The entire time in Good News Bay, we were nervous that we weren't going to be able to fly to Platinum because the small planes are not able to fly in any sort of bad weather. However, we were able to fly. The short fly was so rough and I was feeling very sick. However, we were greeted with warm smiles from Samuel the janitor at the school. We got to ride on a four wheeler to the school. He was pointing out landmarks in the towns and I couldn't believe how much older and more worn down they were than the ones in Good News Bay. The clinic was so old and beat up. I could not believe that it was clean enough to do exams in. With only 50 people in the town, the health aid said that most of the people in the town were related to her. I can't imagine how hard it would be to treat your family all the time. The stuff that you talk to your health care providers about would be hard to talk to your mom or aunt about. While I was in the clinic, the health aids niece came in for a well baby check up. The baby was not happy about being poked. I would have a hard time poking a family member that was crying. When we went to the school, it was literally falling in on itself. We started screening the 10 kids and finished with their height, weight, hearing and screening in less than an hour. The school is so small that they are trying to shut it down. Then the kids either have to be home schooled, go to boarding school or the family has to move to a different town. After doing the screenings we went in to observe the classroom. The kids were wrestling with each other. I couldn't believe that the teacher was allowing the students to wrestle in her classroom. The difference between schools was unbelievable. In Good News Bay, the students were so well behaved and respected the teacher. I did not see the same in Platinum. On the way back to the airport we rode in a sled behind a snowmobile. It was so fun. Its cool to see the different ways of transportation in towns without roads.
Public health nursing is so different than nursing in the hospital. One has to assess the community as a whole and think of what the community needs are. Kasandra and I had not been to the community yet so we talked to Rita before we went. Rita said that sexual assault was a big problem with this community and after hearing stories from the principal I knew that this problem had to be addressed fast. The principal told us that she had many female students that had horrific sexual assault stories and that child protective services would take a long to come out to the village so the children would be stuck in these abusive homes. Kasandra, Rita and I decided that the best thing to do was try to prevent these assaults. So Kasandra and I gave a presentation to the high schoolers in their health class about healthy relationships. We showed the class what they should expect from a significant other. We talked to our colleges Dean of Students and one of the women on campus that focuses on sexual assaults on our campus. They helped us design the presentation. We wanted to instill the same slogan that we use at our school in the minds of these children. "GET TO YES" is used at our college as a way to talk about consent. The kids in the class really seemed to enjoy the presentation. We added some funny videos to get to the point and lighten up the presentation. At night we were suppose to give the presentation to the community. No one showed up. I was really disappointed by this because I think that many of the offenders are not school aged. Next year, Kasandra and I decided that the presenters should focus on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome because 4 of the 5 babies born in the village this year struggled with withdrawal. Overall, it was very interesting to work on prevention over curing illness in the hospital.
The views in a two person air plane flying over Alaska are breath taking and I hope that more people get to experience the mountains between the tiny villages. Starting the day off at 3:00 am was less than ideal. However, the adrenaline of where my day would end kept me going. To start my morning I was trying to layer and ripped my jeans. Bummer. Heading to the airport we got a little bit of a late start and were in a pinch. When we got on the plane I had butterflies in my stomach about what would happen throughout the day. When we got to the Bethel airport I was shocked that it was so little. However, then we went to Raven the smaller airport that would fly us to the villages and I was shocked. It was so dirty and unprofessional. It made me nervous because it was so different than any airport I had ever been to. We got all checked in and were waiting for the pilot to call our names. He called Kasandra and me up. Rita our preceptor came up with us because she thought it was a mistake that her name was not called. However, it was not, Kasandra and I would be traveling to the village alone in a two person airplane. When I saw the airplane that we were riding on I got extremely nervous. It was tiny and the pilot looked like he was around our age. It was just very different than flying out of the Minneapolis airport. When we were flying over the beautiful mountains all of my worries escaped my head. When we landed in Good News Bay there was a building next to the run way and thats it. We had to wait outside with our bags for the janitor of the school to come pick us up. It was so cold and windy. When we got to the school we were welcomed by the principal. When Rita got to the school we got straight to work. We did 45 vision and hearing screenings in 3 hours. We started with the younger kids, I was doing the hearing screenings and it was very hard to communicate with them. They would hear the noise but they wouldn't tell me that they could hear it. Some of the kids were very nervous around me and would ask me why I was there. At the end of the day I was so exhausted and ready for bed. I was excited about the days to come. I knew that I would be able to connect with the kids on deeper levels throughout my stay.
After a long day of traveling the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a workshop and listen to someone talk all day. However, Yari's presentation was amazing. We started the day with looking at the map of Alaska and where all of the different tribes are located. I did not know that Russia was so close to some of the small Alaskan islands so it was interesting to me to see that some of the tribes had such close ties with Russia. After, looking at the map we watched some short videos about cultures of the tribes. This was nice because then we could relate to some of the information that Yari was telling us in her presentation. It was also nice because then I was able to learn about the culture of the village that I was going to visit before I went. Yari's presentation was my favorite part of the day. She was so interesting. I have never met anyone so open to talk about their culture. She made me think about my culture in different ways. She almost made me feel bad that I did not have a cool culture. With my Grandparents gone it seems like my families culture has almost vanished. It took a lot for me to think of one picture that described my culture and even when I did I was not really proud of it. Yari was so proud and happy to be who she is which I think is amazing. She has strong spiritual values which I am always searching for. Her positive vibes radiated around the room. At first, when she started doing healing on the classmates I was skeptical and although I do not believe the same things as her I think that her positive energy and passion healed all of us in a way. Another part of the day that I loved was looking at all of the different homes that the villages have. I complain about how small my room is in Duluth and some of the houses that multiple people live in are not much bigger than my room. Another, thing that amazed me was how clever each tribe was to use the resources that the land offered them. I would never think of the things that they do such as leaving space between the boards in the house for flooding purposes. I respect that they do not waste anything. I hate that our culture is such a wasting culture. It always breaks my heart to see people waste food, clothes and other resources. Stewardship is a very important Benedictine value and the native tribes use their resources wise. Overall, I feel like the cultural awareness workshop made me a better person and I am excited to get more emerged in Native Alaskan culture throughout my trip.
Skiing for the first time in a long time in the mountains was extremely overwhelming yet exciting. The first hill that we went down was the smallest. Andrea was very good at teaching us how to go side to side in order to slow down. The part that made me the most nervous was the ski lift. I would always push off of the person sitting next to me in order to get up and Kasandra did not appreciate it at all. After going down three hills Kasandra and I decided that we had enough and went to the ski lodge. We met some very interesting people there and were able to chat with local people about the cool places in town to explore. We had to ski down one more hill in order to get back to the hotel where we had to meet. We made it down alive. Then we took the tram to the top of the hill. The sites were so beautiful. We ate on the patio and it was probably one of the coolest places I have ever enjoyed a meal. Some people were brave enough to ski down the whole hill but I was not one. I rode back down on the tram and the guy that was running it was super cool and told us when to jump to make the tram shake. When we got back to the hotel we had to wait for everyone to get back. I was exhausted. I slept the entire car ride home. Im happy to say that I was able to ski in Alaska.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |