KAREN:  All the time you worked as a health aide, did you have a clinic in a building or did you have to do this from home? 

PAULA:  When I started out, I had -- we had no clinics in the village.  The only little cubbyhole in -- in BIA building, excuse me, in BIA building, there was one little room that wasn't being used.  I was able to keep my -- keep little bit of medicine in there in the cabinet, and some -- something in there. 
And no clinic. 

And then in 1970, we finally got clinic, but it took about two, two, three years before people actually started coming. 

The doctors and nurses really supported me when -- when they come to the village.  They tell me -- I mean, they will tell the people that come to the clinic.  He wasn't visiting from house to house anymore.  So that really helped.  Then I wasn't going around too much, you know. 

KAREN:  So before you had the clinic, you would go make house calls? 

PAULA:  Uh-hum.  Yeah.  Lots of house calls.  And there was one -- excuse me. 

Anyway, there was -- I was giving shots to a couple of boys, and one family where there's lots of children.  And those two boys were really deathly scared of shots.  I was giving penicillin, and the first shots, you know, they were very crying and very fighting, maybe two days. 

And then they got the idea.  Each time I'm -- I'm coming to that house to give them a shot, they'd go under the bed and hide.  And the parents had a hard time taking them out for me to give them shot.  That was very funny. 

KAREN:  Because I do know that in other places before there were clinics, the health aide would have clinic at their houses. 

PAULA:  Yeah.  Well, you have something in the house, that black bag, but we didn't have very much -- excuse me -- like I said, the only thing, medicines, there was aspirin and Triple Sulfa, and then later on Tetracycline.  All the rest are penicillin. 

And penicillin, you have to keep in BIA refrigerator.  Because you can't keep them at home.  And I didn't have refrigerator.  Up to this date, I still don't have refrigerator. 

KAREN:  Really? 

PAULA:  Yeah.  But there's other ways to keep your things from being spoiled. 

KAREN:  So you had men -- you mentioned that since you retired, you're continuing to do research on different medical topics.  Why do you think you have this interest in doing all this research? 

PAULA:  Well, I enjoyed that research so much, and teaching it.  I always liked to share things that I know all the time.  And it's also -- it started when my -- when my parents told me, every knowledge, I have good knowledge, I always share it with other people.  And you'll get more knowledge that way.  But if you keep that knowledge to yourself, it will get old in there, you know. 
So I'm always wanting to share things.  So I do research and share them with other people. 

And I learned so much from them, it's good.  It gives you a lot of good knowledge.  Whenever they have any kind of workshop, I've gone -- Clara and I have gone through it all.  It's -- you know, it's just a review for us because we've done it already. 

And then so I -- and I like to read.  Whether it's doing research or just for information, or reading a book, you learn a lot from reading book.  Because my original language is Yup'ik language.  And my second language is English, and if I don't understand a word, I use dictionary to find what it means. 

In fact, during the research, I organize what I'm doing, the research, I write it down, organizing it, and also putting it into Bush language so that everybody can understand.  Most of the things I research is in college language.  So I use dictionary a lot to put it into Bush language and then give the information out. 

All -- during all that doing that, I -- and then you type the -- from draft typing it, you learn a lot doing that. 

So it's -- after two years -- two years after I retire, I had that itching to do, to -- to do something else and learn. 

And most -- most of the thing I miss was researching, you know, start reading health book and organizing, and during that when I was teaching through teleconference, I missed doing the teeth.  So I -- I did that a couple years ago, I think, or last year.  And I've done some hair because I -- I didn't do the hair.  Now we have that, hair.
 
And there are other things besides just hair that I could -- I'm going to do some more like what the dyes and perm does to the hair, what the rubber band does to the hair.  I want people to know that. 

KAREN:  And all of this you put in the Delta Discovery column there? 

PAULA:  Uh-hum.  Yeah.  Send it to Delta Discovery and they'll put it on paper. 

So I have that -- I -- one time in my life, too, I wrote a book.  And I had so many pages in it.  And -- and it -- when our house burned down in 1991, I think it was in '90 or '91, the -- all 7 chapters, 17 chapters burned.  And I never rewrite it.  And -- but...

KAREN:  What was it about? 

PAULA:  Oh, some experiences in life, some stories, like these stories that Native people have, they have stories, you know.  And all the experience I had, like when I went to Tacoma, Washington, you see people and you smile at them, you say hi to them.  And find out that they found me weird for doing that.  Just the difference of the different cultures. 

I had to learn it the hard way.  There was lots of -- and it was very lonely and you feel this being alone.  And in that time, too, people were so -- the races were so different and excluded from each other.  Do you know what I mean?
 
KAREN:  Yeah.  Discrimination? 

PAULA:  Yeah.  Race.  Nowadays I always say when the Blacks used to be pitch black, and when the Whites used to be pure white.  And when the Indians used to be totally red, you know, and us Natives being totally yellow, you know.  But nowadays, we mingle together and we -- it's okay to be without a people.  And there's no prejudice.