Manokotak

As you saw in the last post, our living situation was a bit, well, less than par.  Ok, ok, a lot less than par.  It was an old run down village hall building that was used as office space.... it smelled like something was rotting inside (I wouldn't be surprised if there was), there were boxes everywhere, the floor was coated in a layer of grime, there were at least 8 leaks that required buckets and there were no good places to set up a bed.  On top of our living accommodation, the church we were to have camp at was quite run down too. And by run down, I mean there was a leak in the ceiling so bad that the floor was all damp and there were mushrooms growing INSIDE. No, I'm not kidding.

 This is what I came up with for a bed... it worked surprisingly well.

 And this was Kirsten's bed- right on top of the table as if ready for operation or something.  We were joking with the kids about where we sleep, telling them it was with the salmon in the ocean or that we curled up with the bears in their caves, but the girls didn't buy it and joked about how funny it would be if we slept on the tables at the village office....little did they know.

 This is where we hosted camp- it actually looks kind of nice in this photo- it wasn't.

 Yep, mushrooms growing indoors.

This was across the street from where we were staying.  That dump truck was an unofficial community playground for the village.  

Now, I've been making this village sound terrible by my description so far, and it was bad it regards to those things, but despite those few things (that are easy to deal with for a few days), this village had some serious awesomeness happening too.  

For example:

 I met an ivory carver (it was the husband of the lady who invited us over for moose soup) and got to see his 'workshop'.  I bought some whale tale earrings from him that are pretty stellar.  

 Another perk- berries were in season and it just so happens our berry picking day had WONDERFUL weather.  In the high 60's with the sun shining.  The best berry picking hill had an awesome view.
What kind of berries you ask?  Crow berries (black berries) and some early blueberries.

My staff partner Kirsten with one of our campers puppies.  This little guy wandered off and we spend a good 45 min looking for him instead of berries.

I wish I could post pictures of the kiddos- they are all so cute.  Pictures of Kirsten and I will just have to suffice or you can use your imagination to photoshop in some cute Yupik eskimo faces into these.  

We also saw a porcupine when we were out...which was neato... unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to my camera.

One night, after hosting a teen night, we heard some announcement on the VHF (a radio that everyone in the village has- they just talk like it's a walkie talkie)  about a plane coming in.  Instantly the girls got excited and asked us if we'd be going to the 'store plane'.  Of course, we didn't know what that was and when we asked it was described as 'a plane where you can buy ice cream and pizza and stuff!'  So off we went to check this out.   It sure was popular- just about everyone had come out of their homes and were off to the air strip to go to the store plane.  We hitched a ride and this is what we found...

This is the 'store plane'... some guy owns an old WWII plane, fills it up with stuff from costco and flies it out to the village.  What a lucky village-  he brought all sorts of fresh food (and pizza and ice cream like the kids said).  We asked how much for something- it's $20 for any item.

Here's all the people from the village grocery shopping from the back of the plane.  

Not only were the crow berries and blue berries ripe, but so were the salmon berries (which were actually cloud berries...turns out salmon berries are a lot more like an actual raspberry).  These however, grow on lower more boggier ground.

Kirsten with her berries... I was being a bum and didn't go out picking. It's hard to be motivated when you don't like the taste of them (which is a weird almost smoky taste).

 Here's me trying to do some NYO (Native Youth Olympics) which a lot of the village kids compete in each year.  I like it- like track and field in a way- with all kinds of events.  This one is the one foot jump in which you have to jump off both feet, kick that little leather ball and then land on the same foot you kicked with....it was hard, but fun.

 I only took advantage of that road for running on one day, but it sure was a nice day to go running and I snagged this shot of the fireweed.

If you go down to the 'beach' you can see what people have caught that day.... here's a humpy.

And here's a lady using her ulu to fillet it....

And one of the kids insisted on showing us the heart.

Kirsten and I would go for walks sometimes, which acted as informal photo shoots.  Here are some of our pictures:

Now that we are done with our job in Manokotak, I get a couple days off in Anchorage, yeeeeeehaw!

From Akiak to Manokotak

Another travel day:

Plane #1: weather delay (naturally- it happens allllllll the time).  The kind teachers who were helping us transport our stuff and us to the airport invited us over for coffee while we waited for the plane.  We went to a HOUSE!  My staff partner was super excited- she's been out way longer than me and it's been weeks since she's been in a house.  And it was cool for me to see what teacher housing in the villages is like.  However, we were only there a few minutes before the plane showed up and we were off again.

Just as our plane landed another one did too.... a state trooper plane..... strange.... and then about 5 troopers got off loaded some big intimidating guns and took off in the back of the police truck.... what could it be??  Really, what in a village could call for that much enforcement???
SALMON SEIZE.

Here's an article I found about it:
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/22/2516388/akiak-elders-told-families-to.html

State Troopers

Excited to ride shot gun this flight

The GPS view of where we were flying...

The view from the plane

Layover:

Well, we made it to our layover in Bethel.  Now that I'm so familiar with the town and we were actually able to go somewhere.  Made a stop at Lucy's Cache... a little store in one of the airports that has some native art, beading supplies and lots of other junk.  We then made sure to get some 'real' food and enjoy the tv in the waiting area by watching some of the olympics, after all we were on another delay caused by weather.  It wasn't tooooo long before the other team arrived at the airport and we were onto the next flight.

