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Here’s me in 1984! This was the first picture taken of me in Shishmaref, courtesy of a young girl who inquired about my presence as a new teacher in the village—something about which I, too, was quite uncertain about. Chapter 6, Walkabout, details this encounter, and more about my first stroll through Shishmaref.

Chapter 6 Excerpt: Walkabout
EXCERPT:
I’d seen only a handful of people—the men at the airstrip, Principal Ken for all of two minutes, my truck-taxi guys, and the girls outside my window at midnight. I was on the main drag through town, but it was eerily quiet. No one anywhere. I felt exposed and insecure without a chaperone or tour guide identifying points of interest and making introductions. I was still hoping for a coffee shop, but given the water situation and no indication of any downtown area, that dream of normalcy was quickly fading.

At some point, I’d swapped out “The bear went over the mountain” for the song sung by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music: “I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain …” My thoughts ricocheted like the ball in a pinball machine. How did I end up here? Where is everybody? What will it be like to teach? How many students are there? What’s for dinner?

These questions (and my humming) came to an abrupt halt when four young girls appeared suddenly from around the corner of one house. They were about ten or eleven years old. Their hair was straight and black, shimmering even without the sun. The girls wore jeans and t-shirts. One of them had on a pink sweatshirt with streaks of dirt, and a rather large drip of snot came from her nose. She made no move to clear it.

“You a teacher?”

This question came from the tallest girl as she twisted a long blade of grass through her fingers, sliding it over and around and starting again.

My heart did a little belly flop. The reality of actually being a teacher seemed incredibly remote—as remote as this village from the nearest McDonald’s. I nodded.

“Yep.”

“What you teach?”

“High school. English. Math.”

The girls scrunched their faces and then burst out laughing.

“Oh, too bad!” said another. “We want you to be our teacher!”

I was about to ask them what grades they were in when the drippy-nosed child pointed at my feet.

“Like your shoe pacs.”

“My what?”

She squatted and tapped my boots.

“Shoe pacs,” she repeated. “You know. Shoe!” She stood and stomped with one foot. “Pac!” She stomped again with such force that the snot released from her nose. She tipped her head forward just in time for it to drop cleanly onto the sand.

The girls giggled and covered their mouths, playfully shoved each other, and moved around me as if I were a boulder in a stream. They skipped down the street, shouting and flapping their arms like baby birds. This friendly encounter boosted my spirits. Maybe I should have chosen an elementary teaching certificate. I could have been their teacher, one with a plus-size box of Kleenex.