La aldeíta

So, we've arrived in Bethel, and as one acquaintance diplomatically put it, "Bethel's nothing much to look at, but the people are great". Succinct and deadly accurate. This is one dismal-looking little town, but so far the people have been nothing but kind and even friendly. This allays the greatest of my fears about Alaska-- that nobody would be nice to me.


Since my last post we spent a few more days on the road, all of them with a prodigiously puking baby, and finally arrived in Anchorage last Thursday night. We got a few things done in Anchorage, spent a little time with friends and distant but warm family, even took a windy and icy hike up to a look out where we could see all of the Cook Inlet and the little bit of Denali that wasn't shrouded in clouds. Monday we hopped a plane out to the bush. I'd love to say for adventure's sake that it was a ratty little prop plane with a failing engine, but apparently there's enough of a demand to get out to Bethel that it fills a small passenger jet (converted so that only the rear half of the plane is seats, but still). We checked into the hotel where Esq's office is putting us up for the month and set out to wander around and get our bearings. As I said, everyone has been really nice. Which is good, because there's a lot to make up for.

Someone had told me that milk ran $10 a gallon here. Perhaps that's the winter price, because yesterday it was a mere $6.99. We didn't buy organic, which was twice that. I remain underwhelmed by my "savings". All told, staples for a little less than a week ran us $120. Ouch.

We've started looking for a place to rent, and rents are shockingly high. I say this coming from a large metro area with a high standard of living. And you don't get much for what you pay, but it's better than being left out in the weather. In theory I don't have too big a problem with the high rent prices, because it's what the market will bear. I do hear horror stories, though, about wildly fluctuating utility prices that can run into the several hundreds for no apparent reason. We'll see how true those are. I hope they're exaggerations, but I won't hold my breath. They were true in Mexico.

Today, my first full day in town, went alright. I spent the day with my son in the hotel room, trying to keep him quiet, entertained, and well-fed. He took his naps more or less on schedule and was content with the few toys I packed and with some silly play. I'm so grateful to have gotten a flexible, relatively low-maintenance kid. The long drive along the AlCan was especially trying for him, and though it was hard on us I don't blame him for crying and puking the last three days of it. I was pretty damn sick of my carseat too, but I'm an adult and it's not socially acceptable for me to cry when I want to get out of the car. Also my tummy is more mature and I don't get carsick so easily. Poor kid. The hotel room is small and uninteresting, but he's not strapped down all day. Tomorrow we'll set out in search of the library. I'm hoping that it's public and not for Alaska Native exclusively. Here's hoping.

I'd post some pics of our new digs, but there isn't enough bandwidth here to upload photos. Rather, there's available bandwidth but the solitary provider charges out the nose for it and so the hotel prohibits things like uploading large files and streaming videos. So much for the otherwise "unlimited" Sesame Street stream I'd planned on for LittleBit. Ah, life in the bush. More to come. Wish me luck on the library.