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| Our fellow Dr. Dane Lenaker in the Orange with the disc |
We have lots of potlucks and fundraisers up here as well. The Steel Salmon and Raven Dinner was a great night.
It was held at the cultural center in Bethel and put on by the Art Guild in town. They had a local chef come in and shipped across King Crabs for a huge feast. Sashi's new band he's joined played some bluegrass numbers and they auctioned off local artists Steel Salmon and Raven art.
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| Swan Court String Band |
They are basically pieces of iron or some metal that have been shaped into Salmon and Raven figures and then painted or decorated by local artists to then auction off. They made a lot of money!
I think it must be that because there isn't much to buy out here, people really go all out for auctions like this! Some pieces were going for the 600-900$ range!
The dinner was the best part! I have never enjoyed crab as much as i did this night!
It was delicious!
We moved into our new place by the river. The dogs love having some space to lay in the grass out front and the view of the river is worth being a little chillier than the last place. Its a great location and we have lots of room. Its heated by one stove! Its called a Toyo stove and it actually does an o.k job. I'm not sure how warm we will be when the temps dip, but oh well.
I don't have pictures of the place yet but i will post some soon.
I went out on my first solo village trip last week to Kwigillingok. There is a teacher there who makes traditional Yup'ik Kayaks and runs a little internet cafe/museum type place which is very entertaining.
He was showing me some traditional harpoons and how the walrus ribs were used to hold parts of the kayaks together. You should see all the teeth marks over the frame of the Kayaks, no wonder people have worn there teeth to nubs up here, they use their teeth for lots of things!
www.qayanak.com
So heres some random pictures of our last salmon catch, my new waders i got at a garage sale (Garage sales are HUGE here, its what everyone does on Saturday mornings when its nice out, the ultimate way of recycling... There are no real stores so people just sell their stuff and pass it around, they have great bargains!).
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| Stocking up for the winter! |
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| The crotch is a little short, but they keep me warm and dry! Zeeta is wondering what the hell i'm doing... |
He decided he needed to end summer with a bang and so him and his colleagues ordered a whole pig and cooked it!
I felt like i was back in N.C at WWC or something. They are great people.
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| The Pig |
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| Me, Kelly Nance (our hygienest from S. Cali, she's wonderful and fun, also like our adopted mom away from home, Cassie (hygienest from Tn) and the one and only Dr. Judith Hall ( she has killed a caribou! and it was delicious!!) |
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| Chris and the BBQ Apron! |
So what do we have in store?
Halloween in Anchorage, a week of Continuing Education at ANMC ( Alaskan Native Medical Center where i did my externship last summer. Thats when mom and I came up for 3 weeks and i first heard about Bethel, i remember thinking, 'why would anyone ever want to live in a place like that!'), Sashi's next village trip, goodbye to Zeeta who is going with Judith (Dr. Hall) as a companion to a village until Christmas, Hello to Dr. Verlinich our orthodontist that comes up ever 4 weeks and stays with us (he brings a case of wine for rent, much appreciated!) and then getting ready for the cold.
The temps have mellowed out recently, it was in the mid 30's today and just a little windy.
We have another fundraiser tonight at the cultural center called ' Just Dessert'. Sashi's band is playing again. He's been here only a few months and everyone already knows ' Dr. Sashi' aka. Mr popular :)
Life is good. I would love to hear what everyone else is up to.
Love you all,
Jenn, Sashi, and Z3.
ps. sorry about typos and grammatical errors, i'm not much into proofreading, too much to DO!
