a face so aghast by the way). "A BEAR. I want to see a bear." He still looked puzzled "Why can't I understand what she's saying?" Apparently my 'bear' sounds like American for 'bat'. I am now Batwoman.

I'm beginning to get a complex after my episode with the automated lost luggage thing, and now this. I've been practising my American accent but I just sound like an extra from Gone With The Wind who's had their jaw rewired after a freak accident involving a chainsaw and a baseball bat (or is that baseball BEAR...Gary?)

So, we arrived at the airfield where there were lots of little red and white planes held together with string and blu-tac. Suddenly, we all felt the urge to use the restrooms. We went into the office where they told us that Mt McKinley was shrouded in fog, so we could visit Mt Spur instead. I needn't have told you that by the way, I could just show you my pictures of the top of a mountain and you wouldn't know any difference, but since I have respect for you, my audience (all 3 of you)...well, except for you, Paul, I decided to come clean. As with the glacier thing (I've been showing all my 500 glacier pictures to people and I can only remember the name of one of the glaciers - Surprise Glacier (as in, it's a surprise I can remember it) and when they say "What's that one called?", rather than admit I don't know I just say "That one? Oh yes, that's Ramones Glacier" or "Ah, yes, the spectacular Johnny Depp. A magnificent specimen of glacierhood."

So, anyway, we decided that Mt Spur was just as good as Mt McKinley and we waited for our pilot. The guys did a bit of shopping - buying t-shirts "Do I suit this shade of green, ladies?" "Does this powder blue bring out the colour of my eyes?"

I asked the guy behind the desk if we were going to have to weigh ourselves before we got on the plane (we'd had to give our weight when we booked the flight). I had lost the 10lbs I had taken account of when giving my weight, but, well, funnel cake and American plate sizes cause havoc with a girl's good intentions. I made sure to point out that I was wearing really heavy boots as I was afraid of stepping onto a scale and having a big booming voice shout "You LIED, fatty!" The bloke behind the counter said "We had one guy give us his weight without clothes on, can you imagine." Oh. Everyone chuckled, except me. I ALWAYS give my weight without clothes on. I started to worry that sitting on the plane naked would be a tad chilly but luckily for everyone I was not made to strip off.

So we got onto the plane. We all had a seat by the window. The safety demonstration consisted of "There's a sickbag in the pocket in front of you," and off we set. It was a float plane so we took off from the water which was amazing. We all had headsets on so we could hear the pilot talking to the control tower, and he also had music. Our take off was to The Ride of The Valkyries and there was some very apt music throughout the flight which was fun.

A glacial lake...

The scenery was absolutely stunning - first of all the flat plains and loads of trees. Then we were up into the foothills of the mountains before finally emerging from the clouds to see the top of the mountain range and Mt Spur. We were taken the scenic route, past glaciers, over an active volcano with steam rising, right down into the mountain which was an unbelievable experience. At one point I almost cried, the experience was so fabulous.

Can you see a bear in this picture? No? Neither could I, but it's there - probably disguised as a tree and raising its middle finger to the skies.

Coming in to land on Beluga Lake...

On the return leg we flew over Beluga Lake and the pilot said "Fancy a break?" He landed the plane on the surface of the lake and taxied into the shore. We all got off the plane to complete silence, nothing around us for miles and miles apart from this glorious scenery.

Oh, and some bears. I went walking up the beach and discovered some bear tracks. Luckily, even a city girl like me could tell they were pointing away from the best lunch the bear could have expected. Oh...wait...maybe it was walking backwards...

I could have stayed at the lake for ages, but all too soon it was time to get back in the plane and return home. Gorgeous, truly gorgeous.

By the way, I have another 400 or so photos of this day if anyone's interested? :o)

Speed Fiend

2007-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

The big green blob who looks like Darth Vader really gone to seed is me on my ATV.

