FAQs

Frequently, I get asked similar questions about living here, and the conversation generally has the same elements. So, I thought I'd make a FAQ page or post. Clever, eh? It would be even more clever if I could figure out how to add a separate page or link on the home page for easy referral. I'll take any advice on how to do that! If you have any other questions, please let me know in the comments or by emailing me at sestotz@gmail.com.

What does [insert name of food item] cost?
This is a fun one. There is a co-op here as well as a gas station. Goods and prices are similar at the two places; generally speaking, the co-op has a better selection for food while the gas station has more supply-type things, such as toys, Carhartt clothing, muck boots, etc.

Here are a few examples to give you an idea:
1 gallon ice cream - $18.00-20.00
1 green or red pepper - $4.00
Red Delicious apples - $2.29 per pound
Oranges - $2.50 per pound (at least, maybe more)
Green Grapes - $5.59 per pound
Small salsa - $5.00 - 7.00
1 box (6) Nature Valley Granola bars - $6.00
1 doz. eggs - $3.50 (Availability can be very rare.)
1 12-pack pop - $10.00-12.00, depending on the time of year.
1 bag chips - $8.00
18 oz peanut butter - $6.20
1 quart milk - $6.00 (Good thing I don't drink the stuff!)

Things that are so rare that we have our mentor teacher bring them in on her monthly visit to the village: cream, cheese, cream cheese, and spinach.

And the number one reason I will NOT be purchasing a snow-go or a 4-wheeler:
1 gallon gas - $6.50
That, and I'm lazy. I do not want to maintain a vehicle during a 6-month long winter.

Oh my GOSH! That's so expensive!!
Yes, it is. It has to be a really rough day for me to fork over $8 for a bag of chips. But those days do happen now and then. Sometimes I just want the experience of handing over cash so I'll go buy a can of pop, a pepper, and a $1.50 candy bar.

What about soap and stuff?
For toiletry-type things, I usually order bulk off of Amazon or cram a 2-month supply of toothpaste/shampoo/conditioner into my luggage during a visit to Anchorage.

Oh, my! I couldn't live without [insert a food here - pop, cheese, milk, etc...].
Really, you could. You just have to get creative. The truth is, when you have fresh game and are fully aware that there is no place to eat but Casa de Susana, you just deal. I am not ashamed to admit that when I am whipping together a soup or a stir-fry with a hodge-podge of ingredients, I grab random spices and start yelling, "BAM!" like Emeril when I'm really hoping that it will turn out well. (Or I call Mom/Dad/Grandma.) I've only had to choke down a couple meals that tanked in terms of texture or taste, so I think I have inherited my family's ability to improvise meals on the fly.

We do get together for some teacher dinners where everyone brings a dish. I recently attended a birthday dinner for a village friend's daughter, which was neat. She made a huge feast and a priest blessed the meal before we ate. We had moose soup, rice, spaghetti, chicken wings, three kinds of jello, and cupcakes.

How do you afford to eat, then? What do you eat?
I generally order bulk quantities of certain things off of Amazon or through the grocery stores in Anchorage. We teachers just did a huge food order with meat and frozen produce that will last us the year. My roommate and I are splitting the cost, so we will each pay about $350 for chicken, ground beef, frozen vegetables and fruits, and some random cuts of pork. Not too bad really, and we don't need to focus on these other meats with so much moose, fish, and birds to be had.

I also receive plentiful care packages from friends and family that are filled with my precious dark chocolate, gum, and various other goodies, so I'm not deprived at all. I do miss the fresh produce. We can go weeks without seeing lettuce, broccoli, or apples, and when those do arrive they are often browning already. I practically squeal if there is an avocado to be had for $4.50. When I get to Anchorage, I salivate at the thought of being able to order a salad that isn't made of iceberg lettuce.

We still have fish from last year and will get more in the coming months; another teacher just got his first moose, so we recently spent an afternoon cutting and packaging moose meat for the freezer. A week later, a student of mine got his first moose and showed up at my door holding 3 steaks' worth of fresh meat in his bare hand. We will be berry-picking as well and freezing those for the winter. Really, I get away with eating quite cheaply, supplementing with bulk dry goods like rice, beans, and oatmeal.

Hmm, moose meat. What's that like?
Moose is one of my favorite meals. It tastes just like beef but is much leaner - not gamey at all, very chewy. The crockpot and I are becoming good friends because it's one of the only ways I've found to make it tender. Potatoes are plentiful, so moose roast or stew is a common dish.

