RITA :  For I don't know how many years, I worked as alternate, then I was married and had children.  And the pay wasn't very good, so there was about four years that I left the health aiding business and worked for the school as a bilingual aid.  And that worked out for a while, about four years. 

And then there was a change at Norton Sound where the primary health aides were not primary anymore, they became full time.  And so they developed the part-time positions where they can get benefits. 
So they had an opening and I came back.  And I worked as a part time health aide for a while until, I think it was '94 when Willa -- well, she became ill and had to go to Seattle.  So I took her position as a full-time aide.  And we made an agreement that I would take her full time until she came back and was well enough and we could switch. 

So I was a full time for about a year.  She came back and got well and she said she liked being part time.  So that's how we just kept it. 
And I'm so, so thankful for the older health aides, they are the ones that taught us all the basics. 

I'll never forget when Willa said, one time we were talking about events that happened, she said if she were to go to another village and she were sick, she would want to be treated with respect and, you know, be welcomed and, you know, have the health aide show compassion.  So she said she's always tried to do that to whoever comes through the clinic door. 

And that was a big lesson for me to learn, to treat everyone who comes in that door as if they were a special person.  You know. 

I guess you grow up in villages and you always have just one or two people that you don't want to see or don't want to meet on the street, and that was very good for me to learn because you know, you really do think if you are in another village somewhere or maybe in another country and you got sick, you would want to be treated with the same respect.

So that's something I also try to teach to the younger health aides that if it weren't for the sick people, we wouldn't have this job.  You know.  And if you like doing what you're doing, you know, show it. 

So I think being a health aide is a very, very big job.  All the villages are different.  All the communities are different.  The cultures and how people learn their respect of the health aides is how you carry on in the community and in your job.  That makes a big difference.