alaska II

so where did i leave off?  i think it was when we arrived in naknek.  so, we arrived later in the day that first day and didn't do much exploring past ags and the beach.  the next morning we had orientation, which consisted of a powerpoint presentation of people we needed to know and things not to do, and this fabulous "germbusters" video.  it was completely in mime since it's supposed to be for people with many different linguistic backgrounds, but the premise was that everytime someone did something that you shouldn't do because it would get the fish germy, there was this radioactive neon glow surrounding that object to show you should not do it.  things like wiping your nose on your hand.  which is highly ironic because i spent the next three weeks wiping my nose all over my shirt.  (probably how i got the cold to my eye, giving myself pink eye.  i know, i'm fabulous.)

after that, we did all the usual stuff like tax forms and filling out emergency contacts, and were told there wasn't any work for us that day.  so melody and i ended up walking down to naknek to look around and make phone calls from the fisherman's bar--which has this totally awesome phone booth.  we actually did a lot of that through the 22nd.  napping, reading (thank goodness the local library had a free book shelf with things like margaret atwood, m.m. kaye and p.d. james on it), journaling, and writing postcards.  i think we went into naknek almost every day for one reason or another just because we didn't have much else to do besides eat a lot of donuts and drink a lot of pochas.  (poor man's mocha--hot chocolate and bad coffee.)  i also learned this really awesome card game from dean called benny, which is probably the only card game i will ever play.  if you are my friend, you will be most likely unfortunate enough to be forced to play it with me at some point in the near future.

we also had some other adventures, such as walking on the beach towards the bay, melody and i avoiding "our eskimo friend" as i took to calling him, and playing more benny.  oh, i totally got hit on in fisherman's one afternoon while i was waiting for mel to finish a phone call by a couple of fisherman.  they were both pretty harmless, but it was so funny because they were drunk (as fisherman are often to be found). 

i also have a haiku i wrote:
fish fish fish fish fish
fish fish fish fish fish fish fish
fish fish fish salmon.

i know, totally the most awesome thing ever.
sorry this isn't entirely cohesive; i have my journal out, but i'm just sort of skipping around in it.  next installment: we begin to work, i contract the cold from hell, and i get a tour of the cannery!  hooray!

BONUS: "who needs a shower when you have wet wipes?" (colleen)  also: "if you want to see iowa, go to the produce aisle." (vikas)