Winter has Arrived...in March

Remember that time I wrote about spring being right around the corner? I spoke far too soon. We have finally started to have some winter weather in Alaska and have had snow (which we haven’t had since November) almost every day for the past week and a half! This has been both a bane and a boon to my life; on one hand everything looks really awesome and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing in the snow. On the other hand, the twenty minute walk to and from the elementary school is made much more challenging and I spend much of my walk to and from anywhere ensuring that I don’t slip and fall.

Aside from the weather, work has started to move towards more action oriented prevention work that has come out of all of the planning and preparing that I’ve been doing over the past several weeks. This past week, I co-facilitated a two hour healthy relationships and domestic violence 101 session for Raven’s Way, which is a substance abuse treatment program for teens that is run out of SEARHC (Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium) and participated in the Mt. Edgecumbe High School (public boarding school in Sitka that primarily educates Native Alaskan students from throughout Alaska) Health Fair. During both of these activities I realized the power and importance of both prevention work and early intervention. Without going into great detail, I had several teens ask me some pretty specific questions about what to do because they or their friends are presently in an unhealthy or abusive relationship. It was really powerful for me to be able to help empower these teens and provide them with resources and ideas about people in their lives that they could talk to, where to look for support in Sitka and beyond, and help to educate them about what an unhealthy or abusive relationship looks like because many of them had never received any education on that before. At the same time, it was also a very positive experience for me to talk to the teens and discuss what a healthy relationship looks like and certain key ingredients such as trust, respect and communication. I think that my favorite question of the day came from a junior boy at Mt. Edgecumbe who asked me if I thought there were any couples out there who never argued. I really enjoyed both his question and then our discussion about having respectful disagreements or arguments which are healthy for a relationship because neither partner is put down, controlled or overpowered and both are able to share their thoughts and perspectives safely and without fear. Coming up this week I am facilitating a men’s focus group that will hopefully bring a group of committed men from the community together and lead to some good discussions about the issue and prevalence of violence in Sitka as well as some ideas for actions that these men can involve themselves in. I’m hopeful that we might be able to get something like the White Ribbon Campaign or a similar campaign going in town, so if you have any ideas please let me know.

Outside of work, last weekend was Evie’s birthday and we had a nice taco dinner, hung out at the Larkspur (a local café), and then had a delicious chocolate chip cake that Katie had baked. On Sunday, I hiked up Gavan Hill with a slew of FJVs and had a ton of fun! It was one of those typical Sitka weather days where it was clear when we left, then got cloudy and snowy and then cleared up by the time we reached the ridgeline only to start snowing again for our entire hike down. Eileen, an FJV from last year, was generous enough to let me borrow her snowshoes for the hike and I have to admit that snowshoeing has become my favorite outdoor activity. It was a little weird walking in them at first but I gradually got used to it and I really enjoyed jumping off a mound in them and watching Meg and Emily ‘mountain sumo’ wrestle.

The highlight of the past couple weeks for me was a project that we did with the children in after school group where Sharon (our rural outreach coordinator) taught us how to make tiny replica native drums. Using elk hides, tough twine and the rims of jam jars we weaved our drums together, allowed them to dry for a few days and later put designs on them (pictures to follow.) The children, Sharon, Meg and I had a blast putting the drums together and the finished products turned out really well. Peace out from snowy, snowy, Sitka.

It's Starfish Hunting Season

So the weather here has been absolutely gorgeous once again for the past week or so (sorry East Coasters.) As a result, I have spent a good chunk of time outside this week exploring the beach at low tide near Totem Park in search of starfish, crabs and any other little creatures that found homes in the tidal pools. Early on in the week, I found tons of starfish and was hanging out on the beach as the fog started to roll in, which was one of the coolest experiences I have had so far in Sitka because everything just started to disappear around me. While the fog was coming in, I also found myself engaged in a lengthy staring contest with a bald eagle...which the eagle clearly won.

My week at work was fairly low key once again. I finished up preparations for a healthy relationships class that I am teaching at the alternative high school in town, had some pretty successful lunch groups with the second and third graders and spent a lot of time hanging out and coloring with a two year old who recently entered shelter. Life in community continues to move forward, I feel like I am gradually learning more about my housemates, I enjoy spending time with them and I am still finding ways to get my "me" time. Lately, much of this time has been spent working on my Lenten challenge for myself (originally thought up by Greg), which is to write a letter per day. I like the intentionality of this particular challenge and know that it will help to strengthen relationships and provide an outlet for personal reflection as well.

On Friday, Katie and I walked along the beach in search of starfish, tried to walk to a buoy that we thought was on land (it was not even close to being on shore in case you were wondering), and watched an incredible sunset with a number of other people who had the same idea. On Saturday, I awoke to a phone call from my dad asking me if Sitka has a tsunami warning and responded that yes we do indeed have a tsunami warning system and that they tested a couple weeks ago. He asked me if it was going off right now and I was super confused, said no and he told me about the large earthquake in Chile. My first thought was about my friend who's doing JVI in Peru (she's safe and doing well) and then Katie and I started checking up on the tsunami threat to Sitka. Basically, the entire Pacific Rim received an advisory about a potential tsunami due to the warning to Hawaii and Latin America. I think the "wave" that arrived here was about a foot high (if that.)

I spent Saturday night hanging out with Greg and a couple other guys from town which was really fun. We just hung out talking about politics and religion which was really cool. On Sunday, I started my day by giving a presentation about social justice to the Unitarian Fellowship in town which was quite the experience. It was really good for me to think about the role social justice has played in my life so far and I had a lot of fun engaging the fellowship members and responding to their many questions. After the fellowship, it was time for the Gold Medal game between the US and Canada in Men's Ice Hockey. I have to say that I don't think I have ever seen a better hockey game or been more devastated by a loss as I was when Sidney Crosby, the Canadian Panda, scored to win the gold medal. Overall I was very impressed by the performance of the US team in Vancouver, particularly Ryan Miller in net, Brian Rafalski, Chris Drury aka Captain America, Zach Parise, Ryan Kesler and Jack Johnson. This team is going to be scary good in Russia if Bettman does the right thing and lets the NHL players back to the olympics. That's all for now! Have a wonderful week!