Must be willing to fly in small planes....

I’ve now been working for about 3 weeks. My work hiring date was kind of mixed up as the director of the Family Infant Toddler program informed me that she was quitting her job a couple of days after my arrival in Bethel. This didn’t exactly make for a smooth transition. Anyway, after a week of waiting around, my first couple of days consisted of hospital orientation. YKHC (Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation) is literally that…a big corporation. Orientation was comical as they talked about “the corporation this” and “the corporation that.” As the largest employer in the area and the 7^th largest employer in Alaska, they have about 1800 employees and are famous for bureaucracy. Combined with overall bureaucracy, they have many problems with getting employees to come to work and to stay at work. They are quite proud of their current retention rate which is about 40% for the year. They have a lot of rules which are a bit funny when taken literally…you can’t come to work with more than a .08 blood alcohol content and your kids can come to work, but they are not allowed to stay all day.

Anyway, after a couple of days of orientation, I was ready to start my real job. I arrived promptly on time and was hoping to meet with my new boss who would show me around (if even just for the day). Turns out her flight to Bethel from Anchorage was cancelled and so she wasn’t going to be arriving until about 3:30 in the afternoon. As I was taking my coat off, one of the ladies in the office said something like, “Well it sure is going to be a boring day for you with nothing to do.” Hmmmm. Then they showed me where my desk was and told me to go ahead and start working. To make a long and boring story somewhat shorter, let’s say that I had a few very boring days in the office. At least my internet privileges started working on about day 3 or so. But other than that, I’ve determined that everybody is much more content if you just pretend to be working rather than asking for any kind of a project, some direction, etc. The staff is nearly all native Yupik people which is definitely cool, but requires some major adjustments on my part for overall speed of working, productivity, communication style, etc. Relax, I keep telling myself. My fellow co-workers are definitely on the passive side. One example was a little surprise going away party we held for the boss. They were so excited and went out and bought her a cake and a gift and had a big plan for surprising her. Then when she walked into the room, all they did was all stare at her at once. No “surprise!” or cheering. Just smiling and staring. The boss finally figured out it was a surprise as everyone was looking at her!

So I was anxiously anticipating our first travel day. My first flight was to a village called Akiak, which is only about a 15 minute flight. We flew on a charter company called Craig Air. The plane was a 4-seater and I ended up with the seat right next to the pilot. I did OK on the way to the village, but I was definitely feeling ready for the flight to be over when I looked down and saw the gravel runway. On the way back, it happened to be quite windy and combined with a small case of nerves, a helping of agutak (Eskimo ice cream---basically whipped Crisco and berries), and diligently watching all of the dials on the plane, I was quite ill when we got back to Bethel. I couldn’t believe it. Sick on my first day of travel and only a 15 minute flight. For the rest of the day, I sat at my desk (working quite hard of course) thinking…I don’t think I’ll make it if I’m going to be this sick every day of my job. It took me 1 hour just to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I went straight home and ordered a device over the internet which is called a sea band and looks like a watch but it applies a little electrical stimulus on your wrist and reportedly is very helpful in decreasing motion sickness. The other PT said it works amazingly.

So the next day, I was quite nervous upon going to work. It was another short charter flight on Craig Air. This time to a village called Napakiak. I boarded the plane with trepidation (a big 6 seater this time) and to my amazement….no sickness. I’ve now been to 6 villages on all sorts of different planes, and haven’t been sick again. So at least I have that going for me, must have been the first day jitters (or the wind). The other villages I’ve been to are Quinhagak (pronouced like Quinn-a-hawk and it’s not labeled on the map below, but it is on the coast south of Bethel), Chevak (near Hooper Bay in the north—about an hour and 10 minute flight), Alakanuk (also far north) and Kwethluk (about 15 miles up river from Bethel). I’ve been on the major air carrier for the region which is Era aviation and you even get Alaskan frequent flier miles. This is a bigger plane (a Twin Otter), but most of the seats are removed and used for cargo. You really feel like you are part of the day to day working on the bush villages as we stop in villages along the way and deliver the mail, packages, etc. I’ve also flown Yute Air, another regional charter operation. On all the flights, you fly very low to the ground, so you can really see the tundra/look for wildlife, etc. Mostly it’s an amazing maze of lakes and swamp with yellow, orange and red fall colors around them. There are occasionally some hills or plateaus and if it’s clear you can see mountains in the background. I’ve seen a lot of birds and possibly a moose or two.

So the general procedure when you get to the village, is first to make it to the village health clinic. Every village has a clinic which is staffed by local villagers who are trained as health aides and do just about everything from delivering babies (if it’s an emergency), stabilizing emergencies, stitching people up, giving shots, routine health care, etc. This is where we set up shop for the day. To get to the clinic, we either walk (sometimes up to a couple of miles) or get picked up by someone with an ATV or a truck. We hop on, hold on, and head into town. Then we call all the families and set out for home visits. There are various delays (for example, one family’s 16 year old son had just killed his first seal and his mother was busy cutting it up for the town elders so we had to come late in the afternoon). Sometimes the pace is fast if we have a lot of kids to see, but usually there are just a few kids and we have about 1-3 hours to hang out in the clinic. I quickly learned to bring a book along as everyone else gets out their knitting. It’s also fun to check out the local grocery stores or take a walk to the beach. I learned today that it is a policy that we have to spend at least 4 hours in a village, even if we only have 1 kid to see.

The family’s homes have all been fairly similar. Many don’t have running water, but it’s not very obvious. The health clinics all have had running water so far (many are quite new). Some houses have full kitchens, others just a microwave and a hot plate. Some have furniture, others a couple of mattresses on the floor. Overall, the floors have been fairly dirty linoleum so it’s not optimal for putting babies down to play on the floor. I hate to be making so many generalizations, but I’m just trying to give an overall description of things. One thing that definitely amazes me is the number of children. We’re typically there to see the youngest baby and there are often 2-3 more kids under the age of 5. Plus the school age children. Having big families is the name of the game here. My co-worker was telling me about how sad she is that her sister only has had 2 kids. She said, “she could at least have a few more.”

I’m trying to get the hang of how much to interact with the kids/families. There is generally a lot of Yupik speaking and they’re pretty touchy to people coming in and interacting with their kids/giving them toys, etc. But I’m sure with enough observation I’ll be able to figure something out. One of my co-workers was going to train me to perform a developmental test. It was mostly a parent interview test and she did the entire thing in Yupik. Then handed me the score sheet and asked if I had any questions. Me, questions??

Anyway, that’s an update for now. This week, I’ll be heading to Napaskiak tomorrow (that’s across the river from Napakiak), then Toksook Bay and Kipnuk on Wednesday and Thursday. That is, if there are no travel delays (which kept me working hard in the office for 2 days last week).

Enjoy the pictures and think of me flying through the air!