Gift from God

The kids were lining up for lunch and I was waiting for them to put on their jackets when I noticed that one of my little angels was scrutinizing me closely.  She wrinkled her forehead as she thought and finally she tugged on my sleeve.

"Yes honey?"

"Will you just lean down here already please?"

(I leaned down)  "Why yes I can.  What can I do for you?"

She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a large, wet kiss on my cheek.

"I think I'm going to like you, Miss Counts."


Reason #1 for why I teach - Children are gifts from God and they teach grown ups about unconditional love.

First Day of School

August 28th - 4:00 pm ---- Left my classroom set up and ready to go for my first day with children.

August 28th - 8:00 pm ---- Went to bed after eating fish and spaghetti.  (I needed the carbs)

August 29th - 12:00 am ---- Sleeping like a baby.

August 29th - 6:00 am ---- Starting to panic about my first day of teaching.

August 29th - 8:10 am ---- Saw 10 beautiful faces that made every worry in my heart disappear. <3

Weather in Metlakatla

When I filmed this video it was about 4 pm in the afternoon.  By 6 pm, the rain was much heavier and the wind had increased to 55 miles per hour - according to the weather station.  I was soaked on the way home from school, but then I left again dressed in my rain outfit.  It is not the most fashionable ensemble I have ever worn.....but it will keep me dry!  :)

Matti and I braving the rain and wind!

We were looking hot!

Evil Bathroom

Two nights ago I was hanging out with a lot of people in Matti's apartment.  By the end of the night we decided to play some card games and open a bottle of wine.  I went down to my apartment to grab it. And even though I only planned to be in there for a few minutes, I flipped my deadbolt over just because.  It is unusual for people to lock their doors because the Island really is very safe, but I was just going to air on the side of caution.

Well, I have a window and the blind gets stuck often so it does not close easily.  The window has a line of sight directly into my bathroom.  Well, I had to go so I shut my bathroom door........and when I went to leave I discovered that the door was completely wedged!  I spent a good 10 minutes pulling back on the door with my foot up on the wall to add more strength.  Haha the door handle flew off and I fell into the bathtub, breaking a plastic safety guard, cutting my arm and gaining many attractive bruises.

I had to wait for about half an hour before I could hear Matti looking for me.  I started screaming for her and she thought someone was in my apartment with me.  I think I freaked her out a lot!  Haha well she yelled for David to come help and they ran to get our landlord so he could get her into the apartment.
Finally, they were able to get in my front door and to the bathroom.  It took much longer for them to figure out what the heck was going on with the door.

Long story short, they had to completely knock the door handle off to get me out.  Now I have a big hole in my door and who knows how long it will be there haha!  We laughed about it later, but I was definitely freaked out.  Needless to say, I will not be shutting that door again.

I put both door handles and locking mechanism above my door as a reminder of my incredible survival story.  Thank goodness for Matti and David - my two rescuers!

Goliath Encounter

So about two weeks ago I was still living in Rita's apartment.  It was hot so I opened the front door for a little while.  Well, that was a horrible idea.  Many, many, many bugs came inside.  I fought off most of them with a fly swatter, but then I was introduced to the largest mosquito I had ever seen.....hence I named him Goliath.  At first I thought I would let him fly around because he was very hard to catch.  Then I had visions of me sleeping in my bed with him attached to my face and sucking me dry.  And because I am quite fond of my blood and very much disliked the idea of having a mosquito bite the size of Mt. Olympus on my face, I made it my quest to kill him.  Yeah.....stupid bug had me jumping all over the apartment for a good hour before I finally got him.  Hopefully no one saw me through the window.... haha!

Come to find out, Goliath was a Mosquito Hawk - not a mosquito.  They eat mosquitos!  So my poor face would have been safe anyway.  Oh well.....it was still an interesting night! :)

Internet at last!

The school has given me a Mac laptop to use!  So now I can finally tap into the school internet to update my blog and post photos.  Yay!  

Well, it has been a whirlwind of an experience thus far.  Mom, Dad, and I arrived in Ketchikan on the 17th of July and were welcomed with a beautiful grey blue sky!  A dear friend from Ketchikan, Eileen was picking a youth group up from Texas and she was there to greet us as well.  I was thankful to see a familiar face!

I spent a lot of time in Ketchikan just shopping for things that I needed.  Do you like the rain jacket/pants ensemble?

Mom, Dad, and I did the tourism thing and hung out around the cruise ships and the gift shops.  I was able to buy a fleece jacket fairly cheap.  In fact, our whole family now has matching ones!  haha

We spent a few days trekking through some gorgeous hiking trails.  We spent a lot of time on the Northern part of Revillagigedo Island (That's the island that Ketchikan is located on) and going down to Saxman.  

These are photos from our hike!

This is called a Banana Slug.  Isn't it cool!?

This is called Skunk Cabbage.  It's huge!  You can't eat it, but you can cook things in the leaves.

We went to a place called Herring Cove and were able to see a lot of bears.  There was a fish hatchery nearby so the bears came down out of the mountains to try to catch the fish as they jumped up the ladders.  There were tons of eagles sitting on branches and on rocks too.  Seals were also swimming up the river to catch Salmon.  They knew where to come for a good meal apparently.  :)

Mama caught this bear coming down the mountain about 30 feet behind us.  You can barely see this female's baby at her back feet.

