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.