It's fly-in, fly-out, huh? What about if you get really sick or need emergency care?
Well, luckily I haven't had to deal with this problem yet, but there is a clinic here with two health aides who can usually identify the problem and provide painkillers or cough medicine. If greater attention is needed, you can get on the morning or afternoon flights to Bethel, where there is a hospital. In the worst case scenario, we have medevac insurance that can get us to Anchorage.

Really, this means that we have to be extra careful to take care of ourselves. I try to get enough sleep, drink water, take my vitamins, wear my snow cleats, and take my time in doing things so I don't inadvertently break an ankle. (But then I do stupid things like play full court basketball after a 7-year absence. I don't recommend it because last January I almost fell down my stairs the next morning. Woops.) I've said before on here that the townspeople absolutely do not mess around with survival or safety, and I meant it. However, accidents and illness do happen of course.

What size planes land there? How big is the airport?
We generally have either a Cessna 6-seater or a caravan, which seats 9 or so. The airport basically amounts to a gravel clearing; while there is a big red shed there for tools and for what I assume would be a hangar only in case of a breakdown or emergency, I have never seen the inside of it. When we leave or return, a school vehicle is always used so we can wait in warmth or hop right in when the plane lands. "Security" consists of telling them your name and possibly your weight. It's really nice to just hop in and avoid that whole fiasco.

How cold does it get? How much snow falls?
The coldest I recall experiencing in my village was about -52 degrees F. If that happens on a weekend, I don't even leave the apartment. Some of the elders said that -52 is a normal low temperature, but that this last winter was the longest period of time that they've ever experienced at such a low temp - about 3-4 weeks. Usually it gets there for about a week (two maximum) and comes back up to -30, or so they say.

While traveling for Academic Decathlon in February, I did experience -62 degrees while being routed through another village, which is significant because planes do not fly at -70 degrees. That story is ridiculous and I will recount it soon. Long story short, I thought my nose fell off after being outside for about 20 seconds at that temperature.

As for snow, I'm not sure. I could google it, but it's sort of trivial because the roads don't need to be cleared. The lighter stuff blows away and then snow machines pack down the rest, so it never really feels like I have to wade through too much. Only once did we have whiteout conditions. The kids love it because they live for the cold.

How do you deal with the cold? Are you just chilled all the time?
No, not really because, hey, I'm from the midwest and went to school in Minnesota. However, the kids generally want it much cooler in my room than I do, so from October to March last year, I wore long johns every day. The cold really isn't so bad as long as you're dressed for it. Up here, fashion is function, so my typical gear for a school day is long underwear, tall thermal socks, and one or two long-sleeved shirts topped off with a fleece or a sweatshirt. You have no idea the freedom the month of April brought with it, when I could go without the minimum of 3 layers! As a rule, I drink a lot of tea to avoid being chilled. Thanks to Stacie at Halo Soap for keeping me stocked with that!

So, if fashion is function, do you even wear makeup or jewelry?
Yes, every day I do. For one, the fun earrings or necklaces or bracelets are my one way to feel jazzed up about my appearance some days. One needs a bit of frivolity daily, and this is mine. I wear minimal makeup, sometimes just to say that I at least made an attempt to put on my face for the day, but I don't know that it does any good. Students often tell me that they can see the "bloodveins" around my eyes and ask one of two questions:

"Who wrote on you?" or "Why so tired/stressed?" Yes, they often leave out the verb and subject of "are you."

I usually answer that I'm just pale and that's how I am. During a school trip, a girl saw my little makeup bag and asked whose it was. Another girl answered that it was mine. The first girl responded, "I didn't even know she WORE makeup!"

OK, Laura and Kat, I finally get the message. I could stand to wear a bit more makeup, and for heaven's sake, I don't want to scare the children. You've been telling me this for years and now my students have confirmed it. I will take this into consideration when I am outside the village. However, I make no promises.

How long do you go without light? How do you deal with that?
I vividly remember a friend calling me at 11:00 am one Saturday and the sun was just rising. By 4:00, it's dark again. During this December period, it doesn't really get that sunny but resembles dusk more closely during "daytime." I believe we lose about 6 minutes per day. Right now, at the end of September, the sun rises about 8:30 am and sets about 8:50 pm.

This light loss mostly affected me in two ways last year: I fatigued fairly easily and my attitude absolutely tanked. The name of the game was "make it to 3:30." To deal with that, taking Vitamin D is crucial as well as scheduling time to work out and hang out with friends. Just trying to live by the clock helped too. It's hard to not want to go to bed by 7:00 pm because at that point, it's been dark for 3 hours already. The absolute hardest part is getting up when it is pitch black, getting ready while it's pitch black, and walking to work while the beautiful stars are out. Walking home in the same darkness, it can almost feel like I'm on different planet.

