Spring Break in Kong

           This semester is going pretty fast so far, and it is already the middle of March. (Spring break is the week of March 17 to March 21.) Our school gets a one-week spring break for all of the teachers and students. Since I am still fairly new here and don’t have much money, I chose to stay in Kong during the break. Also, a majority of the other teachers decided to go on small vacations (Megan and Garnet went all the way to Mexico.) or to visit family, so I am almost here alone. The reason I say that I am almost here alone is that I am dog sitting for the teachers. I have Hermes, who is Megan’s dog. Hermes is a poodle mix, so he is this fluffy white dog and is full of energy. I also am watching Mabel, a puppy that Cori got from the village, who I might be able to keep. The reason I might be keeping her is because Cori has terrible dog allergies that she did not know about. But, having the dogs as company over spring break is going to be a real fun time.

            My biggest excitement for things to do was actually walk the mile from my apartment into the village. I really needed to go to the store, and since I do not have an ATV or snow machine the only way to get to the village was to walk. It was a chilly day, but luckily there was barely any wind. I walked all the way to the store and took some great pictures of downtown Kong, so I would be able to share them with my family and friends. The weirdest part was going to the store and having so many people just look at me in this weird way, since I was a teacher that actually stayed in the village over spring break. Many of the villagers even left the village to visit family, so there were not many people in Kong at this time. Overall, the walk into the village was absolutely amazing.

            Besides walking into the village, I wanted to go exploring around the tundra. However, I did not want to be alone. To fix that problem, I decided to take Hermes on these really long walks to see where all of the boardwalks in Kong lead to. The boardwalk is pretty much like a boardwalk on the beach, except this is what ATV’s and snow machines can travel on. And, Kong has two boardwalks: one is very new and the other is pretty old and falls apart a lot. I wanted to see where the old boardwalk would lead. So, Hermes and me started our walk towards the lonely cell phone tower in Kong, despite the other teachers warning me that the old boardwalk can break and you will fall through at any time.

            The walk was amazing. I wanted to walk closer to night so I would be able to photograph one of the amazing sunsets that we get in the Alaskan tundra. As we were walking towards the cell phone tower, I was just in my own little zone when I hear this crack. I just thought the boardwalk was a little squeaky, so we kept walking. All of a sudden I took another step and my foot when right through the boardwalk! I literally had my foot in a giant hole. Luckily, I wasn’t stuck. I pulled my foot out and decided to just be a little more careful this time when I was walking since we still had quite a bit to go before we reached the cell phone tower. Once we reached the cell phone tower, I noticed that the boardwalk still didn’t end. So, Hermes and me continued on this journey to find what would be at the end of the boardwalk.

            After about five more minutes of walking, I got to see some metal objects in the distance. As we walked towards these objects, I realized that they had some words written on them. It turned out that they said, “No swimming in the lake”. At the end of the boardwalk was actually a second lake. It was just amazing to see this second frozen lake! We have the one lake that separates the village from the school, but to find another one all the way out here was pretty cool. I stood there for a few minutes just to look at the lake then turned around to go back home.

            I continued to go on walks to the lake or the village for pretty much my entire spring break. I was also trying to potty train Mabel, so she could stop making messes in the apartment. Dog sitting was a little tiring since Mabel is so young and has to be taken outside a lot. Luckily Hermes was a really good dog, which was a relief.

            Once the teachers started to come back on the weekend, it was nice to give the dogs backs. I was just a little surprised that I would not be keeping Mabel since someone else wanted her. I just got upset, since I started to bond with her so well over spring break. And now, I had to give her up. That was probably my least favorite day of spring break, but other than that I got quite a bit of exercise and took some amazing photographs.