Rambling Post About Nothing

“Are you two honeys?”

“What?”

“Are you two honeys?”

“We’re married if that’s what you mean.”

“Swell and Sheepie sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

And thus went our conversation with some of the kids of Brevig, Alaska.

First: Honeys?

Second: What are we 8?

Well I guess they were 8. But their 8 year old taunts didn’t sting much .

We weren’t tremendously busy on this village trip. Many of the villagers are starting their summer routines.

Summer routine for kids is apparently to taunt the newcomers and stay up all night with the exclamation “I don’t have a curfew!” and for many of the adults – camp.

We’re not sure what “camp” entails but assume that they go out of the village for weeks or months to collect provisions for the soon to arrive winter.

That’s right, soon to arrive winter.

We were told that they’ve been having long winters and short summers the last few years.

It is the beginning of June and there is still snow in the village and the ocean is still mostly frozen around Brevig.

We were told that the ice was lasting a long time this year.

When we asked when the ice usually melts we were met with the blunt and surprising answer of “April”.

Yikes.

Some of the villagers that we did see were excited to be able to replace the western diet they’ve been living off of for the winter with their native diet for the summer. I can’t say that I blame them for that excitement.

Their store is limited in choices with little to no fresh produce. So its canned, frozen and prepared foods.

More Brevig:



ummm ok?



A less foggy day

Our entertainment on this trip was a couple of movies both of which made Swell cry.

But they were better than seeing things like this on our walks:

First up was Sicko.

Michael Moore’s documentary on the US healthcare system.

It was pretty good.

But I’m the choir.

Swell sat and cried because she sees herself in those people’s shoes. The ones who are dying because they can’t afford healthcare.

She’s not really in their shoes but its still sad to know that we live in a society that doesn’t care enough to declare health care (at least basic health care) a right and to stand in solidarity with each other to ensure that all have access to care without having to worry about the financial hardship that care would create.

She is still without health insurance but we’ll keep working on it.

The second documentary we watched I didn’t think was all that particularly good but was interesting.

Invisible Children has become all the rage with young people. It is about child soldiers in Uganda. It was made by a trio of young guys who traveled to Uganda to uncover a story. They did and they created a movement.

I’m not sure what this movement has accomplished but its good that many young people have decided that what happens over there is worth being concerned about over here.

Again I’m the choir so it doesn’t take much to convince me.

A lot of tears have been shed the last few days as we try to come up with a life plan.

We’re still planless and hopelessly lost.

It’ll come together eventually I suppose.

We’re back in Nome for a week and then we’ve been told we’ll be doing village travel again next week.

We’re not sure why we’re doing village travel as they don’t usually do village travel in the summer months because of people leaving the villages for “camp” but we’re happy to do it as it means that we’re able to make more money than we deserve on many of the village trip days.

We’re living a pretty boring life.

We work (a little). We eat (a little). We watch TV (a lot). We sleep (a lot – but not soundly).

Here in Nome the snow is all gone and the ice has long since left. We had a little snow on Memorial Day and the next day but it has since melted as well.

We’re waiting to hear about New Zealand. Waiting to hear about a job in Florida (but that doesn’t seem to be happening). We’re considering a possibility in Tacoma (but won’t think much about it until we come back from Romania).

We’ve decided NOT to move to Oregon.

We don’t like the board of optometry there and it is far too saturated with optometrists.

So that leaves Washington, Alberta and New Zealand.

We’ll see.

Oh. One last thing an actual conversation that happened last week:

BRING BRING BRING.

Assistant "There is a phone call for one of the optometrists!"
Sheepie "Hello?"
Male Voice "Is Swell there?"
Sheepie "I think she's in the shower. Is there something I can help you with?"
Male Voice "I was just going to ask if SHE wanted to go for a walk around the village with me."
Sheepie "Ummm... I think she's going to go to bed after her shower so probably not tonight. Sorry?"
Male Voice "Ok."
Sheepie hanging up phone: "I think I just turned down some guy asking my wife out..."