Why you drive like a girl!?

Thursday

Clinic trauma room, note the camera and video-monitor to the right. This was the first clinic in the region.

Will there be a snow-machine purchase in the near future?

Just off the ice road on the Kobuk River.

Dragging main street with the cool kids.

Thursday
I spent the afternoon visiting grades K-3 and High School social studies classes. The little kids were really fun and funny. After the initial excitement of a new person in the class wore off I helped teach the 1'st graders how to count money. I don't think elementary ED is in the cards for me. I only know 2 ways to count, in your head or on your fingers and when those two options fail I'm out of ideas. Fortunately their teacher was very good and all the kids were making change despite my best efforts. The kids also needed to make sure my beard was real so when I wasn't looking a little hand would give it yank.

2nd Grade was interrupted by a fire drill and while everyone had their jackets the little kids hugged their teachers to stay warm. It was over quickly and everyone raced back into the school.

After school we met with Amy and discussed inquiry based education and the complexity of living and teaching in a village when you will always be considered an outsider.

John gave us a tour of the clinic which is staffed with a full time registered nurse and is being expanded to twice its current size. The two trauma rooms were equipped with telemedicine technology so the nurse or medical staff would have a doctor in Kotzebue or Anchorage for consultation.

Tumi made a fantastic pizza for dinner (sorry no pictures we ate it too quickly) and we were off to Amy and Rod's house.

Amy had volunteered Rod to take us out on their snow-machines in the evening. Rod thought we would be fine by ourselves and their son Zeke offered a tootsie pop if we made it back in one piece.

Tumi got the new Ski-Do Tundra and because I grew up in Northern Minnesota in the 90's I got the Ski-Do Summit. We drove on the river and through trails and looped back to town as the sun was setting. We both got a tootsie-pop and played dominos with Amy and John (another teacher).

The next day in school two boys ran up and asked why I drive like a girl (I guess I wasn't going as fast as I thought)