Once we were done with our training, the other tutors and I didn’t have much time to waste. We spent our two days in Anchorage taking part in non-stop “marathon” shopping, packing, and shipping. The nice part about it was that we had four cars and this allowed us to take girls to and from stores to the house we were staying at. It’s one of those things that I cannot fully explain because you need to experience it to understand.
However, to try to put it into perspective, imagine nine girls set loose in Costco to shop for all they’ll need for three months of living. Sure it may seem simple to you now, but if you really try to think of all that you’d need for that time, you’d be surprised at how quickly you can either panic or just draw a blank. Once the shopping begins, so does the packing. So again, try to picture these same girls packing up totes to send out to the villages. This is all done in a two floor rental house which luckily was pretty spacious. Looking at the amount of broken down boxes we left behind, you’d have thought we were preparing to spend a long time in a fallout shelter; it’s surreal to think of all that was purchased and packed during those two days.
While we were all feeling the jet-lag from our travel days, we carried on with adrenaline and caffeine as our fuel. So back to the imagining what we were going through.. Once all of the food has been purchased, you have to take into account the amount of luggage that was packed (overpacked I should say). For your first time out to the village, you need to account for the time it takes totes to ship in the mail. This means that suitcases had to be unpacked and re-packed to fit two weeks worth of food in them. Everything else would be shipped and arrive whenever the bush planes are able to bring it. For the second time, I mailed out my carry-on bag because I had to leave room for my freeze and chill. This time however, I was prepared to do that and not panicked by the idea of mailing luggage.
After all the shopping and packing had been done, we had to partake in the fun task of getting all of the totes that were being shipped to the post office. Luckily there is a post office by the airport that is open until 11:00, because if not we’d have been in trouble. After what seemed like an eternity, everyone had mailed all that needed to be mailed and we could finally relax a little bit. We headed back to our rental house to pack up our remaining suitcases and totes and make sure that everything was prepped for our day of travel that awaited us the next day. It was a long and tiring two days, but it is also one of the most fun things I’ve taken part in. It’s just such an exciting experience and you really get to bond with the people that you are with. I was ready for a very long nap afterwards but I am so happy that I got to take part in another marathon shopping excursion:)
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