Sunday, September 30, 2012

Village Visits

Thursday and Friday of this week we had district wide in-services, which means that every teacher from every school got together depending on if they were high school or elementary to learn something new. The high school people (which is the group I am in) went to Mountain Village, where the District Office is and where we learned a lot about something called Constructing Meaning. I learned a lot, and it was great to reconnect with some of the other teachers I met at New Teacher Orientation, but I think the best thing about the in-service was getting to go to a new village. It was vastly different than my own village. 
If you look closely, you can see their cemetery on the side of the hill

By the water's edge, lots of boats, pretty hill
Probably the biggest difference between their village and my village was the mountains. I wouldn't, under normal circumstances, call them mountains, but that was the difference. If you haven't noticed from my pictures in the previous blog, the land here is very flat. However, Mountain had massive hills. I heard one of the other teachers say that when she was walking back to the school from the store she thought she was going to pass out because of how steep the hill was. I didn't think it was really that steep, but after walking on extremely flat ground for such a long period of time, it did make my legs a little sore. I grew up in the Ozark Mountains, so I wasn't expecting that to be difficult at all. 
A view from the hill- The tall building is the church

Another pretty big difference was their store. We have three stores, and they are all very nice. However, in Mountain Village, they have two stores, one of which was extremely nice! They had couches and movies and cook ware. I was even able to buy sleeping bag straps there. Plus, they have a whole long wall full of freezers stuffed to the brim with frozen dinners and such. They had fresh vegetables and even store bought cakes and donuts!  It was like a dream compared to our stores. I felt like I was in a Wal-Mart. 

Part of our village, very spread out housing
The last difference I will talk about today is the set up of the village. I wish I had my camera out when we were flying over the village. I was able to get pictures coming back into our village, but not of Mountain. Our village is a total of three miles wide. It is all spread out along that three miles. Their village is all compacted together. The school is at the center. The houses and stores and everything is all wrapped around the school like a tight little ball. 


View of the water

Furs they sell in their stores
Seeing the differences between my village and someone else's made a huge impact. I'm excited to see the other villages, like Kotlik, where they don't have any roads, just board walks. We also got our first sticking snow, although it didn't last long. I woke up yesterday morning to see snow clinging to the board walks. By the time I left the house a few hours later to get work done, it was all melted. Life sure has been different out here in the bush. Lots of thing have changed my viewpoint of life from living out here. I have learned so many things and I hope that my students have learned as much from me as I have from them. Life in the bush has definitely been interesting for me, a small town girl from Northwest Arkansas. I hope those of you reading this have enjoyed hearing about it as much as I have enjoyed living it. 

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Things Change, Roll With It

Here I am sitting with my new friends watching the game as the men finish cutting up the moose they caught this week and I can count the ways in which my life has changed. 


Akutaq, Eskimo Ice Cream.
Not as bad as I was told it was,
 but I was told this was more fishy than normal.
It usually has more crisco flavor.
1) My diet. I used to HATE fish. I mean, I really didn't like the texture, the smell, or even the look of fish meat. Now, here I am, eating akutaq (a-goo-tuck) and baked salmon and everything! I don't all of a sudden like eating fish, but my stomach handles that food better now. I also never liked tea, and last night sitting in the living room watching television drinking a cup of hot tea and actually enjoying it. 
2) Hobbies. I always loved reading, but now I do a lot more of it than I used to. I also can't go bowling or hang out at the shopping areas, go get coffee, or really anything that I used to do. We don't have places to go hang out except for our houses. I enjoy reading, playing games, and watching television shows with my co-workers more than I have ever done before. It is nice, in a way, to not have places to go and be able to spend quality time with the people around me. They are pretty interesting people.


3) New Respect For Meat. We spent most of today processing the meat from the moose one of the other teachers caught. I didn't ever think about how the meat was processed. I just went to the store, or waited for my parents to take the cow down to have it cut up. Today, I helped do all the work. We even had a meat grinder and made ground moose meat. CRAZY! I never realized how much work it was. And when you take the cow to a processing plant or pick up a pound of meat from the store, it probably hasn't been done the same way as we did it today. We did everything by hand. The meat grinder wasn't electronic, the guys had to use their muscles and pump the grinder. It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I was part of it, now I'll have more knowledge of the whole thing than I did before. 
Moose head from the moose we processed
4) Speeds higher than 15 MPH scare me. I am not going to lie, I have a little bit of a lead foot, but since being here, the only vehicle I have ridden on is the four-wheeler. All we have are dirt roads, so there isn't really a reason you would go much faster than that. I was thinking about how I used to drive 50 MPH coming home from college, and now that just seems way too fast. 


