Two weeks in....and more Salmon

Two weeks in and life in Bethel Alaska keeps trucking on. It feels kind of nice not to be the completely new kid in town and the perks of living in such a small town is that you can really get the lay of the land fast. When we first arrived, our initial greeting crew at the airport us to cherish the few "unknown" days of Bethel because they would be few and far between. I now know what they are saying and appreciate their advice. As a whole though, life has been good and am enjoying settling into my job here at Bethel Community Services Foundation.

Bethel Community Services Foundation or (BCSF) is primarily a philanthropic trust fund set up about 4-5 years ago here in Bethel to serve various aspects of the Bethel community and neighboring Alaskan Native villages. Together with my boss, Jerry Drake, the two of us head up BCSF along with a board of directors and gaming managers (aka Bingo directors). My primary role here at BCSF is to assist in the Savings and Financial Education Program or SAFE as we like to refer to it. The basic premises of the program is to assist various individuals with the accumulation of wealth, whether that be the purchase of a car, snow machine (snow mobile), first home, apartment rent, or basic business tools that will hopefully help these individuals towards the highly sought after road to financial freedom. Week one was a bit slow, but have managed to get into the swing of the Bethel community through various fundraisers, chamber of commerce meetings, and board of directors meetings. Several of my room mates are rather jealous of all the perks of my job specifically referring to my weekly lunch with Jerry at the Bethel Chamber of Commerce meetings. Never in my life would I have expected that I would be so excited to go out to lunch, but given the circumstances and the simplicity of our average community meals here in Bethel, it was a very nice treat to say the least as I enjoyed my $18 dollar hamburger, $3 iced tea and previously frozen fries. Ahhh...just like Chipotle!

Jerry is a nice guy to work with and keeps me on my toes with his witty comments and colored commentary. He's a perfect example of the Jack of all trades. Throughout his career here in Alaska, Jerry has worked as a commercial airlines pilot, mechanic, accountant and now Executive Director of BCSF. Besides "free lunch Wednesday" there are several other perks here at BCSF such as free MAXIM magazines since his son's wife no longer lets them into the house. Hey, don't blame me....I just work here and would not want to offend Jerry's generous gifts.

Life in community is different but good. It's a little more touchy feely than I am used to but will undoubtedly be a good growing experience for me. Everything in the house seems to be grounds for a discussion. "What kind of peanut butter should we buy, chunky or creamy? I don't know, better have a community meeting." I suppose that's what living in community is all about, but it's definitely a huge change from living with my previous roommate James at Creighton where the most important conversation we would partake in was what type and how much beer to buy.

There are always lots of surprises living in Bethel. Take for instance the common courtesy that most of us have to knock or ring the doorbell before entering someones house. Those rules don't apply here in Bethel. At all! When someone wants to get a hold of you they simply come into your home and start yelling "hello." It's taken some getting used to, but definitely ads to the whole community experience when you never know who's coming on or what they are bringing. Take for instance this past Tuesday. It was about 10:45 p.m., the majority of us were either asleep or reading a juicy romance novel, when in bust our next door neighbor Wilson. Yes, like the show Home Improvement. With him, Wilson had a freshly caught silver salmon in a black trash bag and was wanting to know if we wanted it. Sure we said, but how do we clean it and fillet it? Sure enough, Wilson came prepared with a local butchering tool and twenty minutes later we had a nice fish head (which apparently goes great with soup) and two nicely cut fillets of silver salmon.

With that, I will leave you dreaming about fish head soup and Maxim magazines. Next time on JVC Bethel Adventures.....salmon slop, animal fat and poop as I indulge on our adventures of taking care of 30 Alaskan Huskie sled dogs.

Welcome to Bethel

For those of you who might not know, I am doing a year of service up in Bethel, Alaska with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. My exact title/job is not quite known yet, but in short I will be working for a non-profit (Bethel Community Services) in the micro-finance/philanthropy sector. Bethel is a nice quaint town located about 400 miles West of Anchorage with a population of just around 6,000. Bethel's demographics are about 70% native, with the other 30% being people from all over the world who think it's fun to live in middle of no where.

We stated our journey in Portland, Oregon at Camp Adams where all 122 Jesuit Volunteer's (JV's) from the northwest met for orientation and training. To my surprise Camp Adams was not quite as much of a bible camp as I thought it was going to be, although I definitely would consider myself in the minority since I am a non-vegan, SUV driving, son of an oil barren, republican and don't regularly save our households rain water to help flush the toilet; but other than that I fit right in. As a whole everyone at orientation was a very nice and unique person who shared a common passion of wanting to do some good in the world. Orientation was a definite tribute to the Jesuits as roughly 70-80% of all volunteers attended some sort of Jesuit high school or University. One of the highlights of orientation for most of us, but especially the ladies (like 70% of all JV's) was Fr. Grubb. Who said Jesuit Priest are square...? Fr. Grubb is the Dane Cook of priest with his rugged looks, funny stories and quick Wit. It was a nice change up to have some good laughs and a youthful message after four days of talks. As a whole Orientation was a great place to get to know the roommates and work out the basic house arrangements before heading up to Bethel. We ended orientation with a fantastic dinner and mass with numerous other former JV's and supporters.

On Saturday August 8th, the seven of us departed for Bethel with ALL OF OUR STUFF in anticipation of what lie ahead it the last frontier. Our travel was plagued with delays and broken planes as all three of our flights had some sort of technical difficulty, but in hindsight it was nice to have that one extra cold beer at the Anchorage Chilli's before heading out. Upon arrival in Bethel we were surprised by over a dozen former JV's, eager neighbors, bosses and supportive community members as they ushered us and our bags away in style on a scenic tour of town on the one paved road.

Bethel is a simple yet nice place. From the outside it's not much to look at and has very little shot at winning any top prizes in the parade of homes, but from our five short days here we can already tell that the community is what makes this place tick. In our five days here we have only had to prepare one meal. Talk about service! Without question one of the common community builders in Bethel is potlucks. On Sunday (not even 24 hours into our adventure) we were informed that our JV house was hosting a community potluck. We had very little to offer besides plates and expired salad dressings, but our neighbors, friends and community came through with a grand slam. No where in my life have I seen so many different types and flavors of Salmon. Here in Bethel one of the common catch phrases we hear a lot about is subsistence living, meaning to live off the land; but for now I might leave that topic for a different day and blog.

It seems like summer flew by so quick and it was just yesterday that I was teaching tennis and playing golf at the Pinery Country club, but I suppose it's time to trade in those tennis shoes for a pair of mud boots and that ball cap for a wool hat. Bethel seems like a great little town and in my few short days am beginning to see why so many former JV's continue to stay and make this Tundra there home. I am hoping to get some pictures up at some point of the town, our house, etc...but am having some problems with the website. If and when I do I will be sure to post some cool pics. Until then adios.

Toodles,

John