Sunday, January 22, 2012

Settling into a winter wonderland!

Greetings from north of a north pole! Ok so I am not really north of the north pole but I am north of a town called the North Pole. Things seem to be going well, after a very long day of traveling Wednesday, I finally arrived in Fairbanks- was taken to my home, put my stuff down and ran out the door to go to karaoke, which we later found out was cancelled due to remodeling but went to UAF's on campus bar instead and enjoyed some of alaska's fine microbrews (already a plus from Guatemala!)
On Thursday I was up early to start my training at Joel's place. Joel's place is a non-profit that allows a safe place for youth to hang out. It is a skate par, a coffee bar, and offers one hot meal a day. It was founded in response to the many runaway youth in Fairbanks 12 or 13 years ago. I know its hard to believe that there would be runaway youth in Alaska, but it is actually one of the biggest issues. Having places like joel's place help cut back on drug use of teens, prostitution, and deaths by freezing. So it is really awesome to be working with a program that was made solely to help protect vulnerable people.

yesterday we met up with this lady named sister Barbie. Her nickname comes from the various charitable things she does throughout the north star burrow. She has been very helpful in helping us locate furniture for our home and connecting us to several different organization which is very kind of her, but I have to admit she is by far the most eclectic person I have met in Alaska thus far. We went to her house outside of the town North Pole to meet her for our grand furniture adventure. She was wearing a custom made beaver coat that went down to her ankles, with neatly curled blondish white hair. I quickly learned that she was a born again Christian that loved to tell stories! Which oh lard we heard some stories while driving all over the frozen north in search of the furniture that had been moved from one of her 3 storage units to another one. After we finally found the furniture, she treated us to dinner at Pikes. Pikes is an incredibly spendy (that's Alaskan for expensive) restaurant right on the river front. The river front is frozen over right now so it has actually become an ice bridge! There is a pool of money every year for the person who guesses the time and day the river will have thawed out enough for a car to fall through!!! Hahaha I think you can actually win quite a bit of money too! After dinner we politely declined her invitation to hear jazz music and be on a Christian radio show because we were so tired from the day.

Yesterday was a lazy day, we laid around and enjoyed the last bit of our weekend before starting at our sites today.

So far my service site is very nice! I am in charge of an afterschool program that assists youth in achieving career goals by helping them attain their GED or high school diploma and though career development trainings. Today. I worked at a fair for the homeless community of Fairbanks. It was amazing all the resources this fair pulled together! Most of the booths required a referral form for future appointments but Joel's Place was handing out winter clothing that had been donated, a salon was giving away free haircuts, and there was a free manicurist and pedicurist to help clean up the appearance of the homeless people there. It is a great program that the town of Fairbanks offers every year! I am slowly learning how people just lose control and find themselves in situations they never thought they would be in. And this can range from drug and alcohol use to wrong investments to being fired from a position and not being able to get int the system long enough to stay a float. Today was very eye opening for me and I am excited to learn more and participate more in this side of life. I am hoping it will further my education of the "real world" and allow me to grow ever more open, patient, and understanding.