Me eating the akutaq
5) Saying Hello to Everyone. I walked home from the restaurant the other night and almost everyone I walked past I knew and said hello to. Back home when you walk down the street or even through the store, you ignore everyone or just smile. Here, you know everyone in town, so you say hello to everyone. It is cool, and it sometimes makes me feel like a superstar. I like the community feeling here. 
Despite the fact that my students have been frustrated by my lack of knowledge of the Yup'ik language (that is the traditional language of the people) and the Yup'ik teacher said that the dogs crying at night means something bad is going to happen, I'm truly enjoying it out here. It has been a great experience. I love everyone out here. I love everything I have done. And I love the lifestyle I'm living out here. I know that I am truly blessed.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

We Are All Together Here

The potluck part of the potlatch. Look at all that delicious food!
How should I start this blog? So many things to tell, so many things to share. What a full week we have had out here in the bush. Alakanuk celebrated early this week and then as the week went on we had an alarming tragedy. What a week!! As our new airport is supposed to be finished this coming week, the community decided to have a potlatch in honor of the airport and all the hard work that went into it. It was my first ever potlatch out here and I wanted to share about it. But then, on Wednesday there was a tragic fire in the village that has effected most people around here. Our village will be filled with people from other villages as they come to mourn the death of an elderly woman. Such a sad occasion merits some mention in this week's blog.
mm, yummy!
Tuesday we had a great time. There was a big potlatch celebration. Our new airport is almost complete,  so we all got together at the tribal building for the evening to share a meal and have an Eskimo dance. Anytime we can get together to dance out here, we do. A potlatch is basically the same as a potluck, with the Eskimo added onto it, which is a lot of fun. There were tons of different foods that people brought out, and it was all delicious! 

Of course, those of you who know me, know I'm not a big fish eater. But a lot of the food had moose meat instead, which is delicious, so I had plenty to eat. Unfortunately, no one brought any Eskimo ice cream, which they call something like agudik, although there is no guarantee that this is the way they spell it. It is made up of fish, berries, crisco, and fish oil. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? Well I've been holding out, waiting to taste some, but they haven't had any yet. 

what a group of friend
The potlatch was supposed to begin at 5, but, of course, like everything else around here it didn't start exactly on time. The people in this culture don't really stick to time schedules like down in the lower 48. I only stayed until about 8:30, and one of the other teachers said she left about 9:30, so these potlatches last quite a few hours, but I don't think they went on much past 10, seeing as it was a school night and stuff like that. 

I took a short video of the people doing one of the Eskimo dances. Hope you enjoy the video. This dance would go on for about 10 minutes, but I tried to get the main part of the dance. The part in this video would be repeated over and over again within that time frame, which may sound boring, but I dare you to watch it until you can do it yourself and tell me how long it takes. One more thing I wanted to tell you I don't know if I included in another blog is that you will notice all the women have either fans (made to look like bear claws) or gloves on. You are not allowed to dance unless you are wearing gloves or have fans. It's pretty interesting how they do things like that. 

Wednesdays are our early out days. We let the students out an hour early so we can do some in-service and get things done without the students being around. As we were sitting down to start our meeting Wednesday, someone came in and notified one of the aides about something. He immediately got up and left and word was passed around the room. His grandmother's house was on fire! We sent four of the teachers to go out and help fight the fire as well.

girls playing


I know that fires are always a danger and we always need to be cautious about them, but this is more severe out here. There are no fire hydrants and no hoses or any other materials to put out big fires. Also, these houses are super old. When one catches on fire, there is not a whole lot of chance for you to stop it and get it under control. On top of that, the houses are pretty close together so when one catches on fire, you have to try to get it under control as soon as you can, otherwise whole neighborhoods could go up in smoke. 

Teachers joining the dance
By the time the teachers got there, the whole house was engulfed and flames were licking out the window. The house next to it was hot on the side closest to the burning house and they were afraid they wouldn't stop it in time. Fortunately they were able to get water trucks from the construction people at the school and put out the house. The house was completely gone, there is no way it could be salvaged.

