Some Facts About this Journey

Some facts about this journey:

Many people have asked me questions about my new job and the place I’m actually going. I thought it would be a good idea to fill people in on some specifics. 

-I’m going to be living and teaching in Tuntutuliak, Alaska (it’s called Tunt for short). It is a small village in the southwest corner of Alaska.

-Tunt is considered an Alaskan bush village. What’s a bush village? Think of it this way: Basically, there’s two Alaskas-urban and rural. Urban Alaska is much like the lower 48 states. Anchorage is an example of an urban part of Alaska. The rural parts of Alaska are known as the bush (kind of like how small villages in Africa are called bush villages). Life is completely different in the bush. These areas are occupied by native Americans and for the most part people live on the land like they’ve been doing for thousands of years. Villages like Tunt are in such remote parts of Alaska that they are isolated from the rest of society. The only way in and out of a place like Tunt is by plane or sno-machine when everything is frozen over. 

-When I say plane, I don’t mean like the kind you’re probably thinking. I’m talking about Bush planes. Small, single engine planes are the lifelines to villagers. Planes are everywhere in Alaska, and with how big the state is, they need to be everywhere. Think of the single engine plane in Indiana Jones. That's the kind of plane you see a lot of in Alaska.

-The village of Tunt only has about 400 people. They are almost entirely Native American. More specifically they are Yupik natives. 100% of my students will be of Yupik heritage. 

-Since I’m the only secondary English teacher I get to be the department head (ha).

-I'm also going to be the girls' head basketball coach. It's a year of trying many new things.

-The biggest hobby in Tunt is basketball. There are basketball tournaments all the time for kids and adults. It sounded odd to me that basketball was so popular, but it makes sense. In a place where winter is so harsh, there needs to be an activity to help people burn some energy and not get cabin fever. Basketball is that outlet. From many of the people I've talked to, basketball is life here.

-There's so many more questions to answer, but I'll have plenty of time to get to those...