I didn't keep up with this blog nearly as much as I thought I would during my first year in Bush Alaska. I figured teaching for 6 years already would make things an easier adjustment, but in many ways I felt like it was my first year all over again.

I experienced many highs and a good number of lows last year. I second-guessed myself less than 5 hours after landing in my new village. I struggled adjusting to my travel plans being under constant attack by Mother Nature. I learned to expect punching through the snow before it had time to pack down (or again as it melted) while walking around. I dealt with water issues, power outages, and completely losing cell phone network coverage (including internet) for days at a time. I missed my best friend's wedding almost immediately after school started as well as being there when my dad had both knees replaced.

I also made new friends who are basically family at this point. I learned how to function as a teacher without an interactive board. I built relationships with students more than I ever did as a Lower 48 teacher (and I worked at it back then!). I stood in the Bering Sea, picked tundra berries, ate foods I'd never imagined, harvested moose meat to eat, and wondered at Alaskan Native cultural events. I grew as a teacher, hopeful school leader, and as a person. I've been on more planes in the last year than the rest of my life combined! I've found a network of like-minded Alaskan teachers who support and inspire each other constantly.

Many things are changing this year: new school administration, new grade level, new teachers. While I'm sad knowing I have to once again say goodbye to my family in just over a week, I'm excited to see my Alaskan family and hug my kids--the students I taught last year, the ones I got to know through my many classroom visits, and those I get to teach this year. I'm excited to see what new things await me this year.

Enjoy a ton of pictures of my many adventures last year.

A student made me akutaq (a-goo-duck) which is whipped Crisco with tundra berries!

This is what your storage freezer looks like when you have to order a year's worth of meat at once.

A view of Hooper Bay. I get to see this out my bedroom window.

Flying in Alaska is mesmerizing. This is of mountains on the way to Anchorage.

I saw the Northern Lights!!!!!

Thanksgiving with my Alaskan family :)

Sometimes you don't know who you are saying hello to on your morning walk to school since this is what you wear.

This is the EVERY. DAY. low price! My soda (pop in the village) addiction is gone.

Doesn't everyone have snowball fights during the monthly fire drill??

In peak winter, the playground is almost completely buried in snow drifts. A preschool student would stand taller than those monkey bar rings!

That faint darker color to the left? My apartment complex. It's about a football field away (like, walking a line--not from end zone to end zone).

Sunrise is one of my favorite times of day now. I just had to wait until 9AM or later sometimes to see it :)

We went to play at the beach (Bering Sea) on a beautifully sunny spring day.

Our school hosted Native Youth Olympics. This is the boys' Seal Hop. They go across the court hopping on their knuckles!

I took this photo walking home from prom. It's at least 10PM.

I ate Beluga Whale.

This is my favorite creamer, on sale! I would pay $3ish in the Lower 48. **I did NOT buy this sale item!

Seal meat before I took a bite.

There are no roads, so no buses to get to sports games. This is nearby Scammon Bay getting ready to head the hour+ back home after a basketball game.

This is when you really start to notice how cold it is!

I hope to blog more regularly in the coming year. Here's to exciting new adventures!

Winter Bush Travel

Traveling in Bush Alaska during the winter months is a nightmare! People who act like their 4 hour delay in the Lower 48 is a huge inconvenience have NO IDEA what the true meaning of delay and hassle is. Let me paint a picture for you.

Going Home for Christmas 2018
In retrospect, it's a miracle I made my flight out my village. Planes had been flying all day with great weather. Our flight was about 90 minutes late, which is pretty much considered on time for out here. While we were waiting in the truck at the airstrip, I commented about how small the plane looked coming in. There were 7 teachers booked on this flight out, but quickly realized they sent a plane with enough room for 5. The assistant principal stayed behind and luckily the co-pilot seat was empty for a 6th person. Mind you, we have 2 small pets on this flight as well. The pilot informs us that NONE of our luggage can fly because the plane is too small. You are allowed two 50 pound bags, but nothing was leaving with us. As he's trying to call Bethel to figure out that situation, they inform him that if he doesn't get in the air NOW, we are not leaving tonight because weather was coming in fast. When the bush pilot gets jumpy, I start to cry. It's one of my stress reactions. We managed to get out of Bethel with no further incident beyond bathrooms not working in the regional airport, so I have an 8 hour layover in Anchorage to think about all the things I am now realizing I don't have for vacation (medicine, glasses, underwear, etc.).