As the teachers got there, they were pulling the woman out of the house who lived there. She was an 88 years old woman, with 90% of her body covered in 3rd degree burns. Her clothes had been made of polyester, and even though she had thrown water on her before trying to head out, the fire was in the doorway, and there was no hope. She made it eight hours. They were even able to medivac her to another bigger village, but she didn't make it. They said that because her burns were so severe, her nerve endings had been burned off, so she wasn't in pain and she was even trying to sit up and talk to people. 

This young lady made a bet with a teacher that she could finish that  jaw breaker.... Good luck!!
There were two children in my class who were related to her. One was her granddaughter, who was pretty upset. Another one was her great-nephew. He saw the body as they pulled her out of the house. It was pretty nasty. Even the teachers said they would have nightmares. I can't imagine how it effected him, but I do know it wasn't in a good way. Thursday and Friday were terrible days for this student at school. He was constantly misbehaving and didn't want to listen to anything I said. 
More Eskimo dancing

When something like this happens in the village, it effects EVERYONE! Since so many people in the village are related, one tragic death, like this one, can make everything more negative and everyone on edge. It isn't like in the lower 48 when you can escape tragedies or find something to take your mind off of it. There isn't anything to distract you out here. It is so difficult to deal with these types of things in the village. I would really appreciate prayers out here. 

Last night I went to a bonfire by the Yukon River while four or five foxes were playing around next to where we were. Not many people can make a statement like this. Even though it was a tough week, I still know this is where I need to be. Even though it was hard to deal with what was going on within the community, I know I can bring a happiness and a peace to those in my class who need it. Thank you for reading, for your prayers, and for your support during my incredible journey out here in Alaska. Out here, we are all a team, we are all together here.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Learning the Traditions and Culture

beautiful view at the dock
The people in this place have survived here for many years without any outside influence, and because of this they have some very unique beliefs that are very different from the things that I learned and believed as I was growing up. Most kids in the lower 48 are scared of things like the monster in the closet or under the bed and believe in leprechauns having pots of gold at the end of rainbows or like the Lucky Charms leprechauns. Kids here have been raised believing things similar, yet very much directed to the culture and life out here.

Friday was an early out and for most of the day I only had five students, so it worked out that I had an opportunity to listen to my students tell me some stories about the things that they believe out here. A little side note I feel necessary to share is that when they tell these stories they actually believe them. Even adults who have talked about the "Little People" still believe these stories. Other people grow out of those beliefs and move away from that kind of thinking, but these people don't.

going on a walk where we heard there might be a bear, we were prepared :)
My students told me a few stories about the "Little People" or ik ja nook* in Yup'ik. These are similar to leprechauns, only I don't think they are all dressed in green and have pots of gold at the end of rainbows. The Yup'ik people believe that these creatures live under the ground. I was told of caves that are on the other side of the Yukon River from where we live. The villagers here will never let someone go explore those caves. They believe that is how the "Little People" come out of the ground and if you go into a cave they will kidnap you and force you to live underground forever.

The "Little People" also try to grab you above ground. One of my students said his cousin was walking to fish camp and the grass around her was swaying. There was something moving in the grass. She stopped and looked and saw a "Little Person" look at her. He smiled at her and then began to chase her. Fortunately for her, she made it to camp before he caught her.

we all spent some time shooting
Another story about "Little People" was told to me by a teacher from Scammon Bay. She said her father had been out fishing and camping. He put his fish under his mat and slept on top of them so that the "Little People" couldn't steal them from him. During the middle of the night, however, the fish beneath him began moving. He confronted the "Little Person" about trying to steal his fish and realized he had to fight the "Little Person." The thing about fighting these "Little People" is that they know how to use your strength and size to their advantage, so the harder he fought, the more power the "Little Person" had. He had to be very gentle and patient to beat the "Little Person," which he did succeed in doing and was able to take his fish home to his family.
Our target



Another thing the people here believe in is a long gook*, which is when you hear or see things. My students told me many stories about this on Friday at school. They said that if you wake up in the middle of the night and try to move around but are stuck and can't do anything, it is because someone is on top of you and won't let you go.

They also said sometimes you can see them, walking around. You can tell when it is not real by looking to see if they are actually touching the ground. If they aren't touching the ground, if they are really floating, then you should go another way.

"This is how Oregonians do it!"
One of my students has had an experience where she was in the bathroom looking at her reflection in the mirror and there was no one else in the room. All of a sudden, her hair was bouncing up and down next to her head. One of these spirits was playing with her hair.

