I cant believe it! I have been really busy, extremely actually. Hence my lack of entries. Ok everyday at DOT is crazy! I'll get up in the morning and have no idea what will happen in the office. Seriously its chaos-and i love it. We meet alot outside the going on DBE outreach meetings. the style we use is really strong and connecting face to face with 'clients.' most dbe owners listen to our speil about support services and we listen to their concerns. I handle the pr marketing aspect of support services. that could mean creating a logo, brochure, name/slogan, scheme, marketing strategy etc etc. its great. at the same time im the acting editor of the office newsletter. basically interviewing alot of people, and creating a template for the newsletter. tehn i have alot of other 'little' projects.
one such 'little' thing is certifying or renewing dbe status. this requires us to make an office visit. one dbe we have is located in a small village along the yukon river on the western side of alaska.
ok i want out tuesday with carla to visit the dbe. such a life changing experience. ive been to poor places. from super rural towns in minne to carolina. In egypt i saw too much everywhere. but nothing could prepare me for this kind of poor. the sad thing was these people have lived here longer than the age of our country and here they are in this isolated village scraping in all ways.
i left the hotel at 5 am and set out to the airport. i had no idea what to pack for our day trip. at work we were told the high on monday was 38 so pack warm for ccold rain. i didnt bring my winter jacket so my boss at work passed along his coat and wool sweater. yeah awkward-but nice. i wore my boots, jeans and sweater. i packed a fleece vest, sneaker (in case we walked alot), jacket and sweater. i took my laptop intending to do some work from the office. i just made it to the plane after security. we rode alaska air. the airline is so laid back and the staff are really open minded. the airport was filled with rubbermaid boxes and igloo coolers. and dogs. i swear it must have had more dogs than the paris airport. and not those big hunting dogs, no those little catlike dogs-what are they called lap dogs. everyone carries these huge boxes and bins filled with food. they are all going out into the "bush". yeah thats what they call rural alaska. they buy bush buying at sams or costco because even in marshall village, their is a co-op and connex box store but the food prices are outrageous. i bought no 3 candy bars and 2 of those little capri sun juice and it was over 6 dollars. really and one can of can of soda is 1.50 yeah 12 oz. you can get 2 liters for under 2. anyway really im not cheap but i am unwilling to pay for something that isnt fairly priced. naturally this is hard for me to say for this case because i know that the trip up to marshall is super expensive and therefore everything is expense. anyway. ok
i know everytime i write i write an essay but this time its really important.
after the airport we rode on a half cargo half people places. it was fine. then we arrived in a 'bigger' town Bethel. we went next door from the main airport-it was tiny really tiny. to the even smaller local airport. this airport reminds me of a train station. a sticker spotted counter with old candy machines and really old soda machine. it was funny becuase to check in we just gave our name and then they asked us how much we weighed. yeah. there was this really old native lady in front of us, and she didnt know her weight so they had her stand on the bag weigh place. walking out omgoodness the plane was this little 4 seater. i was like ahhh what -im not ok with this. wear is the leather seats and tvs! it was freaky. we landed an hour later after taking in amazing sights at the marshall airport. it was a gravel runway. the end.
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