I should also mention that Alaska Air bumped me out of First Class because they overbooked pets in that cabin. I had to argue at each of my layovers to get out of the middle seat I'd been moved to. In Houston, my plane was delayed. I'm already crying and tired, only to find out when they call us to board that the plane isn't coming tonight. United was booking us hotels. I'm basically nonverbal with how hard I'm crying at this point and find out the hotel they booked doesn't accept pets. I also have no luggage to change, brush my teeth, shower...anything. The next morning, my plane is delayed another two hours. There was not enough Starbucks to boost my mood.

Side Note: GCI, who provides phone services in the Bush, uses T Mobile networks in the Lower 48. Guess who has NO SERVICE in my region? That's right, T Mobile. After two days of arguing with GCI, they got me connected through AT&T, but I could only make calls. No data, so no texting etc.

Going Home for Spring Semester 2019
I thought, surely, that I'd used up every ounce of bad luck on the trip from Alaska to Louisiana. I was wrong. Cocoa threw up in her cage before we even left Monroe, on the flight that was delayed by 90 minutes to start. At each of my layovers of 2+ hours, the layover disappeared and left me literally running from gate to gate for boarding. In Seattle, they have terminal construction. They de-planed us outside, put us on a super crowded shuttle, and took us to the other end of where I needed to be. I finally got to Anchorage and had an overnight layover. I'm now a PRO at sleeping comfortably on airport floors.

I boarded my flight about an hour late to start back to the village. About 20 minutes before we should have landed, they inform us that we are being diverted to Dillingham. The bathrooms are not functioning because of frozen pipes. We re-board the plane after it refuels only to find out they are turning us around back to Anchorage. Cue the crying again. I managed to get on the Alaska Air flight out that night so I'm now clocking 24 hours at the Anchorage airport. I was lucky, because all Ravn flights were being diverted and canceled and the next available tickets weren't for another WEEK.

I make it to Bethel finally to meet my roommate. Saturday we are scheduled to fly in the morning. We take an $8 per person taxi to the airport. Flight on weather hold. Three hours later, flight canceled. We get put on standby for the afternoon flight which also gets canceled. We have now sat in the Bethel airport, without working restrooms, for around 8 hours. We take another taxi at $8 per person back to the hotel and spend $25 each on dinner. We go back Sunday morning, same morning hold/cancel pattern. We wait for the afternoon flight which also ended up getting canceled (but earlier). We spent another 6 hours sitting in the airport, $16 each on a taxi, and $25 on dinner. Monday morning is another $8 taxi. The flight is on weather hold for hours. They finally decide they are going to get planes going. At this point, we heard a group of teachers on the other air service got out but got turned around because of icing wings. We boarded and went to Chevak first. It was SO WINDY, I was still scared we would get turned back to Bethel.

The landing in Hooper Bay was the single scariest moment of my life. We were approaching the runway sideways because of crosswinds and just barely corrected before the land. As we went to touch down, the wind picked us up again, which made us actually touch down much farther than the pilot intended. The runway was pure ice. We started spinning and weren't stopping. The plane finally screeched to a stop at the very end of the runway with a wheel going off the side. All I could think was how cold the Bering Sea would be when we ended up there! When the pilot tried to turn us back to de-plane, the plane started spinning in circles again. We finally made it off the plane with the pilot telling us there were probably some stains in his pants after that landing! We thought we were finally safe, only to have the door to the CanAm fly open on the ride back. I've never been so happy to see my Bush apartment in my life! It took hours for me to stop shaking, even after a shower and doing laundry.

RTI Conference in Late January 2019
I was looking forward to the best conference in the state this past weekend. Flights in and out of the village were canceled Thursday. And again on Friday. Guess who never made it to Anchorage for the conference?

Summary
We got the first planes in or out of the village in 8 days today, with the exception of one freight plane that came Friday. Goods for the store came on that plane that had expiration dates from before Christmas. That stuff had been sitting in Anchorage/Bethel for long enough for it to have expired over a month ago! Today stuff came in that it currently half off because it's about to expire as well. I'm supposed to attend the ASTE technology conference in a couple of weeks. We shall see how that goes.

I'm learning to just accept that I have no control of my comings and goings right now. It is, what it is!

Getting Food in the Bush

Life in Bush Alaska is a lesson in patience and creativity. I'm becoming a seasoned pro at online shopping and getting things shipped to my village!

