Kwethluk

Pronounced Kweeth-luck. It has a sort of ring to it, doesn't it? I understand it is Yupik for "bad river." It will be my new home as of the first of August. I just accepted a position as 7-12th grade English teacher in Kwethluk. It is located in the Lower Kuskokwim School District and is about 15 miles east of Bethel, as the crow flies... but 30 miles via the ice road on the Kwethluk River in the winter months (which also include much of fall and spring as there is currently 5 feet of ice today, April 18).

Other than that, it is cut off from the rest of the world. No roads in or out. It is a fly-in village of just over 700 native Yupik residents. Subsistence is the way of life for these villagers; they spend their summers fishing and putting up Salmon, Moose, Caribou, and Berries of all kinds. Everyone has a 4-wheeler and/or SnoGo (snowmobile). It is a dry community, meaning that alcohol is illegal. That doesn't mean that it isn't there, however. It is a simpler life, a slower pace, not somewhere travelers happen upon by accident.

The school has 200 or so students, K-12. Sarah will have around 15 students in her graduating class. It is a 100% native student population and they speak Yupik as their native tongue. In essence, I will be teaching English as a second language. There is also a possibility for me to teach a Culinary Arts class in the spring and I intend to start a DDF (drama, debate, forensics) program there. Wait!- It gets better... I already have two friends in the district with whom I worked at LCO (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe School in Hayward, Wisconsin). Ann was the school counselor at LCO and will be my new itinerant counselor at Kwethluk. Rachel taught at LCO when I was there and she now teaches in Quinhagak, so I'll be seeing her at inservices and holidays! How great is that!

From the first moment I met the folks from this School District, I felt at home. Accepting a job was never easier than it was yesterday when the principal, Kevin, called me to offer me the position. It's like a puzzle piece finally fitting together to make the perfect picture. I had someone ask me yesterday, "So, what is your 5-year-plan?" Wow. This is my 5-year-plan. Only now, it has become my August-plan.

My future is on my doorstep. This is the path that will take me to my PhD in Indigeneous Studies and on to be a forerunner in finally designing a native curriculum for bush Alaska that really works. I guess it's time to make a new 5-year-plan, or maybe it's my 15-year-plan. Where do I see myself? I've always seen myself, eventually, in a small cabin buried in the mountains of Alaska, next to a river. Perhaps that path leads directly out of Kwethluk - the 15 miles toward the mountains in the distance. Could it be true? Could dreams really come true? They do. They are. I've never felt more alive - peace and excitement rolled up into a solitary ball of contentment. I am sure of this. This is my destiny. I have found my path. I will skip along it all the way to Kwethluk!