When our guide, Kevin, picked me up for my ATV trip up to the Knik glacier he said "This is a first for me - I've never taken a single female on one of these - single guys have joined us, but never women on their own." OK, so I'm a little bit odd :o) We picked up the rest of the group (another 3 people) and off we set. Kevin got us to sign a disclaimer which basically said "ATVing is very dangerous and you could die. If you die, you agree not to sue us." By this time I was beginning to worry that I had made a mistake, and should have stuck to something a little less dangerous (like bathing in maple syrup and introducing myself to a grizzly bear. Two of our group had ridden ATVs before (although none as powerful as these). I was the only one in the group who didn't drive. I could see Kevin looking at me in despair as he said "We may not make it up to the glacier."

We set off, with strict instructions not to touch the footbrake. Ever. Unless you wanted the differential somethingorother to set fire to the petrol tank, which, by the way, was what we were sitting on. You would know if you had touched the footbrake, because your bum would
spontaneously combust.

We drove through the most amazing scenery (after the first 5 minutes when I was too scared to look at anything except the ground in front of me) - tundra, forest, mountains covered with snow, rivers... there were flat parts where we could speed up (I discovered that my name should be Donna Schumacher when I had a race with one of the guys)

and really rugged parts where you had to go slowly - one of the party tipped their ATV over trying to negotiate one of these. One of them also hit a tree, and then, about 5 minutes later, slammed into the back of my ATV.

My favourite bit was going through water - some of the water we went through was about 3 feet deep. I told Kevin I loved the water parts so on the way back he made sure to take us the wettest, deepest, splashiest way. By the time we arrived back I was covered from head to foot in mud. Good job I was wearing a rather fetching pale green waterproof number.

We were out driving for about 6 hours, and I'm pleased to report that we DID get to the glacier.

As you can hopefully see from the pictures, it was absolutely gorgeous. The ice is so blue in places.

We had lunch there and topics of conversation ranged
from the British use of the word 'brilliant', why men
sit with their legs open, My Fair Lady and what Kevin had in his survival kit (knife, saw, blanket, warm socks, 115,000 bullets (he reassured us by saying that he'd never shot anyone who didn't deserve it), flares, water purification tablets, toilet paper.) I had toilet paper and lip gloss, so half of my survival kit was useful (how many people can say that they have pee'd at a glacier? It was the most scenic loo I have ever used (if a tad frosty around the nether regions)).

We took it in turns to follow immediately behind Kevin. At one point when I was behind him he went sideways up a hill really fast until he was almost parallel with the floor. It was only centrifugal force that was keeping him up there. My heart was in my mouth, but I followed. When I came down Kevin shook his head at me and said "You're crazy woman." Apparently, I wasn't supposed to follow him, he was just 'goofing off' :o) But he said he was impressed.

I still have a big huge grin on my face.

It was the most amazing experience. Wonderful fun, exhilerating, scenery to die for, and I learned a number of things...that I like going fast, that I love getting dirty, that I am braver than I thought, and that when you wee outside, make sure there are no thorns in the vicinity.

I was sad when the trip was over. I wanted to do it all over again. What a superb day. Now I'm off to scrape the 2 inch layer of dirt from my body.

Prince William Sound - Words

2007-09-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday's boat trip to Prince William Sound was gorgeous. First of all we had a scenic drive to Whittier to catch our catamaran. The road takes you past a body of water called the Turnagain Arm. We saw some beluga whales...well, we mostly saw some water where pods of whales were. They eat fish called hooligan fish which are very fatty and full of calories, giving the whales their blubber (I know how they feel - I ate a hooligan burger the day before and I swear I put on about 20lbs of blubber). People catch the fish and squeeze them to get the oil out. They are also called Candle Fish because if you dry the fish, stick a twig in it and then set fire to the twig, you get a candle. Can you imagine that in the Candle Shop - "I'll take a blueberry and vanilla, a mint and cocoa, and a really bogging dead fish one."

Our bus driver was great, and he gave us some very handy hints for avoiding bears. Apparently if you make a noise they don't like it and will avoid you like the plague. You can sing (although if I tried that I think the bear would rip the gun out of the nearest hunter's hands and shoot me). You can buy little bells called bear bells which tourists often get. The joke is that when you're walking in the forest you can tell the bear crap because it's full of badly digested little bells.

