Well, I made it!

Temperature in Bethel today: 61*F

Hi all. Sorry it's taken me awhile to actually get this post up. I don't have regular internet access at my house so this had to wait until I started work (and got a few free minutes). My roommates and I arrived in Bethel last Saturday and we have really been enjoying Alaskan life so far. We got in around 9:30p Alaska time and were picked up at the airport by our JVC community support people, 2 girls who were JVs in Bethel last year and decided to stay, and Fr. Chuck, Bethel's only Catholic priest (and a Jesuit, whaaat!). Bethel's airport is pretty much a room with a ticket counter and conveyer belt. We grabbed our luggage and headed to the JV house.

I have 6 roommates this year (Fran, Erin, Elyse, Meg, Mike, and Jon) and there is definitely ample room in the house for all of us. We have 4 bedrooms and a "nook," aka a curtained off area with a dresser and a bed. We talked it out and the boys got the single bedrooms, Fran and I in one double, Elyse and Meg in another, and Erin in the nook. We have 2 living rooms, each with a wood-burning stove, a nice sized kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and a big back deck that looks right over the tundra. It's really a beautiful house. It also has tons of windows which we love now for the midnight sunsets but will probably be cursing in the winter. Such is life.

Sunday we went to mass. Mass in Bethel is pretty cool. It's a very small community and everyone seems to know everyone. Native culture is also very strong; the altar servers wear traditional Yupik shirts and the Our Father is said in Yupik. When we got to mass they were handing out the church bulletin AND the sheets with our pictures and bios. That was a little surreal. There have been JVs for so long in Bethel that everyone kind of knows who we are. Even if they don't have our bios, we're pretty distinguishable. I have already had people come up to me in the grocery store and the library to ask me if I am a new JV and welcome me to the community. It's pretty great, even if it did take a little getting used to.

Sunday evening we hosted a potluck at our house. Or, I should say, we were told we were hosting a potluck, haha. Most of the people who came were mid-late twentysomethings who work in Bethel in the social services field. That was nice because we all had a lot in common and now we know we'll have friends, haha.

Monday through Wednesday my roommates and I had appointments at each of our jobs. All 7 of us went to each person's job to get a feel for what the others will be doing. We also had a woman who teaches sociology at the college come to teach us about the native culture here and how we would best be able to adjust and assimilate. Other than that, we spent our first week getting to know the town and the terrain. Bethel is literally tundra, which is very spongy and kind of hard to walk on. Because of this, there are boardwalks crossing through everywhere to walk on. It's pretty cool. Other than that, it's mostly dirt or gravel roads, with one highway going around the town in a loop. Highway is a relative term; the speed limit is 30mph and there's one stoplight. However, in the winter when the Kuskokwim freezes over you can drive on the river.

Cool things that I have done in Bethel so far: berry picking, bread making, sunset watching at crazy hours (although we lose 5.5 minutes of sunlight every day!), fishing on the Kuskokwim River. If you haven't noticed, most of these things are pretty outdoorsy/domestic. In Bethel it's definitely a subsistence way of life. People live off the land and the river, and that includes JVs. The price of groceries is ridiculous up here. Gallon of milk? $10. Triscuits? $7. We buy what we can wholesale, pick up groceries in Anchorage whenever we go through there for retreats and whatnot, and live off the river or the land. We fish now, and in the winter we'll get to go hunting. I'll let you all know what caribou meat tastes like.

This past Sunday our landlady dropped by and asked if some of us wanted to go fishing. Five of us went out, and letting the net out twice, we caught 52 fish. Which we then headed, gutted, cleaned, fileted, and froze for winter. At one point I was in the back of the boat LITERALLY knee deep in fish. It was pretty crazy, very fun, and just a little gross. (I can't say gutting a fish is one of my favorite things to do.)

This week is my first week of actual work, and I'm very excited. I've only been in 2 days, but I can already tell I'll really like it. I get a lot of personal contact with my clients, and will really get to walk with them every step of the way. My boss is actually on a business trip this week, which means I am just sitting down with each attorney, talking to them about the Child in Need of Aid cases that I'll be helping with, and shadowing on different things. Yesterday I was in court all day helping with jury selection. Today I got to go to the jail to talk with a few different clients. Hopefully, in September I will get to go out to one of the villages with one of the attorneys to meet a client. I haven't gotten a great idea of what work has in store for me, but I know it will be interesting, challenging, heartbreaking, and hopefully meaningful to my clients. I'm excited.

Hopefully I'll get to update a little more often now so every post won't be this incredibly long. Also, once I can get to the library and upload some photos, you guys will have pictures of my house, Bethel, and my roommates. I hope all is well back home and send my love! Keep me updated on life in the lower 48.