Rural exchange

Frontiersman

WASILLA - This week, five students struggled to get out of bed on time, because school started at 7:30 a.m. instead of 9. Then, they rode in cars - cars! - to school, something that never happens back home. The new experience continued as they walked into the doors of Wasilla High School with more than 1,000 other students - more people than their entire town.

The students - Daryl Kingeekuk, Flashman Noongwook, Scott Toolie, Briane Gologergen and Freeman Kingeekuk - are from Hobart Kingeekuk School in Savoonga, a tiny community of 800 on Saint Lawrence Island. They were in Wasilla for seven days as part of the Rose Urban Rural Exchange program. Previously, five Wasilla students - Cory Wagner, Jessi Speer, Megan Walker, Mary-Clare Cable and Michelle Kanosh - spent a week studying in Savoonga as part of the sister school program.

Both sets of students agree that the experience they have gained through the Rose Rural Urban Exchange - both educationally and socially - is one they wouldn't trade.

&#8220Before we went, I heard that the Bush was really racist, and they wouldn't like us because we were white. I was nervous when we first got off the plane, and was really slow and cautious,” Walker said. &#8220But it totally wasn't like that. That's the coolest place.”

That is exactly the mission of the program - bringing rural and urban students together, to learn about each other's culture. Perhaps no other place in the world is as diverse as Alaska, and Wasilla and Savoonga are at the extreme ends of each other on the cultural spectrum.

&#8220Nearly 100 percent of the population speaks Siberian Yu'pik, they are still whaling and they are walrus capital of the world,” said Williams, who was joined on the Savoonga trip by WHS teacher Orrie Reich. &#8220While other villages are trying to revive their culture, Savoonga still has it. When we were trying to find a sister school, I wanted some place totally different than what is here, and that's Savoonga.”

Toolie said the biggest difference - other than seeing cars and trucks on the roads instead of just snowmachines as in Savoonga - is how modern the Valley is compared to his hometown.

&#8220Plain and simple, everything is up to date. Movies, the news, everything,” he said. &#8220Everybody is on time. Everybody has a schedule.”

While visiting the alternate's hometown, students toured several facilities, covering the areas of health care, government, education and subsistence. In Wasilla, Savoonga students visited the new hospital, the police department, the radio station and Alaska Job Corps. While in Savoonga, Wasilla students went to traditional dances, a health care facility and went ice fishing. Toolie is one of the youngest traditional dancers in the village, and Wasilla students tried to take part in the same dances, which honor the culture of the village.

For Wagner, it was also a chance to leave his artistic mark in Savoonga. His host family presented him with a canvas on which to carve - whale baleen.

&#8220I was staying with Ike Kuluwiyis, who is the president of the Bowhead Whaling Commission. I was writing in my journal one afternoon, and he came in with a 7-foot piece of baleen and said, ‘Here's some sandpaper. Get to it.' He let me sand it and do my own artwork on it,” Wagner said. &#8220He's a famous carver, and he just let me carve on his piece. He's got carvings in museums in New York, and the Smithsonian.”

The experience has left such a positive impression in the minds of the Wasilla students that several say they are planning on going back to the village this summer, to hang out with their new friends.

&#8220We've made new relationships that we'll never forget,” Speer said. &#8220That's the biggest thing I got out of it. I loved everything - the people, the culture, the place. Everything.”

The Savoonga students said they enjoyed their time in Wasilla, but their future is in Savoonga. Teacher Joe Miller, who also traveled to Wasilla, said cultural influences keep the students in their village for years to come.

&#8220The culture and their families have a tendency to pull them back to the village, because you can't ignore those things,” Miller said. &#8220Those things are what shape these kids.”

Gologergen, for example, attended Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, but decided to return to the village.

&#8220I was homesick,” she said. &#8220It wasn't home.”

&#8220More people are leaving the village though,” said Freeman Kingeekuk. Two Savoonga students are at Job Corps, while a couple others are studying in the University of Alaska system.