Mission to Russian Mission

Russian Mission from the air, looking northwest.

Yesterday, we flew to Russian Mission on a charter plane for the district. We arrived just in time for lunch, rice, chicken, gravy, canned peaches and Pilot Bread. On the table was a ketchup-style squirt bottle of brown stuff...turns out it is peanut butter and jelly, premixed. Great on Pilot Bread. Grape or strawberry. A Russian Mission original.

I spent the afternoon in a 5/6th grade classroom, enjoying the ambiance. After work, colleagues/roommates and I walked to the grocery store to buy grapes and drinks. It gave us a little air and a chance to see some of the village. When we got back, I pulled on the door to the kitchen which seemed to be really stuck. He said he'd leave it unlocked. He didn't. I just pulled and the whole hasp ripped out of the door and hung loose. Whoops.

An icy Kuskokwim yields eels and sheefish this time of year. People in this area dipnet and snag with a club with nails. The fish only run for about 4 days, so everyone is out this time of year, inspite of the cold, but not frozen yet river.

Several things struck me about Russian Mission. The new school is being built and the old school is really old. It is California style- you must walk outside to get between the 3 buildings. The gym is also the cafeteria and is about 1/4 sized.

But my favorite part was seeing 5 elders eating at the table with students. These grandmas come to the school everyday to work with the kindergarteners and the Yup'ik teacher. One of the elders told me about quluq-ing, or dipnetting for eels. She told me that one day a man was dipping for eels and he stretched his arm way out and scooped up a really full net. He lost his balance and fell in the icy water. She was nearby, but had nothing to reach out to him. She called out and 2 men extended a net to pull him ashore. They had a big bonfire going so he stood by it. The women gathered up grass and stuffed it all into his clothes and he survived.

I worked with two teachers today on their planning and then flew back to Mountain Village. It was a wonderful Friday night in the village. I walked to the store taking my final pictures. Then I went up to the bookfair, a fund-raiser at the school. After dinner and a few laughs with Raphia and Jean, we went up to the Community Hall to see the fiddlers here from St. Mary's. It's unique to hear Yup'ik men singing country songs. Everyone dances with whomever, even the new guss'aq in town, and I tried my hand at line dancing. The dance was a fund-raiser for the Russian Orthodox Church and the priest was in the band. Great music and all ages were there. Kids had a great time running up and down and elders solemnly two stepped to every song. The cake walk had cake, but no walk- just a raffle.
Ignatius Beans Memorial School in Mountain Village is getting an addition.

An elder reached out his hand to thank me for coming and telling me he would see me around. It was very friendly. A strange irony is that the same village kids with challenging behavior in school can sit for hours with their families in church, at fundraisers, etc. It's all about the messages that parents give about what is important, I think.

A common village sight- clothes freeze drying on this line in Mountain Village.