Flooding

As usual, it has been a crazy week!  The week has been filled with rain, wind, storms, flooding, and crazy kids!  I am currently at the District Office in Bethel attending training.  Out of the 28 or so villages that were scheduled to attend, only 4 of us were able to make it into Bethel last night due to the weather.  I would have been so bummed if we had ended up one of those 4.  The district is letting me stay an extra night in Bethel so I can go shopping and visit with friends :-)

Last weekend started the storms.  It began to rain and every day I though it was the strongest wind I had ever encountered... until Thursday night!  Oh my goodness!  Wednesday we were warned that we were going to have some flooding and strong winds on Thursday afternoon due to a storm that was blowing over the Aleutians.  I didn't realize that they actually meant flooding.  Boardwalks washed away, roads covered over, students who couldn't get to school, etc.  The wind was the worst part.  Thursday night I had a horrible sleep.  The winds were so bad, I was actually woken up by the swaying of our apartments and the noise from the wind beating the house.  It sounded as if the house was being deconstructed by the wind.  It sounded as if it was being torn off piece by piece.  The power went out around 5, right as I was going to bake some scones :-(  Luckily, Emily and I had already eaten!  It would flicker on, give us a glimmer of hope, and then go off again.  It remained off for a few hours, came back on, and then went off again in the morning, just in time for the water pump to shut off so my shower was only a trickle of water.  It's these things about village life that you have to be able to laugh about.  It won't matter if you go to school with wet hair (as long as it isn't -10).

After a terrible night of sleep, I woke up and on my short walk to school, realized that the entire area was flooded.  There was at least a foot of water covering everything.  Thankfully, I have a short walk to school and have my own elevated ramp to school.  LOL  However, the weather was bad and there was a lot of water, not to mention, the power had been out off and on throughout the entire village all night.  Many of the students weren't able to make it to school and watching the waters reside was a big distraction for a lot of the students throughout the day.  Anyways, the wind was terrible but eventually started to die down around noon but we weren't sure if it was going to die down enough by our 7 p.m. flight to Bethel.  We even received an email from the superintendent letting us know that staying alive is more important that an inservice in Bethel.  Thankfully, by 7 the winds had died down enough for our flight to take off and I'm pretty sure we were the only flight in the village to take off all day. 

*interesting fun fact... not only does Kipnuk flood in the fall and spring but we are also in a tsunami zone and have frequent earthquakes!  Yay!