Honestly, I thought the grapevine at Centenary or in Belvidere was a problem. Then I came out to rural Alaska where gossip and information spreads like fireweed. Not only does everyone in my entire village know within what seems like seconds if something happens, but people in other villages know about it as well. I’m starting to think that my life is being filmed similarly to “The Truman Show”.
Two weeks ago, I had another teacher email to just check in and see how things were going. In the email, they also wanted to check in on a situation that they’d heard about in my village. Who they heard this from, I have no idea. Another time, last week or so, one of our visitors mentioned a rumor they’d heard about a family that was looking into leaving the village. This was news to me, and again I wondered who this person had heard the information from.
The topper on the cake thus far, however, has definitely been what I heard this week. One of my co-workers was talking to someone else in the district yesterday who commented on how they’d heard that I made friends with one of the women in the village. Not so bad right? They continued on to ask about how the friendship was doing after said villager allegedly stabbed her husband (this may or may not be true). Rest assured that I’ve barely talked to this woman and again I wondered how this string of information was spread. Clearly, on this one at least, someone messed up the game of “telephone” somewhere along the line.
Mostly, I think it’s funny how quickly things get around down here. Other times, I’m honestly just impressed at how quickly someone in another village can hear happenings of another village. I understand that this is incredibly small town living, but who spreads all this information remains a mystery to me. God only knows what’s going to be said when (not if) people find out that one of the villagers gave me beer and wine. I’m truly surprised that I haven’t heard anything about it yet considering it’s been a whole four days.
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