Every time I think I’ve witnessed it all out here I get proven wrong. Each day, the travel coordinator from district office sends the list of who will be flying where the following day. Sometimes this is the only warning we get to let us know that we will be having visitors in PIP. On Tuesday we were surprised to find that we’d be having visitors the following day. And so begins the story of the village event that is known as picture day.
Our two visitors were the school photographers and they would be in Pilot Point for 24 hours taking school photos. You would think that with only 12 students (our senior finished this past week and so she’s no longer in the village) we wouldn’t need that much time. However, the photographers not only take school photos, but they also offer a window of time for families in the village to come out and get pictures taken. At first I didn't think that any of the locals would come, but I was happy to find that the families with younger children all wanted pictures of their kids.
Once they got set up and ready to take pictures, we had been planning to send the kids out one by one. Our initial hope was to try to keep out daily routine intact.. Well in traditional PIP fashion, our kids could not help but want to know what was going on in the library where the pictures were being taken. I can’t blame them because I wanted to be out there too. The photographer was a really funny guy and we all kept hearing giggles. Slowly, we all started making our way towards the library to get a glimpse of what was going on. Before we knew it, Chris and I had both put our lessons on hold and picture day officially became auditions for Alaska’s Next Top Model.
As each student went up for their picture (wearing a variety of clothing choices from PJ’s to sparkly dresses and button up shirts), they had a small audience cheering them on. Not only this, but our kinder was commentating the event and her innocent brutal honesty was hilarious. Our students had so much fun with the photographer and watching each other make their best picture perfect smiles was a great break in our afternoon. Granted, this didn’t last very long because we only have 12 students, but we were all laughing by the time pictures were done.
That night, a few different families came out to get pictures taken, but there aren’t very many families so that didn’t take long either. Because I live there, I was at school during this time. I spent most of the evening talking with the couple that came out to take the pictures. They were so friendly and as we talked, I felt like I had known them for years and not that I had just met them a few hours earlier. What I have come to realize about meeting new people out here is that we aren’t shy to share our lives with each other. We live in an environment where someone is always coming and going and so we don’t have time to hold back. When we have visitors, we don’t make small talk about the weather, we dive in and get to the “real” stuff. I love the honesty and the stories that come along with the people I meet. My favorite thing to learn is everyone’s “Alaska” story; I’m always curious to know if people have grown up in Alaska or if they are like me and they’ve just been lucky enough to stumble upon the opportunity to come out here. In just a few hours, I knew quite a bit about this couple and their lives. Needless to say, my Wednesday night was spent in good company:)
The next morning our photographers had to push the schedule forward because their plane was coming earlier than planned. It was blowing hard outside so most of our planes would be grounded for the day if they didn’t get out at the right time. Thursday’s schedule only consisted of shooting the whole school photo (which my biggest fan chose to opt out of) so it didn’t inconvenience anyone. There was a very brief break in the rain and the wind in which it looked beautiful outside, so we went and took our picture in front of the lake (yes with schools as small as ours, our photos can be taken outside!). As we stood there waiting for him to get ready we all became shorter as we began to sink in the mud. The ground had looked firm, but we quickly learned that it was not; a few of our students had to just wear their socks for the rest of the day because their shoes got so muddy. And just like that, our photo was done and the photographers were out the door and headed to Egegik. It was a very nice albeit unexpected visit to break up the week. We’ll see how the school photo turned out when my copy arrives in two weeks!
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