Saturday, January 14, 2012

Getting settled in Chu

Mike showing awesome hospitality by shaving us some meat off his pig leg.
Julia broke in the sippy cup for the baby
a little bit of Alaska awesomeness, a tree-desk
Julia's all set to go get on our last flight, when we found out that the planes were grounded due to low visibility. Not to be deterred, we went to Chuathbaluk by snowmachine!
It was a cold 20 minute ride up the frozen river, but had we waited a day it would have been twice as cold!!!
Home Sweet Home

Our ride!
Julia is not amused by the brutal cold. She burst into tears when we walked around a corner into a face full of sharp cold wind. I'm not terribly amused either, but it is beautiful here, and we have a lovely view out our windows. We have not explored much since it has been so beastly cold, and because Julia's backpack carrier got left in Aniak ( I hope, otherwise it is lost somewhere out on the river.) This means I have to carry her wherever we go and that gets tiresome fast. I fashioned a sling out of a shawl, and that helps get her over to school and back but it is not comfortable enough for a pleasure walk. We were going to go back to Aniak this weekend so Dave could take another Praxis test for teacher certifications, but it was so cold that the planes can't fly, so they postponed the test.

A beautiful -38 morning


Julia was pretty thrilled to re-discover her many toys.


Dave and his co-worker, Johnny
Julia was pretty quick to warm up to the village kids
and is pleased as can be when we go over to school to visit Daddy
The third day we were there, Chu residents were celebrating Slaviq, a Russian Orthodox celebration surrounding the new year. The 4 "star boys" are in white in the front, and take turns twirling a star with a candle while the villagers sing a chant. I couldn't understand most of it, but was told that the purpose is to bless the space. They go around to most houses in the village and repeat the chanting, then have a meal. with numerous houses to attend, that means a lot of feasting.

Julia was pretty happy to have kids to play with again!




2 comments:

  1. What great pictures! We have a cousin who is also a teacher up in Alaska, her and her hubby and her young son just visited Oregon for the holiday, and are back in Alaska now, my it gets cold there, she has been posting updates on Facebook for us. Quite an adventure. Glad you made it up safely. :)

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  2. Hi! Enjoy peeking at your posts from time to time. Love the pictures and watching your darling daughter grow. At the moment we look almost as snowy(in Tacoma) as your pictures, but the temps are hovering around freezing and nowhere near as cold as Alaska. I remember those deep freeze temps from living on the Alberta prairies many years ago (and not so fondly!)
    Happy New Year and many blessings,
    Lydia Wise

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