Another tradition that I find somewhat fascinating is that before anyone eats, they must first offer a bite to those who have passed before them. This also applies for when you drink something. One of the teachers in this village went out moose hunting with a native villager. She brought coffee with her and before she could take a sip they made her dump a little bit of her coffee into the water, so that those who have passed before her could have some, too.

Bear beware!
One last thing that I found very unique to this culture I have learned. When these people go out hunting or fishing or whatever, they do not guarantee that they will catch anything. They don't say they are going to kill things either because then the animals will not come. You see, they believe that the animal gives itself to you. If you say, "I'm going to catch a moose!" Then you won't see any moose because the moose doesn't choose to give himself to such a greedy person.

I find it very interesting how people believe different things, and how those beliefs are formed. I don't know the background on any of these beliefs I have written about today, but I do find them unique and it is one of the things that makes me love being out here even more. The culture of the Yup'ik people is slowly dying. The kids don't know as much Yup'ik language anymore because they speak English and as things become more westernized the original lifestyle is being lost. When I went seal hunting last week, as one of the other boats was pulling in the seal, the man I went with said to me, "This is our way of life." With the next generations becoming more reliant on the conveniences of the lifestyle of the lower 48, how long will their "way of life" last? I hope that somehow their lifestyle can be perserved. After all, they lived this way for hundreds of years without any help from others.
She found a comfortable seat on the drift wood

*I am not positive on the spellings of these words, I got this much with help from a teacher who has been here for a while. They are probably not correct spellings, but they are educated guesses based on what we know about the language.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Hunting Muklaq in the Bush

We finally caught him

Today I had an incredible experience: I was given the opportunity to go uklaq hunting. For those of you who don't know what muklaq (muckluck) is, it is the Yup'ik word for seal. My roommate and I were invited to go with some of the native school employees and their children. We had an amazing time.
Exhausted after all that seal hunting!

We started off down the slough to begin this incredible adventure. I wore a lot of clothes because speeding down the river in high forty degree weather can be a bit chilly. I had on four pairs of socks, two pairs of leggings, a pair of sweat pants, a short sleeve shirt, two long sleeve shirts, a sweater and a jacket and I still got cold. But it is okay, because next time I go, I will be more prepared. I know what to expect better now.

Ready with his spear
As we went down the river the wife of the couple who took us pointed out other villagers's houses, the different creeks, and certain islands where many seals can be found. It was a lot of fun. I guess I expected us to head out to the open of the Bering Sea, but I was incorrect. The seals hang around a lot of the small islands closer to the village of Nunam, which is where we spent most of our time out on the water.
one of the camps set up for winter

going down a small creek to see what we could find
When I thought of seal hunting, I wasn't really sure what to expect. Would we sit and wait like you do with fishing? Or would you go and look for it in certain areas where they are on land in a pack? I didn't know. It turned out to kind of be a combination of both, though. When we saw our first one, it was just a few hundred yards off the coast. But the interesting part was that when you hunt seal, you hunt them in the water, where they are hunting. They will come up for air, and that is when you attack. You have to pay attention a lot, because if you don't then you will lose the creature.
He's gonna get him this time!!!

We would spot one, head to where it was as it went under water, then wait until we saw it again, and chase it, and repeat that as many times as it took until we were close enough to spear it. The person with the spear would be in the front of the boat. The spear has a rope connected to it so that when you hit the seal, the spear drags out behind it for you to follow. The spear is designed to float, so if you miss, you can drive up next to it and grab the spear to reuse it. Once you have hit it, you can begin using the spears that are designed to make it float if it hits the seal.
wide open spaces are where you can find the most seal

When you catch the seal, if it is still alive, they would shoot it with a gun, which happened both times. We were involved in two seal chases. The cool thing about seal hunting is it is a team effort. You can try to catch a seal by yourself, but it is much easier when there is a large group of people. The first hunt had four boats, the second we had eight.

Yum, Salmon!
We didn't stay out very long today, just about three and a half hours, but it was a very fun time. When we got back some of the other teachers were cutting fish. That was a fun thing to be part of! I'm not a huge fish person, but we had a great time taking silly pictures and hanging out. I love the lifestyle up here, it is very relaxed and natural, the way I feel like things should be.
Beautiful view to a great time

I really enjoyed my first muklaq hunting experience. I learned a lot about the Yup'ik culture and way of life. These people have an amazing history, they have been living this way for so long that it would be unwise not to marvel at the beauty in their everyday tasks. I look forward to many more hunting trips during my time out here in the bush.