Playing Basketball

We are in Nunapitchuk today. It is a village that we can see from our front door. Usually. When the clouds settle in and I can't see it, I get kind of panicky. Just seeing this village keeps my mind from freaking out about where we are living. Kind of like a reminder that there is still more world out there than our little village.

We brought the junior high kids over yesterday by sno-go. Joe drove and I rode behind him. We had 7 kids with us for the first trip. About a third of the way here we hit a huge snow drift and over we went. He basically threw me off the machine! The kids came running up to see if we were all right. We were but I did get a little panicky. I couldn't tell where we were and if we were on land or the river. There is something about riding on the river that makes it okay. BUT, stopping on the river really bothers me. I do not want to get in the water. Not that I think there's any water out here but what if .... Anyway, I got in the sled and one of the kids rode with Joe and we finally got here. Then Joe went back for the rest of the students and H and N.

We played 2 games yesterday and will play 2 more today. We lost both of them. And we had 20 -30 point leads at half-time. I know that sounds crazy but EVERYBODY got to play. We are struggling with kids who think they are God's gift to Yupik basketball and so we are working to expand our players to a team and not just a few show-offs. Of course, better planning on the coach's part would have helped in the first game and in the second game if they had just dribbled and passed the ball around for the last 20 seconds we WERE winning. Just had to try that last shot.... Oh, well.... we'll try it again this morning.

We spent the night here. When you travel, you have to be prepared to stay over. And now this morning it is blizzarding. I think the temp is okay but you sure can't see much. Supposedly, we don't travel with temps under -25. That includes wind chill. I want to go home to my bed.