Easter, Ptarmigan Plucking and More Ridiculous Bethel Stories!

I have more crazy Bethel stories and since I want to get to my now weekly Star Trek marathon, I am going to use another list:

1. I spent 2 hours at the DMV the other day with one of my students. She needed to get a state id card so she could fly to Juneau for a visit to the state capital. We were there for a long time waiting in line but it was totally worth it because I learned something really interesting. They don’t have addresses in the villages! So, the section of the forms where it asks for a physical address causes a bit of a problem. A woman came in to get her driver’s license and was obviously confused when she tried to fill in that box. After a brief conversation with the woman behind the counter, however, the problem was resolved. In the space she wrote, “red house across from the church.” Welcome to the Alaska Bush!

2. There were 7 JVs in Bethel last year. Currently, there are 5 of them here. Three never left Bethel, one moved up a few weeks ago and one is visiting. People weren’t joking when they said that Bethel keeps JVs for years! Anyway, because so many of them were in town this weekend, my house decided to have a JV dinner with last years JVs and us. It was really funny, I don’t think you could find two communities that are more different, but it was awesome to get an almost complete picture of the JVs we have heard about all year.

3. Then, later that night, I went to the first (hopefully) annual Easter beer hunt. Half of us were on cross country skis, half were on foot and all of us had the same goal. Find as many spray-painted beer cans as possible. The twist: it was getting dark and you had to chug your first two beers before you could continue hunting. Basically, it was one of the best Easter “egg” hunts I have ever been on.

4. But the Easter egg hunt the next day was a pretty close runner up. My roommates and I went over to the Klejka’s house for Easter dinner and then a unique Klejka family egg hunt. The actual hunting was your typical, look for the brightly colored eggs all over the backyard, but inside the eggs were tasks. After opening my eggs, I found that I had to do the hokey pokey, sing old MacDonald had a farm, high five someone and have a pillow fight with 5 other people, just to name a few.

5. (Warning: this story is not for the faint of heart)To end my Easter adventures, I did something that I had never done. Plucked a bird. No joke. One of my students called me Sunday night and asked me if I wanted some ptarmigan. Of course I said yes, and about an hour later, she stopped by with a trash bag with 5 cute white birds, that just happened to be bloody and dead. My roommate Joe had plucked a ptarmigan before so we all followed his directions. We set up a plucking station on our dining room table and got down to business. First, we all grabbed an empty priority mail box (thanks again for all the care packages, family, the boxes totally came in handy!), then grabbed a ptarmigan and got to work. Well, I didn’t really get straight to work. I tried to grab one, but when I touched blood, I freaked out. It took me probably five minutes to work up the nerve to grab one and throw it on my box. Then, once I did that, it was probably another 5 minutes, filled with outbursts like “Oh my GOD!” “Ewwww. Ewww. I can’t do this.” “Oh good lord. This is terrible,” before I could actually start ripping off its feathers. Once I did, however, it started getting easier, until I turned it over and saw that it was covered in blood. COVERED. Then, there was a lot more screaming. After a while, I named my bird Fred. Somehow it made it easier to snap his head, wings and legs off if I could tell a story about how he died. See, Fred was valiant ptarmigan. He was a great bird with an awesome girlfriend. They loved to fly from tundra bush to tundra bush together, until one day an evil BABS student came to kill his girlfriend. Fred got in the way, saving his girlfriend’s life, but ensuring himself a very bloody death. Oh the perils of true love! Anyway, Fred was dead, and now de-feathered and de-limbed. Next was the fun part, cutting open his butt, scooping out his organs and then cutting open and emptying out his stomach. Yum yum. I can’t wait to eat Fred.

6. Also, I have some exciting news. I’m going to be a famous actress. Ok, that is a total lie. But, in a few weeks, I will be up on stage making a big fool of myself as I pretend that I can act. I will be in the one act “No Exit.” If you feel so inclined, Wikipedia it. I am going to be Estelle. We are going to be starting rehearsals soon, so I’m sure I will soon have some great stories about how awful I am.

7. I also have so sad news. I was supposed to be going to Juneau for a big music festival with all the other Alaska JVs this weekend, but life has conspired against me. This week is testing week here at BABS so I am needed here and it would cost too much to change my ticket anyway. So, I hope to find some fun adventures to go on this weekend to forget about all the fun my housemates are having without me. Actually, my roommate Justin will be here too, but he is planning on sitting in a chair without moving for 24 hours this weekend as a spiritual exercise… soooo I’m not sure if I want to be around for that. Haha.

8. Ok, the last thing I have to say. It is still cold here. This morning it was -15 with windchill. It has been snowing off and on for the past week and it is supposed to continue. But, it is also super nice and sunny all the time. It is light when I walk to school in the morning and it stays light until past 9. Ridiculous Bethel.

Anyway, I love you and miss you all!

Oh.My.Gosh. I just posted this and then started packing up all of my stuff to leave work, then I found a little sheet of paper that I had written on at preschool bible school last week. I have to share it with you. We were talking about how God made each one of us special and how we should take care of ourselves because we are a gift from God. So anyway, I had them draw a picture of themselves. Easily the best idea of my life. When we were discussing hair color one of my students says, "If I let my hair grow long, it would turn light, like yours. That is why I keep mine short."
"You know, Jaiden, I don't think you have to worry about your black hair turning blonde like mine, no matter how long it gets... but ok."
Then, this other little boy turns to me, very seriously, and says, "Some people are white. You don't even know."
I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that... do I tell him that I am one of those white people? I decided to keep it simple, wait for someone else to rock his world with that statement and ended up saying something like, "Yep, there are white people, in Bethel and all over the world." Oh, preschoolers! Gotta love them!