The Start of the Adventure part 2

Becca, Alex, and I were luck the day that we arrived in Montana. Our fights arrived earlier than expected and we missed the smoke from the fires. Our site coordinator, Jack, meet us at the airport and drove us for two hours to Chinook. When we got to our site, we had a chance to see Jack's church and meet our host families. Becca and I are staying with the Andersons. Alex is staying with the Edwards.

The Andersons own and run an apiary. Becca and I have had a chance to look around their shop and also got to see how they get honey from their bees.

The next day our orientation started with a walk around town. We went to the post office, visited some of the places where we will be working, meet some of the people we will be working with, and where interviewed for the towns local paper.  Finishing off the day, we went out to a meet and greet event to let the people in town have a chance to get to know who we are. There was  a lot of conversations with people we meet earlier along with many more new people.

The following days became more relaxedwith more places to see, paperwork, and discussions of what to expect. Most of the discussions where form how things have happened in the past years that Chinook has been a YAV site. For me, it was overwelming to try to remember so many people here in one week. I am starting to get to know some faces, but the names will come in time. Jack told us that it is ok if we don't know everyone right away. That is comforting to know.

 I have also learned a bit about the economy here in Chinook during the week. With my degree in business, I am nateurly interested in understanding how the local economy works. Here,they have a lot of small family businesses. Because of the land being rural, they have lot of farms that grow a lot of local goods. The railroad are very important because they are the main way to transport their goods they grow nationally. They also have a casino. I know that from a business perspective this is may appear to be a hard place to run a business and expect it to last a long time into the future. But if I look at it realistically, I see a place where entrepreneurs are born and raised. Thing change over time with business structure but they seem to have their needs met. If they lack in an area, then they build and adapt.

On Saterday, Becca and I helped work concession at the High School's volleyball game. They had two games going at the same time. I think that their was a total of five teams playing there that day. It seemed to me that when they finished a game and switch off playing a different team. When Alex showed up we got hem to help work concession with us.