This weekend I had the strangest dream. I was in a very small village, and I was dancing with people I had never met before. I ate reindeer soup and stayed awake until 3:30 in the morning. Then I was flying and flying and flying in an airplane full of spaghetti sauce and cereal that eventually landed on an airstrip in the middle of the tundra.
Oh wait… You know what? Actually, all of that happened.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to head up to Wales on a last-minute trip with Mitch for the 16th annual Kingikmuit Dance Festival. Despite accidentally leaving our food behind, we had such an amazing experience. I met so many welcoming and knowledgable people, and I had the opportunity to watch hours of traditional dance. I got stuck an extra night because of the fog, went on an incredibly fast 4-wheeler ride down the beach, watched adorable babies test out their dance skills, and learned about everything from making a drum to training for the high kick event at WEIO to how to play the game “ninja”.
Sadly, even the best of trips must come to an end, but even the journey home after two days of the festival was an adventure. The weather was beautiful and clear in Wales, but foggy skies in Nome meant that the flight was delayed for several hours. Once we were picked up and had made a stop in Brevig Mission — to deliver some cases of Kellogg’s and Prego to the store — we headed towards home. The fog was so thick that we circled for an hour to see if it would lift, before giving up and heading for an airstrip a ways out of town in the middle of the tundra. As the pilot readied the plane to stay the night in what seemed like the middle of nowhere and we climbed into the Bering Air van that had driven out of town to pick us up, Mitch and I just looked at each other and laughed. And as I exited the van and headed straight into the station and sat down in front of the microphone for the Sunday evening air shift, all I could think was that the last 48 hours of my life felt like some crazy amazing dream that I was so happy was actually reality.