To get to Whittier, the only way in is through a two and a half mile tunnel. It's a tunnel used by both cars and trains, and it's so narrow that it's only one car ride. As a result, every hour on the hour cars go one way, and on the half hour they go the other. Whittier is a wieird place. 80% of the 200 residents live in one apartment building, and the school has a playround with swings and slides etc which is indoors. They never have a snow day because there are tunnels underground to the school. They did once have a bear day though when a bear managed to get into the school kitchen.

The boat trip took us to see 26 glaciers (I took about 25 photos of each one. Not sure why - it's not as though each of them has different coloured ice, but there you go). The boat stops at a couple of the glaciers. It's so quiet and then, all of a sudden, the glacier will calve - a piece will fall into the Sound with a noise that sounds like a gunshot. On the way back we had a glass of water chilled with glacier ice. It's a lot denser than normal ice, and this is going to sound stupid, but it's colder too.

We also learned that the whole 10 men to every woman is a fallacy. There are more men than women, but it's about 53% male, 47% female. If you're a woman, and come to Alaska looking for a man, there's a saying that goes "The odds are really good...but the goods are really odd."

It was a gorgeous day. Some of the most stunning scenery I have seen in my life.

Prince William Sound

2007-09-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took 496 photos. Here are a few reasons why...(a report of the day will follow, but right now I am getting ready to go on my ATV trip to a glacier (oooooh, goodie Donna - another 500 pictures of ice?) But I would just like to say a hello to Judy's friends and family. She's behaving herself...well, OK, that might be a stretch, but she managed to make the bus home from Prince William Sound last night, so you know she's OK. And please don't believe everything she tells you)

Ah...Nordstroms

2007-09-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Shoe Purchases - 4
Suitcases arrived: 2
Donnas happy: 1

Sleepless in Seattle

2007-09-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I generally start these messages with something along the lines of "I arrived safely in X; my luggage, however, is still in Y." So, let's see - am I going to do that this time? Well, I arrived safely in Seattle. My luggage, however, is still in Amsterdam. The good news is, they KNEW they lost it. This is so much better than the time I travelled to Bristol (about 50 minutes on the plane). I was the only one out of the whole flight whose luggage didn't arrive. The woman at lost luggage very helpfully said "Oh, it's gone somewhere else beginning with a B." Oh really? Birmingham? Belgium? Burkina Fasso? My bags arrived with a suntan 4 days later.

But this time I knew it wasn't going to accompany me to Seattle when my connecting plane was late and I had to sprint through Schipol airport in Amsterdam (aka The Biggest Airport In The Whole World) and arrived at my plane with 10 minutes to spare. Of course, I then had to go through the usual customs traumas which involved taking off all my jewellery and half my clothes. By the time I had undressed the plane was about to leave, so I had to get on half dressed.

So, I've rung to check on the status of my bags. They give you a 10 digit number. And it's an automated service. It doesn't like my accent. My reference numer starts SEAB. So the automated voice said "Did you say MPXQ....?" "Errrrr, no, I said SEAB..." "Did you say GKLT...? "NO! I said SEAB..." "Did you say FVAO?" "NO! I bloody said SEAB..." "Did you just say bloody?"

This evening we went to a State Fair (see picture - one of these people is as mad as a barrel of monkeys)- my first ever - food, rides, food, animals, food, stalls, food, and 80s band Devo. And did I mention food? I had read about funnel cake and, needless to say I had to try some (I mean...how could I resist? Pure fat dipped in sugar? Mmmmmmmmmmmm). It was a great fair, there were little piglets, a camel, and a zonkey - which was a cross between a zebra and a donkey. It looked as though someone had started to paint stripes on a donkey and got fed up after painting the legs.

Today we are going to Nordstroms. My spiritual home. Brian knows I love buying shoes and so he is prepared to go through the torture. That's friendship for you.

Testing Testing...

2007-09-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

I've decided to set up a blog for the duration of my trip to Alaska, so that I can keep track of all the things I'm doing (memory of a gerbil), and so that my Mum can keep track of where I am and make sure I a) haven't been eaten by a bear, b) haven't been abducted by very short sighted aliens and c) that I'm wearing clean knickers (I've never actually understood that one - is it in case the aliens go back to the Planet Zog and report that earthlings are not very hygenic?)