And therein lies the only noticeable bonus to the lack of light - I never knew how many stars could be seen. In such a rural place, the lack of city lights (light pollution) makes the night sky appear almost speckled, as though you could not even measure a distance between two stars in some spots.

Wow. What are the northern lights like?
Unfortunately, I've seen them faintly only once. It was a very faint grayish blue haze. We don't get the bright colors here, though just downriver, they see brighter blue ones.

What do people do for industry?
Many work at the school or for the city, do commercial fishing, or firefight in the summers, but it's mainly a subsistence community, meaning that people fish, hunt, and berry-pick to prepare for the winters. There are a few jobs at the Tribal Council, clinic, post office, and gas station as well. Some of the ladies make beautiful beaded jewelry to sell.

So, that's it for now. I hope I've given you a slightly better picture of living off the grid. Let me know if I can clarify anything or if this brings something else to mind. This was a fun one to write!

Quyana [goy-ah-nuh] (thank you) for reading!

From the Mouths of Babes

Friday, as I was wrapping up class with my 10-12 graders, I told them that the assignment we were working on would be due Monday. I don't often give homework for various reasons but recently have started to do so more often. The top student (I'll call him Joe), who has a scholarship to any UA school he wishes to attend, said he'd be willing to do the work but that he had a problem.

"Um, Stotz, I don't have anything to write on."

I paused, confused. "You can do the work on the sheet I've provided; the data table is on there for you." Plus, he has a notebook, so I still couldn't quite compute his problem clearly.

Joe says, "No, I mean nothing to write on like a desk."

Well, that changes things. I am well aware that some of the housing here is, shall we say, not quite at the same standard that I was used to seeing in homes while growing up, but the thought never crossed my mind that a home could totally lack a writing surface that could suffice for a wee bit of homework. Those of you who know me probably guessed that my reaction to his statement was written all over my face. I'm a terrible liar in this respect, but am improving out of necessity, mostly from situations like this one.

Not really knowing what to say, I offered to hold a study hall over the weekend in my room. I never would have believed that 10/11 students would raise their hands earnestly indicating that they would come for such an event.

Say it with me now, "are you kidding me?!"

But back to the more important matter at hand: First, how is there no space on which to do homework? More importantly, how common is this problem within the village? Secondly, how does a kid without a desk receive a top scholarship? I would say that he manages his time well, except that the other day he told me that he was reading until 5:00 am. Now, I'm not one to tell a kid not to read, but I did use that little tidbit of information to make a pitch for a better bedtime. "Err closer to midnight than to dawn," I told him.

Well, I didn't end up holding a study hall today (though I am seriously considering it for the future), but as I came to the school this evening (Sunday), I bumped into Joe. He was near the school downloading something onto his iPod, probably another book that he will read tonight until 5 am. He ended up coming to the classroom with me so that he could finish his work from Friday. After that, Joe stayed and chatted, telling me about some of his closest friends, how he has dealt with bullying, his family, and how he remembers, in 2nd grade, being told the difference between being native and being white, and how he thought, "but we're all born the same way, we all die the same way, and we all need the same things to live. What does it matter what our race is?" Hmm. No wonder he's the scholarship winner.

Joe inquired about his younger brother's status in school, who struggles behaviorally at times.  He said, grinning mischievously, "I told him if I ever catch him getting into smoking that I'll beat him up!"

Oh, brotherly love. So mushy.

He then speculated on why his brother might be struggling - his best friend had died in a hunting accident a few years ago, and Joe has tried to look out for him ever since then. This information was completely new to me, and will obviously give me some insight to helping out his younger brother in the future. You just never quite know why someone may be struggling.

It's times like these that the fact that some of my students do as well as they do just absolutely floors me. I knew teaching out here would be a challenge, but not for some of the reasons that I'm confronting, or, more correctly, that my students confront. Lord knows I probably wouldn't have lasted a week, let alone accomplished anything!

And to think, I almost didn't even come over to the school tonight! I would have missed out on this great conversation with an amazingly kind and considerate kid. When people ask me why I came back, or how I "stand it,' --I"ll assume people mean life in a dry, fly-in, fly-out village--I guess it's little encounters like these that help me to answer those questions. Teachers often say that the students teach them more than they ever teach the kids, and I'm no different.

Our staff sometimes jokes that a year of teaching in the tundra is equal to about 5-7 years of teaching elsewhere, similar to "dog years." At this point, I can't argue with that idea. If I get to experience more gems like I did tonight, I might well just be here long enough to retire in terms of "teacher/dog years."

Well, there's a beautiful sunset and it's finally stopped raining for a while, so I'm out! Adios!