A few more pictures of SLI

Here's three more pictures from Gambell.


The Walk for Life that we organized, mostly young people joined us. WE walked one mile across town, from the school to the church.

A carver friend of ours showing one of the carvings that I bought. Frequently carvers would stop by the church to show us their latest carving and find a buyer. The teacher's housing is probably the other most popular spot to find buyers. Sorry, I don't know how to rotate the picture upwards.

Squeakums enjoying some playtime on the school's new playground. It's a nice one.
And this year roads were put in around the town, for their ATV's. Now you can drive faster, not that it's necessary. Everything is within a mile or so. Before the trails were through gravel which still is what all the side roads are made of. It's a lot faster to walk on the hard road too. NExt year the plan is to cover it with asphalt or something.

Saint Lawrence Island

Upon our return home, BearCub's accent increased! His 's' sound has become 'sh.' Though now almost two weeks later he goes in and out of the accent...so perhaps it's starting to wear off.

Pictures:
1. Dinner with some local foods: Whale blubber raw and cooked (mungtuk) - it's not too bad when it' pretty fresh, just rubbery texture. Nice dipped in soy sauce. Also had bearded seal.

2. A couple friends that came by frequently to visit.

3. The mounain behind the village, you can see some of the coffins above ground there. THe graveyard is nearby. I understand that due to the frozen conditions sometimes coffins are placed onthe rocks.

4. Games with some of the kids, might have been an afterschool time or sunday school hour.

5. A few drummers during a traditional eskimo dance on the weekends.

6. ONe of the boys that came by, the boys love to wrestle.

7. Photo taken from the beach back toward the housing.

8. Praying at the beach facing north, this is also where I saw Russia from on a later day.

Back in Gambell

I, Calalily, saw Russia the other night. The horizon was clear at sunset, so I ventured out across the gravel paths to the beach where I could clearly see snowy mountains beyond the water. It's 40 miles from here.

I gave a haircut to a local friend here. My first time on curly,wirey hair. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it works.

Half of our YWAM team has colds. But taking Tuesday as a day of rest helped, so we could catch up on some sleep. Our next big event is Saturday's Walk for Life that we're planning, at the last minute.

BearCub, our 3 year old, is homesick still and reminds us daily that he's ready to go home. SUddenly in the last two days he's picked up the local accent, probably from playing with the kids here. It's the intonation that's so noticeable. RoseCheeks is fairly happy, but way out of sync in her sleep cycles and diet. She has a real hard time going to sleep at night and is very hungry, not eating the food we have here very well. At first she was constipated - there's hardly any fruit or veggies on our menu. Most food is what we could ship up here and light weight if possible. So rice, bisquick, canned soups, etc. We brought some apples and oranges to give away, in an extra cooler. They've been popular. A couple evenings I've cut up apple slices and shared them with the kids visiting us in the evenings. The apples are eaten as fast as I can cut them.

Being here a second time means some people recognize us. The young people are more trusting of familiar faces, so this time the youth are opening up to me when two years ago none of them did.

Got to get back to the crowds and changing RosieCheeks diaper.

Grandparents with RosieCheeks

We just finished a delightful two week visit from CallaLily's parents. We hiked, went to the beach, built a greenhouse, toured a wee bit, and spent lots of time at home. Squeakums got his second fish, this one teeny tiny.

We hoped RosieCheeks would take her first step and start walking while they were here. And she did take a step, while they weren't around to watch. But hasn't started walking.

First Flounder

Squeakums had his third birthday and received a kid's fishing pole from daddy. He excitedly went down to the pier for a first attempt at real fishing. As daddy cast and reeled over and over again, Squeakums liked to let his bait (cheese) just wait while he sat on the stony beach. On his final cast, both parents were silently praying that he'd catch something. The young fishermen all around us were pulling fish in left and right, while we had nothing yet. Then there was that familiar tight line. And a slow reel in revealed a nice sized flounder. Good job, buddy.