Anyway, this is just a test blog to make sure I can cope with the technology. And, even if I can, I'm not sure of the availability of wireless access from some of the far flung places I'm going to (so, Mum, please don't assume that if I don't post to this blog I have become a 16 course dinner for a grizzly).

I'm going to a crime fiction convention in Alaska and, as part of the trip, I am doing the Authors To Schools programme. They send you out into the Bush (or, as I know it The Middle Of Nowhere) for a few days to a local school. I'm going to a school district in south west Alaska. The district is 12000 square miles and has only eight villages! I'm going to three (600 residents, 500 residents and 130 residents) - all of which can only be reached by small plane or boat. Except in winter, when you can drive on the river.

(This is a view of the river from one of the villages in Alaska I'm visiting. Doesn't it look gorgeous?)

The school district has a small plane like this one or, as the teacher I have been corresponding with tells me "a TINY plane, are you OK with that?" I am very much OK with that. However, I'm not sure about my mother. I'm sure her fears of me falling off a glacier or being eaten by a bear now have a third companion.

She has been sending me 'How To Look After Yourself In Alaska If You're Stupid And/Or My Daughter' comments. She keeps phoning me up and saying things like "If you see any red berries that might be cranberries don't touch them. Because they might not be." and "If you are stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to drink, lick ice...or was it...don't lick ice..." and "Remember to pack a shovel."

A friend in Alaska sent me a website about what to do if you have a close encounter with a bear. It had some very handy tips including...

*Bears Don't Like Surprises!* Damn - that's the giftwrapped dead fish out then.

*Bears Are Always Looking for Something to Eat!* I know the feeling...

*Identify Yourself* OK, now I have to practise my bear meet and greet..."Hi, Mr Scary Looking Bear. My name is Donna and I am just about to run away."

*Don't Run* Damn - that's Plan B out the window then.

*If Attacked - If a bear actually makes contact, you have two choices: play dead or fight back.* Is that IT? No third option? No 'talk your way out of trouble'? No, 'back away singing 'The Sound of Music''? No 'give up your wallet and cell phone and sob hysterically'? The section then goes on to say: The best choice depends on whether the bear is reacting defensively or is seeking food. How do you KNOW? If it's carrying Walmart bags you're OK because it's been shopping?

So I am visiting 3 villages over five days, and speaking to about 20 classes of children whose ages range from 5-18. I'm looking forward to it but also nervous. I've never done anything like it before and, quite frankly, I don't have a clue what I am doing. I am going to get by with a mixture of Bluffing and Chocolate. It's got me to where I am today after all (just in case you were wondering, that's a fat bluffer by the way). I'm staying with teachers in each of the villages. It's really lovely of them to be so hospitable to someone they have never met, I hope they don't live to regret it. And one of them has arranged a pot luck supper with a native Alaskan family. How excited am I?

As well as this, I am going to stay with good friend in Seattle for a couple of days, before meeting up with other friends in Anchorage. I have a number of sightseing tours planned:

A trip on a catamaran (this is the very boat I am travelling on) in Prince William Sound which looks absolutely stunning, to see whales, and glaciers calving (that's the glaciers which are calving, not the whales.

An all day trip on an ATV through the back country up to a glacier (yes Dad, I'm afraid that means I'm driving - I can hear your sharp intake of breath - but they've assured me that the fact that I don't drive doesn't mean I can't drive an ATV. And Mum - it's entirely safe. It goes about...oooooh....one mile an hour and I shall be wearing safety gear and clean underwear. Besides, there is nothing to crash into. Apart from glaciers. And bears.

A flightseeing trip around Mount McKinley, which is the largest mountain in North America, landing at a secluded lake. For pictures - not skinnydipping.

So, my suitcases are packed (only 9 pairs of shoes this trip - I'm being restrained). I think one of them is over the weight limit, but hopefully it will be OK.

Here's the offending suitcase (known as Big Red). By the way, all those Cadbury's Animal biscuits are NOT for me, they're for the children. Honest guv'ner.

I'm off very early on Friday morning. With any luck, I will be able to post and include photos while I'm away. If not, I'm sorry for wasting your time so far and see you all in October.