Tuesday in Kwethluk

Kwethluk school and the water/sewer project

Meeting the health care aides

This morning after we freshened up, we went to the gym and had grits and pilot bread. After breakfast we put on our gear and headed to the Kwethluk health clinic and interviewed Martha, a health aid who has been working at the clinic for 20 years.  Right now a group of researchers are visiting from Anchorage looking for the germs that cause pneumonia.  If the villagers agree to have their nose swabbed, they get paid $25.  The information they collect helps the researchers know if vaccines are being effective.

Stripping the branches off our manaq sticks.

Attaching the hooks

When we were done with that we had homework time for an hour.   After that we went with the 8-12th graders to look for ice fishing poles.  We are going to manaq on Thursday which is what they call ice fishing.  One of the spec ed assistants named Old Man helped us look for just the right alder branch that we can use for fishing.  We cut down big branches, took the smaller branches off,  wrapped about 10 feet of line around the end of the pole and then added a hook.  This time of year they are fishing for pike.  They will be dried outside for a week until they are half dry, half raw and to eat them they will be dipped in seal oil.

In the afternoon we visited the shy/cute 4th graders and answered any questions that they had about Juneau. We had a fun hour of basketball and vollyball where Zeke did some epic falls. We went back to Yupik dance class and interviewed the drummers about the history of Yupik dance in Kwethluk.  Yupik dance is one of our areas of exploration for RURE and we are working on putting together an educational video about it.

The Kwethluk kids took us to the store and we were blown away by the prices of everything.  A Costco sized bag of dried mangoes is $25 and a small bag of Cheetos is $7.30.  The produce section only had potatoes and onions and you could buy chunks of frozen reindeer.

We had an amazing dinner of Kwethluk casserole which was tater tots covered with cheese, bell pepers, hamburger, and cream of mushroom soup. After that wonderful dinner we continued our kusbuk making race, where Zeke holds 1st, I take second, Jillian takes 3rd, Kyong 4th, and Kristen 5th. We had 5 sewing machines going at the same time and 3 local ladies running around trying to help us. Sometimes the ladies would give us directions in Yupik, forgetting we don't speak it.  We have sewed on our sleeves, hoods and some rickrack.  We discovered that music is the universal language. While sewing we were listening to Whitney Houston and everyone from Kwethluk and Juneau started dancing and singing along.

We are loving it here in Kwethluk. The people are so nice and genourous!!!!

Write more later,
~FrAnKlIN sN~