North to Alaska

Kia ora koutou katoa

Nicole Cunningham and I left Christchurch at 6.50 am on Thursday morning to travel to Hawaii and on to Anchorage Alaska as part of my Canterbury Primary Principals' Association Fellowship.

We arrived in Honolulu at about 10pm before heading off to our hotel. Back on a plane to Anchorage at 8.55pm the next day to arrive in Anchorage at 4.30am. Off to the hotel for a shower before heading in to the final day of the Bi-lingual Multicultural Equity in Education Conference. There were some very interesting topics, thankfully, and we managed to stay awake for the whole day!

We have been well looked after. The people are very friendly and extremely polite. On the bus in Honolulu we met a lovely American couple called Jim and Sarah. Jim was wearing a New Zealand t-shirt and it turned out that they had spent time in NZ building for Habitats for Humanity and had driven the length of New Zealand in a camper van. It is a small world.

On Friday and again yesterday we went to the High School Native Games which are on here in Anchorage. The students compete in traditional sports and events like the high kick where a ball is suspended from a string and they have to see who can kick it at its highest point. We watched the wrist carry where two boys carry a third boy who is suspended from a stick and only allowed to hold on by his wrist - not his hand. They run around a circuit to see who can carry the furthest.

The wrist carry.

Anchorage has been thawing out over the last couple of weeks. Most of the snow around the city has gone but the river is still frozen and there is plenty of snow on the hills. It gets dark here for about four hours at present. In summer it doesn't get dark at all.

Tomorrow we travel further north to Fairbanks where we will be visiting schools and spending time with Dr Beth Leonard and Dr Ray Barnhardt of the University of Alaska. They are doing great work for their indigenous children and we look forward to learning a lot from them.

Naku noa iti nei

John