Hooper Bay has an AC store, so we get fairly regular shipments of produce and have a decent stock of refrigerated stuff. Things are just much more expensive here than in the Lower 48! For example, Jiffy corn muffin mix is something like $0.49 back home. If I bought one here, I'd pay $2.45. Think I'm kidding?

I'm getting really good at going through and getting the 1/2 price items that are getting ready to go out of date. I'm not being dramatic when I say that bread is BOGO right now so we have 1.5 packs in the fridge and 2 (soon to be 4) more in the freezer! I don't have soda (pop) available because I refuse to pay $15 for a 12 pack. Right now 20 packs are on sale for $18, and I may splurge for special occasions :)

For the sake of saving money and getting things they don't sell here, I'm getting quite good at online grocery shopping. Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart (seldom), Best Buy, and a few others are becoming my best friends.

Target
I like getting things from Target because I get 5% off with my card. I get things like microwaveable soups for lunch, bath stuff, canned goods, some boxed goods, Halloween candy, etc. The shipping ranges anywhere from 2 weeks to almost a month when planes are weathered in. So far, there have been two major issues. One time they shipped me 13 bottles of beet juice instead of all the actual stuff I ordered. After a long phone call, they replaced everything but the pasta that was now out of stock. Just the other day, a $200 order of food supplies, bath rugs, and my air fryer were listed as damaged then "issue." I called Target who said the boxes were lost in transit so they refunded my order. I'm thinking I either need to do multiple small orders so the boxes are manageable or only use Target for lighter items.

Amazon
If you plan on living out here, Amazon Prime is a must! I've ordered light bulbs, tea, classroom display items, postcards (that people have requested), shelf stable coffee creamer, rain boots, winter boots, hangers, laundry baskets, etc. I was finally able to get pillows sent out thanks to them. Amazon saved my life when it came to shopping for my cat Cocoa. They shipped out a litter box, big pails of cat litter, huge bags of food, etc. Prime doesn't mean free 2-day shipping here! It's between 1-2 weeks. The good news is that they are the first boxes to get loaded on planes after priority shipping boxes from USPS!!

Wal-Mart
I did a bush order while I was in Anchorage and sent a few things out. It takes a few weeks for the stuff to arrive and they charge you a percentage for packing/shipping. Ordering online is often not the best option because they charge you an "Alaska shipping" fee. Sometimes you actually can get free shipping, but it's not common at the moment. The only thing I've ordered from them is the specialty light for our pantry. Even with the $6 shipping, I got two lights cheaper than I could get one from Amazon.

Best Buy
I ordered our Blu Ray player and HDMI cables from Best Buy with no issue. I also ordered color toner for my laser printer in my classroom since Amazon wouldn't ship to my address here on that item. The price was the same, and I still got free shipping. I find they ship quickly, too. I think both times was right at a week.

Mr. Prime Beef
This order was quite the experience! The teachers get together and make one order for the whole year around Labor Day. It's basically a butcher that you can order all kinds of meat from. Because we order the way we do (over 1,000 pounds of meat together) it goes Bypass Mail which is cheaper. We got chicken, a variety of beef, pork, bacon, catfish, halibut, shrimp, and some frozen veggies. Trying to estimate what you will use in a year is overwhelming. I'm looking forward to its arrival so we can add a bit of variety to our current dinner offerings.

Others
I haven't tried Dollar General yet, but I've been told they are a decent option. Nuts.com has a lot of bulk nuts, dried fruit options, and spices. I plan on ordering from them soon. A teacher here is from Wisconsin so in the next couple of weeks we will put together a bulk cheese order!

Family and Friends
Some things I just haven't been able to locate (yet) online. Things like shelf-stable cheese tortellini and gnocchi have evaded me so far. My family loves me enough to send these in a care package. When we first got here and were eating ramen and cheese quesadillas fairly regularly until we got situated, my sister went shopping and packed up a tote full of food items for us. My Baba has sent a couple of boxes with snack chocolate and cake mixes as well as guacamole and hummus! My mom's friend Melanie, who used to live in Alaska, has adopted me and sends candy for the kids and I as well as some other goodies.

If you want to send care packages or letters, I'd love it! Mail is super exciting here :)

Brittany Taraba

PO Box 249

Hooper Bay AK 99604

If you have to have a physical address for whatever reason, even though they don't exist here:

Brittany Taraba

c/o Hooper Bay School

249 School Road

Hooper Bay AK 99604