Within minutes the requests start coming. “Can we go to the store?” “When are we going to the store?” “Are we going to the store?” “When can we go to the store?” “Let’s go to the store.” This is the continuation of a conversation that had started the week leading up to this moment. And now, here we were, so close. I am beginning to see why traveling to Bethel, and really, just traveling in general, is such a huge deal for my students. I wrote in an earlier blog my desires to get out of Tununak for a bit. I can only imagine that that desire is even stronger in my students. Don’t misinterpret this to think that they don’t like life in Tununak. They do. Most have spent their entire lives here or in a similar village and have friends and family here. They are familiar with the ways of village life and enjoy many aspects of it like being able to hunt and practice other subsistence and cultural activities. They feel safe walking around at night, aware that they know everyone in the village. They like the consistency and routines that life in a small village has to offer and they take pride in that knowledge. But they are also American teenagers under all of the same pressures that adolescence has to offer from raging hormones and a sudden acute interest in the opposite sex to a desire for independence and breaking away from total parent control to battling to define themselves amidst the identities being forced on them by the media, mass marketers, dominant Western culture, and their own unique Yup’ik culture. And so travel allows them a chance to get out and experience life in ways that are not possible in Tununak.
We hold off the horde long enough to get our bags and things situated in the room and then we set off to the illustrious “store.” On the way to the store we stop at Subway for dinner home of the five eight dollar footlong. You see, the fine print that accompanies the irritatingly catchy five dollar footlong jingle comes into effect in Alaska and Hawaii. Instead we have the eight dollar footlongs. It wouldn’t really matter though. At this point I am ready to pay twenty. I have no idea why that is. Back home I make it a point not to eat at Subway. I find their subs mediocre. Passable, but there is so much better. Months without options lower my standards however, as does the fact that I have to do nothing more than hand over some green paper (another thing I haven’t done in months) before eating. So much easier than cooking! And so delicious. The textures and flavors! Fresh sliced veggies, cold cuts, pepper jack cheese, white bread encrusted with intriguing spice blends …Oh the experience. I don’t care what anyone says, this is not normal food – there is something in these subs that elicits irrational responses in the human mind. And if I’m not proof enough, our team seemed to react in a similar way. Suddenly aware of the plethora of options, many had difficulties making decisions. Staring at the sandwich artist some could only mumble, “I want that one,” pointing in the general direction of the menu. One was thrilled that all had to do in order to get as much pop as one could drink was to buy the cup. What a world we are in!
After finishing up dinner we walked across the street to the store. The store, Alaska Commercial or the AC for short, according to its website, is “A retail company providing groceries and general merchandise in stores.” The AC, now a statewide chain began over 130 years ago as a series of trading posts offering early traders, miners, and missionaries food and supplies. The history is a bit more romantic than the stores are today. Ownership has changed hands a number of times and the current version looks very similar to any other big box store. It is, in a minor way, the rural Alaska’s equivalent to a mall. New fashions can be browsed, candy and pop can be bought and consumed, and people watching can be done. While waiting for all of our team to finish shopping came again the question “When can we go to the store?” We were still in the entryway to the building.
Gathering everyone up, counting and recounting, we begin our walk back. We are supposed to be at dinner at seven o’clock – a time fast approaching. What? Dinner? What about Subway? One word – teenagers. Metabolisms like they are going out of style. Not that I'm one to talk. Anyone that knows me knows that if I don’t eat, often, I will die. So after a quick meal of lasagna served from the Home Ec room at Bethel Regional High School (complete with lockers, hallways, subject specific classrooms…the real deal) we head back to our room at Gladys Jung. The gym is set up with about a dozen identical Lego courses so that the teams can perfect their programming. We are here for a reason – to compete in this competition. Time is running short and our two teams need as much time as possible to dial in their programs. A few hours later as the lights in the gym are cut, we return to our rooms for the evening. Of course, anyone who has ever been a chaperone, or maybe even a teenager before, knows that the night is still young. In fact, the night will stay young for three nights straight. Mornings come progressively early, but more on that later. For the moment we have movies to watch, annoying pop music to blast, and enough teenage humor to fill a dozen terrible movies.
I fell asleep around 2:00am. Derek, a little before that. The boys? Not sure. I can assure you it was after 2:00. Also after 2:00 we discovered something very peculiar with the classrooms in Gladys Jung Elementary. All the lights become activated by motion. What a wonderful (security?) system. Every trip to the bathroom, every toss in sleep, possibly even every dream of movement, turned on the lights. The nice part about staying up so late is that I was dead tired and slept through all the light flickerings. Derek could not and faithfully turned off the lights after each movement violation. This would set the pattern for the following nights. I would be awake until around the time the terrible dance music died down with Derek taking up the watch around the time the lights took on a life of their own with the end result in neither of us getting much sleep.
While our nights filled with little sleep and too much bad music, our days were filled with robotics. The competition is made up of four parts: the performance of robot and programming of course, and then each team is also evaluated on the technical aspect of their programs and robots, on a team work activity, and on a presentation they make highlighting a problem and a solution that is related to the theme picked by Lego. The theme for 2009 was transportation and our teams investigate transportation issues prevalent in Tununak including fuel efficiency of snowmachines (Alaskan for snowmobile) and airplanes. These four evaluations took place throughout Friday and Saturday giving our teams a bit of time in between to continue perfecting techniques and exacting programs.
At the end of two days of competing and not sleeping the results were in. Kind of. What I can tell you is that we did not win. At least we didn’t win overall. I am still kind of confused over the scoring process, but our junior high team did place high enough in one event to take home a medal. At our teams’ robots’ programs got progressively better over the weekend. Happy with our performance, a little bummed about not getting to go on to Anchorage, we were ready to head home. With bag lunches in hand we exited Gladys Jung immediately following the awards ceremony en route to the airport where a small fleet of planes were ready to fly us home. Unfortunately the weather was not ready. We made it to the parking lot of the airport before word reached us that Grant Air was not flying to the coast. Oh the joys of Alaska. Our students were have cheering half moaning – split between another trip to the store and more time in Bethel to visit with friends and relatives from other villages and that of being away from home one more night, sleeping on the floor of an elementary classroom. My feelings, were not split. I was tired. I had lessons to write for Monday. And I was worried that if the weather didn’t let up my sub notes might not make it through another whole day. Nothing anyone could do though, so worrying or complaining made little sense. Another night in Bethel.
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