This was in the lobby...... it made us laugh a little

Plane #2:

This flight was cool because there was only one other lady besides us and all of our stuff. Kind of felt like a private flight.

Friends :)

Rachel got shot gun this time around.

Riding along listening to the pilot talk to Rachel, but they didn't know that we could hear everything through the speakers.... it was toooooo funny.

Plane #3:

We were able to transfer pretty quickly over to our final flight of the day... and it was a whopping 6 minutes long.  We had FINALLY made it to Manokotak. 

From the airport we got a ride from this big ol' truck and to our surprise there was a REAL road (well, gravel one).

Bumpy truck ride....

I think this video captured it a bit better:

This was an exciting ride, not only did the road mean I could do some running, but there were trees! and mountains! This village is much farther south and considered the Bristol Bay area which is a bit more scenic than the YK delta.  

We made it to where we were going to be staying and after a little mild confusion about us being there and needing a key, we got in to where we were staying.

 This was our new home for the week.  It was about as luxurious as it looks.  

We then went on to try and find where we were going to be having camp- the church.  We took directions from a 4 year old and naturally ended up going the wrong way.... but a kind lady picked us up on her Honda as she was driving home from berry picking.  After showing us where the church was she invited us over for some moose soup and, of course, we couldn't pass it up.

 Me on the Honda

 Salmon Berries: kind of like a weird tasting raspberry but has an interesting aftertaste.  I wanted to like them, but honestly, I thought they were kinda gross.

 However, the freshly picked blueberries were delicious!

  Eating moose soup- it was quite delicious!  In the big bowl is a backbone of the moose and you cut of chunks of meat to put in your broth.  She also let us try seal oil (the jar in the middle) with the moose meat, which the Yupik use kind of like ketchup.  It was a little weird, but actually kind of good.  

We ended up ending our night lounging on her couch (yep, a reallllll couch) watching the olympics... a great end to a long travel day!

AKiak

Akiak: population approximately 350

This is one of the smallest villages I have been to yet and probably the most 'native'.  It's right along the Kuskokwim river and salmon really is a HUGE part of everyone's life.  Just walk along the river and you can see it.  Lots of fish racks... I could smell it before even seeing them.  For me it was a bit overwhelming, but to all the people here it's totally normal.

 Fish drying

Now here's the most interesting thing I have encountered out in the villages yet:

My staff partner came back from her initial scoping out the village walk and returned saying we might be invited to eat Stinkheads.  She said they were fish heads that were buried in the ground for a while and after they have been fermented and turn to mush they are then eaten.  I thought she was joking....... she wasn't.  We talked to a girl here in the village about it and she said that they bury the fish heads for a couple weeks and when they take them out they are delicious.  I went right back to the school and looked it up.  This is the first thing that came up on google: 

http://www.culinaryschools.org/cuisine/10-disgusting-delicacies/

I showed this to my staff partner and turns out she tried the soft boiled fetal duck in a village that I missed out on... can't say I'm uber upset about it.  I don't think I could have downed a baby bird that I boiled to death unless it was a complete necessity.  

Unfortunately we never actually got to try dubuq (that's the Yupik name of stinkheads- I have no idea if I'm spelling that right- still haven't caught on to much of the Yupik language- but it's pronounced sort of like da-book) but maybe it's for the better, I'd rather not come down with a case of botulism in a place with no doctor. 

 Along the Kuskokwim

There's not really a lot in this village... the river, the school, the post office and a store. We spent most of our time chilling in the school-- a library, internet, a home ec. room for a kitchen-- really no reason to go out into the rain.   But we ended up with a surprise day off due to the flight schedules and so we finally did venture out a bit.

This is the store- no sign needed since the village is so small. 

And why actually get rid of an old vending machine?  Just toss it outside- doesn't hurt anyone or anything lying there anyhow.

And here is what you can find in a village store:

4 bucks for a can of chili...

 $10.50 for a bag of cereal...

$5 for spagetti noodles...

The crazy part about those prices is that they really aren't bad for a village since Akiak is just down the river from the 'hub' of Bethel where we just were.  One summer ago I saw a small thing of laundry detergent for $30.  Forget fresh food either, you usually can't find it and if you can it's reallllllly expensive.

 As we were walking we also came upon this... what's hanging you ask?  A skinned beaver drying out.... take a closer look:

So gross to us.  So normal to the Natives.

Ok, on to something a bit less gross.  We were told by a mushing family back in Bethel that we would definitely see the dogs of a well known Iditarod musher Mike Williams and his son.  We found those dogs alright and boy did they stare us down.  It was a bit eerie with all of their heads staring right at us before bursting out into a fit of barking.  The village kids warned us that 'those dogs bite' and they sure did want to the first night we saw them.  We went back another day to see them again (so much to do here) and we met Mike Williams Jr. and he told us how he was excited about the pups that were recently born.  They were some of the most adorable dogs I think I've ever seen!  The dogs were a lot more chill this time around- maybe it's because their owner was out or because it was rainy, I don't know, but I like seeing them and thinking about what their winter racing season must be like.

Iditarod doggies!

Me with the pups in the background

(and that juice in my pocket.... $3.75)

Adorable.

 Another litter of puppies still with their mama.

This guy lucked out- his doghouse is a boat leaning on an old 4 wheeler.

When we were walking we also stumbled upon this--- annuals??  This person much be rich.

And that's that for Akiak.  Stay tuned for Manokotak- only three bush plane rides away.