Let the adventure continue...: This is going to be my life??

I had my first real day of work today- meaning I took my first village trip and experienced some of the work I'll actually be doing (not just reading and hearing about it). It was good, I'm not leaving, ha!

I went with another itinerant nurse who has been doing this for 9 years. Things have been pretty crazy for the itinerant nurses because while there should be 4 nurses for 30 villages, for many months now there have only been 2 and they've just been trying to keep things moving. So, today our goal was just flu shots, which is easy enough. We took a flight into the village of Circle and 2 hours later got back on the plane to Chalkyitsik for a few more hours. Most of our time was spent in the school (with adults coming in as well) and did some home visits all for flu shots and a few other immunizations.

While the work today wasn't all that interesting, it was a nice introduction to village visits and really cold weather. It was -25 when I left Fairbanks at 7:30am and about -40 when we arrived in Circle (and had to walk to the school!), then it was about -25 when we left Chalkyitsik. That means I also put on pretty much all my winter clothes, then took off most of my clothes when we got to the schools.... and repeat!

I got a lot of questions and concerns about all these flights, but I'm happy to say that it was totally fine and actually pretty fun! We were in a 5 seater (including the pilot) and it's actually calmer in the winter because the warm air mixing with cold causes turbulence (or something... I'm not an expert... yet).