
As I woke up this morning, I laid there for a minute and listened. Hmm… I don’t hear howling wind. Maybe the blizzard has passed. The last few days we have been homebound due to severe blizzards hitting our area; whiteout conditions for several days, with breaks only rarely. Thankfully, we did have a break last night for about an hour while we took Cecelia to the clinic to get her immunizations, unfortunately when we left the clinic whiteout conditions were setting in again.
After we returned from the clinic and were eating dinner, the winds kicked up (reportedly, 50-70 mph). So here we were eating dinner, and I hear this weird noise. Thunk, thunk, bang, boom, thunk. Like someone is walking/falling across our ROOF?? I look at hubb. What in the world was that? Our chimney pipe had blown off! I let him finish eating and donned my winter gear, boots, goggles, and head lamp and headed out to try and locate the chimney. Of course because I had spent so much time putting on ALL of my winter gear, the pipe landed right by the porch door. I could have just walked out with a hoodie on and picked it up! LOL! But then another problem arose. The wind was whipping around so much that it was making a snow drift OVER our exhaust pipe to our oil stove. The stove kicked on, and started making unusual noises and my hubby jumped up and donned his winter gear and had to go dig it out. All night we had to keep going out every hour to check and make sure it wasn’t getting drifted over.
During these past few days of blizzard conditions our Elementary School Co-Ed Basketball team got stuck in Scammon Bay. They have been there since Saturday; I believe they made it home today. We kept hearing reports on the VHF radio from the school announcing that they were well, and had had their clothes washed, and were doing just fine.
Well, needless to say, there were NO planes coming in, so there was no mail. I did pick up a couple of boxes today, and ALAS… I just heard a plane fly over, (standing up doing a terrible imitation of Tattoo from “Fantasy Island” … DE PLANE, DE PLANE!!! Yes I AM that OLD!) so there should be boxes tomorrow.
I spoke to Jon Moller, the Rural Advisor to Gov. Palin on Sunday. He said he was going to be coming back to the YK Delta this week but I am assuming he couldn’t make it due to the weather. Mr. Moller asked me for a list of needy villages I had mentioned to him when I met him in Emmonak at the store. I gave him my list and then he asked me to prioritize it by need. Additionally, he asked for contact information for all of the villages so that he could forward that to Samaritan’s Purse. [Editor's Note: Samaritan's Purse is Franklin Graham's organization. Graham, an evangelical minister, flew to Russian Mission with Sarah Palin last week.]
I received a call from Samaritan’s Purse on Monday, and answered their questions, plus gave them additional contact information from the phone book for villages he didn’t know how to reach. They said that they would be sending 35 boxes of food here to Nunam Iqua, one for every needy family. When I called back on Wednesday, to get more information and check on the status of their delivery they appeared to be quite busy. I was told that they would call me back and answer my questions and give me a date to expect delivery but so far I haven’t heard anything.
Today I was interviewed by “Indian Country Today” for an article! I made certain to emphasize the fact that all of my efforts are only working due to mudpuppies and anonymous bloggers! The reporter emailed me back stating that she would make certain to include the information about the people in their “PAJAMAS”.
GO Mudpuppies and Anonymous Bloggers!!! MORE POWER to the keyboards!!! (paused in writing to do the “Happy Dance” from Perfect Strangers)
I did receive and distribute over 150 lbs of food on Tuesday, Feb. 24 here is where it came from:
1 box from Fairfax , Virginia
1 box from JB Bush a donation order
1 box from Easton , Connecticut
1 box from Milwaukee , Wisconsin
2 boxes from Victorville , CA
2 boxes from Norman , Oklahoma
1 box from Richfield , Minnesota
1 box from Museum Source in Anchorage , AK (Quyana for the reusable bags!)
3 boxes from Merlin, Oregon (QUYANA for all the reusable Walmart Canvas Totes!)
$250 donation from Clayton , GA , a donation made by a church in honor of one of our MUDPUPPIES!!! *wink* J.R. for stove oil.
$20 from Savannah , Georgia for stove oil. ( Quyana M.T)
$20 cash from NYC, NY (Quyana NY H for helping put some gas in my snowmachine for deliveries)
$25 from New York , New York (Quyana M.E.M.)
There have been other cash donations made that are in the City Office, when I get a chance I will go over and record where they are from.
I am still working on my Yup’ik Cuisine story, and hope to have it to AKM soon, assuming Cecelia is feeling better and lets me get some writing done. Well I think that’s about it for now. I need to finish my dishes and bring in some more wood. I’ll have another update in a couple of days.
I encourage you all to visit http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.com and join the discussions we are having on coming up with LONG TERM solutions for rural Alaska .
Also I hope to start a diary on Anonymousbloggers about my normal day to day activities. So you can, sometime in the future, visit the site to see more about life here in Nunam Iqua from me!
QUYANA CAKNEQ Pajama Clad Mudpups and Anonymousbloggers!!! YOU are what is keeping my people across rural Alaska warm and fed this winter!!
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