My summer started off okay. After school got out we would have Eskimo dance practice almost everyday after bingo until Jack left for Mt. Village to find a job for the summer. After that my summer days got boring because I had nothing to do. I would just hang out with friends and play basketball or walk around. Some days my sister Palassa would ask me if I wanted to babysit her kids while she worked at the Post Office. That would only be on Saturdays, although one time she asked me to babysit her kids while she went out berry picking. She took off around 2:00 in the afternoon and came back at midnight. When she came back I told her that I was never going to babysit her kids that long again. She told me that they took that long because they got soaked in the rain and stopped at Leslie's cabin to dry up before they came home. Another reason was that they had a very slow boat and it took them two hours to get to the picking place.

Another time I babysat for my brother Vassily and Lena when they went over the Bethel to shop. They told me that they would come back the next day, so I said that I would babysit for them. When they took off I rode the kids around most of the day and brought them to the playground. Towards the evening I was wishing that my brother and Lena would come home because I was having a lot of trouble getting the kids to bed. The next day I brought the kids out for a while, really expecting my brother and Lena to come home. I kept checking the airport whenever planes came in but there was no sign of my brother. So I was stuck with the troublesome kids for one more day. Finally the next day they came in the afternoon and their kids were very happy to see them.

Another thing I did during my summer vacation was go out on boat rides almost every day after Jack came back from Mt. Village. We would mostly take rides to Wilson or to the sandbar. We would go to Wilson to bait fish or just for the ride. One time Jack, Walter, Nus, and I went up to Wilson to fish. Jack brought an extra fishing rod for me to try. He said that people who first time fish usually catch some fish. When we got to Wilson, we put some fish eggs on our "J" hooks and cast them out. While waiting for some nibbles on the eggs we talked about any old thing. Walter was the first one to catch a fish, then Jack. After a while I finally caught one. I was kind of scared because it was my first time bait fishing, so I told Jack to reel it in for me. While we were there Walter caught three white fish, Jack caught two, and I caught two. We were up there for about an hour and a half and came home because it was getting boring.

One of the best things I did during my summer vacation was Eskimo dance practice. We had a lot of fun learning a couple of new songs, one from Russian Mission and one from Chevak. They are both very good songs to dance and sing. I hope to perform them sometime very soon.

Tatiana Sergie