I think it was the third day that we went on our fishing expedition.  IT WAS SO COLD!  Haha, but so much fun.  Mama and I bundled up with several jackets, but Dad toughed it out in only one.  I think he was pretty chilled by the end of the day however!  :)  We caught 9 fish altogether - several types of salmon and one rock fish.  At one point I had a salmon on the line and he almost pulled me over the side of the boat!  Mom grabbed me around the waist and we both heaved on the line in order to pull him in!  It was intense!  I was certain that somehow I was going to fall overboard and I just knew that I would become the first person in Alaska to be eaten by a salmon shark.  I almost kissed the dock when we arrived safely back on shore.

 

Our last day in Ketchikan was pretty entertaining.  I had 13 huge bags to drag down a narrow ramp onto a ferry.  Hahaha!  When the man at the ferry station saw how many bags I had he pulled a truck around to load them!  People were giggling at how much stuff I had and I had to admit several times that I was a teacher moving to Metlakatla.  I tried explaining that most of my things were teaching materials, but I was still pegged as a city girl with too much junk in my trunk!  Literally!!!

Finally, we arrived in my new home.  Talk about beautiful!  Metlakatla has the best of both worlds: mountains and ocean! 

You can see Metlakatla from the ferry.

Mr. Avey was waiting for us at the ferry terminal.  We loaded all of my things in his truck and went to Rita's apartment in town.  Rita is the Kindergarten teacher and I already adore her!  :)  I am so lucky that I have a wonderful Superintendant and a great lady like Rita to be friends with!

Spending time in the town has been very eye opening.  This will be such an adventure!  The culture here is very different from what I am used to.  I'm realizing how much I have to learn about the wonderful people here.  They have a very rich culture and I'm blessed to be a part of it this upcoming year.

Red Jellyfish on the shore.  Ouch!

One thing we have noticed about Island life is that their idea of a pet is quite different than what my idea of a pet is.  They have dogs in the town, but the dogs are not chained up.  They wander around anywhere they like and fend for themselves when the weather is harsh or when they need to find something to eat.  I have been having a hard time with it.  The dogs can become pests quite easily and the people here do not always treat them very well.  Matti and I both love dogs and it has been hard for us to watch them drink from mud puddles and eat roadkill in order to survive.  

We pet them a lot and talk lovingly to them, so naturally we have now adopted about 8 dogs.  They follow us everywhere we go.  Literally.  The sleep outside our front doors and wag their tails in the morning when we come outside.  They follow us the grocery store, to the school, to the post office, and anywhere else we want to go.  And they will just wait for us to come out.  It is so cute!  Matti and I have never felt safer in our lives!! Haha!  

There was one dog we have taken to in particular.  She is the only female dog we have come across.  We were told that the dogs here will start to run in packs and sometimes they pick off female dogs that are weaker.  So the fact that this female dog has survived tells us a lot about how tough she is.  We didn't know her name for about a month so we started calling her Sandi.  This is her.

Sandi has captured our hearts and it is truly painful to watch her suffer sometimes.  Matti and I have been trying to be "grown up" about the situation, but the truth of the matter is that we have bleeding hearts.  Our unusual attitude towards the dogs have earned us the name "those girls with the dogs".  Haha!  I'm sure we have been the talk of the town.

We named all of these dogs. From left to right on the above photo:

Skid, Hank, and Grumpy 

Kedo, Duke, Fox

And those are only a few dogs!! :)  There is another one we call Two Socks and another called Tank.  Oh, and one named Bear.  It is awesome!  It is like our own petting zoo!  :)

These photos are from a hike in Metlakatla called "Yellow Hill"

Sandi followed us up.  :)

Humpback Whale off of the North end of town.

Matti found this big guy in the sand as the tide went out.  

He is a moon snail.  Their shells can only be found on the beaches of Metlakatla.

This dog is named Bear.  He and I fell in love at the park.  

I've decided he shall be my local boyfriend.  ;)

About a week ago we met David at a bonfire.  David's family are cultural leaders within the community here.  He has been teaching Matti and I some words in their native language.  He has also been entertaining us with native stories and songs.  Matti and I are so excited to get to work with him in order to better understand the wonderful people of Metlakatla.  :)

David carving a totem pole to honor his Grandmother.

My pretty Matti rocking her rain jacket like a pro!

David was good enough to let us work on the totem pole too!  

Haha thankfully it was on a part that we couldn't possibly screw up! :)

My buddy Kedo hanging out with me.  :)  LOVE this dog!

Founder's Day was August 7th.  The whole town came out to celebrate with a parade and fireworks!

Our dear friend had a son who passed away last year.  This was a celebration of his life on August 12th, his birthday.  He was a beloved member of the town and they devoted a day towards honoring his memory.

Native Dancing :)

Our beloved Sally!  She is a middle school teacher and she has taken Matti and I under her wing.  She has been loving on us and spoiling us rotten!  It's great!  :)

That's all for now!  I love you all very much and I hope this was enjoyable!  :)  I will post more soon!  :)  All my love, Your Katie