I apologize for how late this entry is going up. I have had trouble getting the internet set up. For some reason, I seem to be blocked from both of my g-mail accounts (personal and UAF).
I sometimes wonder how this trip would've turned out had I not been sent to Manokotak. It definitely would have cost less if I had been late. The thing is, I usually pride myself on trying my best to be on time for most everything. It would make sense that one of the very few times I am not fully focused on it, it comes back to haunt me. Due to our slightly dismissive nature of the time and unforeseen car troubles, Casey and I were late to check in at the airport. After several hours and a painful sum of money had been spent, we packed up our things, resolving to wake up and be at the airport extremely early, so as not to repeat the same mistake. I even crashed in a spare bedroom in his house so I wouldn’t have to drive from my home in North Pole the next morning.
On Tuesday, we made sure to wake up early and have everything prepared in advance, so as to avoid another situation of the kind that we experienced Monday. Everything seemed to go well. We went through the usual rigmarole of checking our bags, going through security, and boarding the plane.
Upon arriving in Dillingham, however, we found our luggage missing. The only things that arrived were our backpacks, which we were forced to check on the runway. Thankfully, we have the two bags of oranges to give to the village when we land. They were part of our carry on. The bad news, however, is that the rest of the gifts (apples and honey), all of our clothes, and all of our food are all in the bags that did not arrive. We tried speaking with the gate agent to see if we could get the luggage before we left, but to no avail. The next flight in to Dillingham was at 6:00 p.m., while our flight to Manokotak left at 3:00 p.m. They told us that they should be able to get the bags delivered to the Manokotak school tomorrow morning.
On another note, we witnessed a particularly interesting incident. We saw someone attempting to check luggage, along with a very large salmon in a box. Upon being told that he could not check the fish if it wasn’t in a cooler, the man promptly took the bag with the fish and nonchalantly dropped it in a nearby trashcan to Casey’s abject horror and my amusement. Casey’s pained twitch at the actions of the man made me snicker. Less funny was the realization that the fish in the trashcan would have fed us for the week, especially since we very well could be without food for a few days. Casey kept glancing back at the fish, voicing his idea to take it and cut it up. He finally came to a decision, and headed for the trashcan. Before he had taken three steps, a nearby airline worker grabbed the fish by its tail and walked out the door. Casey stood rooted to the spot, very reminiscent of a small child who had kicked his football over a fence. I laughed again.
We sat back down, killing time by working on blog entries. Casey mentioned how this might be one of the hungriest nights he’ll experience (neither of us had eaten all that much today). Resisting the urge to make a joke involving my Russian heritage and a lack of food, and sensing that such a comment would probably get me an annoyed stare from my companion, I simply hid my face behind the huge screen of my oversized laptop.
We spent the rest of our time in Dillingham writing and napping. As I was searching through some files on one of my external hard drives, Casey appeared, holding a bag full of food. My jaw dropped in both amazement and excitement, as that meant we wouldn’t go hungry the first night. The owner of the store upstairs had apparently noticed that we were missing our luggage, and gave us a bag of food. Casey gave her three of our oranges as a thank you. Before our flight, I eagerly scarfed down one of the beef jerky strips that came in the bag. There might be a chance that I will regret this later, and now that I think about it, I did notice Casey glance at me with slightly guilty expression. I will elaborate on this in a bit.
We boarded a large Cessna, Casey being particularly excited. I must admit, I was rather happy as well. It had been years since I had flown on a legitimate Alaska “bush” plane, the last time being when I worked as an interpreter for the North Slope Borough School District and translated for a Russian ivory carver who came over to teach the students. We flew first to Togiak, then to Twin Hills, then finally to Manokotak. We were picked up in a large, red van by a friendly, older gentleman named Quimok. With excitement brewing in us, we happily climbed into the van and started our drive to the village… Then abruptly stopped. The van made a jolting halt to very courteously allow an airplane in the process of taking off to go by. Because the van had no seatbelts, the sudden stop sent me out of my seat and headfirst into the back of the front passenger seat where Casey was sitting. My head impacted with the hard leather, and I threw my hands out against the walls of the van to stop myself from falling over completely as Casey glanced back at me with a confused expression.
Though there were no more surprises during the drive, several things stood out. One thing I noticed almost immediately was the holes in the windows of the doors of the van. I tried to shake my suspicion that these holes looked very much like they were left by bullets of the 9 millimeter caliber, but the thought persisted. It wasn’t as disconcerting as it was extremely curious. The second realization that I had was that stop signs in Manokotak seemed like more of a suggestion than a law, as we didn’t even come close to what could be considered a “California stop” during our drive. Yet another thing that Casey pointed out was that the van was badly in need of shocks. Looking in retrospect, it makes sense, with how shaky some parts of the road were.
We met the principal, who introduced himself by giving his first name, Herman. After we got acquainted and talked with him about the village, he showed us the very nice apartment that we would be staying in. To quote Casey: “This is nicer than my house back in Fairbanks!” Herman also graciously gave us some food from the school store. After Casey and I started getting everything in order, he made a slightly disturbing “discovery” about the bag of food we had received back in Dillingham:
Casey: “So that’s why it was free.”
Anton: “Huh? Why?”
Casey: “It’s all expired.”
Anton: “ *expletive*
Casey: “No, really. This one expired five years ago! Check it out!”
He tosses me the jerky.
Anton: “Great…”
Casey: “Well, I was going to have some, but I’ll wait and see if it gets you sick first.”
Anton (sarcastically): “Yeah, thanks…”
Casey: “Um… I might as well tell you now… I saw those dates back at Dillingham.”
Anton: “…”
Casey: “I would’ve said something, but you already had scarfed it.”
Anton: “You still could’ve told me. I would've went and purged my stomach right then and there, or something.”
Casey: “It’s just jerky, you should be fine. Besides, if it was bad, you would’ve been feeling it way before now.”
Anton: “I swear. If some Aliens-like monster comes bursting out of my stomach, I’m gonna be so mad…”
After the rather unpleasant surprise of the expired food had passed, Casey set about examining our temporary lodging for the week while I sat on the couch, adding to my blog entry. I had been typing for several minutes when I noticed Casey standing in front of me, holding a blue bed sheet, wearing an expression that could only described as “concerned into numbness”. After I asked him, he held up a corner to reveal a decent-size, dried circle of blood crusted into the sheet. I simply laughed, taking this as a sign of karma for the expired beef jerky. Casey then shifted the bed sheet to show an unintelligible, yet extremely cleanly written scrawl of unfamiliar letters. My laughter died in my throat, as in the first few seconds of looking at the letters, I could’ve sworn I saw the word “kills”. Upon closer inspection, I recognized the words as “life skills”, and then continued laughing.
Two other teachers stopped by, Lucas and Nicole, and we chatted with them about village life and their students. We asked them about getting connected to the wireless network, and though they gave us the password, it still did not work for us. They told us to go see one of the other teachers named Peter, and that he might be able to help us (Peter was also the owner of the other wireless network my laptop was picking up: “Big Bad Wolf”).
We went to the school, and after a number of attempts, Peter helped us find the problem. Though we had the correct password entered, our ip addresses would have to be allowed. As we were dealing with our networking issues, another teacher, Brian, stopped into the classroom to say hello. We chatted with them about the students and the teaching methods for a few minutes before retiring to our apartment. After taking the spare toothbrushes that Peter handed us (we gave him oranges in return), we both headed back to the apartment. I curled up under my coat, which would function as a makeshift blanket for the night.
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