Trip 3: Days 34-37

Agasanermi

agasaneq-mi

sunday-LOC(on)

The river is once again a rapidly moving trench of thick slush, its gets more and more solid everyday. It snowed all day yesterday, mostly it was just a fine dusting of snow but towards evening it picked up a bit before stopping.

As predicted yesterday was pretty typical, I talked to J.

This morning I woke up and all of my clocks were on different times so I trusted my phone and went and got ready for church. It wasn't snowing anymore but it is much, MUCH easier to walk now with the snow layer over the icy boards. The priest was there today. I met him last summer and he remembered me so that was cool. He mainly works in Fairbanks but once every quarter he spends a week in Emmonak and a week in Kotlik and since two priests passed away last month his village rotation will probably grow. Church... This will be blasphemous, probably, so avert your eyes now if you think the church is the only path to God...

Church reminds me of witchcraft and wizardry, where the priest stands in front in his long elegant robes beside his ornate book of..uhm.. chants, songs, and ritualized oratory which requires the audience to chant, sing, and ritualistically answer in turn. And then the hand movements which accompany all oratory, and the ritual sacrifice upon the alter (no-longer necessary as Jesus sacrificed for all future time (maybe why no magic happens anymore?)) and the blessings and consumptions and all in the expectation of...uhm...miracles. So basically Jesus was a powerful...uhm...spiritual teacher. Maybe I am only recognizing this because I desire magic to be true, or maybe because I haven't attended church regularly since I was young and naive. Or maybe because over the years I have been trained as a linguist, documentarian, and anthropologist and our culture is not beyond being scrutinized or analyzed in similar ways as any other. Yep so, had I known that priests could do magic I might have gone in a different direction in life, though languages are awesome too and naming magic is the best.

Okay It's safe to read again. Nevertheless the priest's sermon is very different from the deacon's and would probably be useful weekly. He said some good things, made some good points, made me think, so it was a good day at church.

I then returned home, made some peanut better toast and turned on the news to see what was going on outside. I made sure all my recordings were properly backed up and meta-data-'d out. And now I'm writing this.

It has begun to snow again since I got home, and it is heavier than yesterday. Today at 8 there is an Eskimo dance in the community center to say good bye to the deacon who is retiring at the end of the month and the priest who leaves this evening until the next quarter. Before I attend that depending on what is going on, I will probably see if I can go to the school and talk to J. This week hopefully will be busy for me. I have two meetings with elders on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday, and at least two more elders to go say hello to, two or three elders who might call me to tell me when good times to meet are (might call) and I still haven't heard anything from the monolingual speakers and their children so I have to recheck on them this week, and the one young guy who might let me know that he has time to work this week. So fingers crossed for a busy, stressful week! At least it is truly snowing now and the river looks to actually be freezing now, so maybe I will quickly become the next three weeks best entertainment. I can't believe I only have three weeks left and they are only now beginning to work with me, so much to do so little time, Its a good thing I'll be back in April (grant permitting) since I won't be spending the winter here :(

Piurra!

Pekyutmi

pekyun-mi

Monday-LOC(on)

So the Eskimo dance last night was pretty fun, I talked with the priest a bit about various things and talked to some of the dancers a bit. I got home at around 11pm and just went to bed.

On Monday I checked and put together my gear and then headed over to meet with my first elder. Showing up I met him and he said oh I'm not feeling well right now, I can't work with you, just don't work with me, find someone else. Ok, a bit drastic but I have to respect his wishes. So, I went to the store and got some dinners for the week (Beans and pork, hot pockets, chicken-pot-pie, egg roles – basically easy/cheap/microwaveable food). I ran into the nuliaq (wife) of the guy I had just talked to and she apoligized for him being sick and I said its all good, call me when He's feeling better, soo...

Then in my confidence on walking on fresh snow, I walked home and hit an icy patch and my feet slid out beneath me and I landed on the camera's tripod and I still have a bruise and sore on my hip. It was bound to happen sometime.

I then went to the school for my meeting with the Yup'ik teacher... but she had a birthday party to throw so she rescheduled for Tuesday. I got to see wolverine and caribou skins though which was cool. Caribou was soft, wolverine not so much, surprisingly. I then ran into the math teacher and judged for her some fractal design things the student's did. I also agreed to go in to her 9th grade class expository reading class on Thursday and talk about what I do. Said Hi to the science teacher. Then I went and talked to J and began preparing a handout for the kids because I believe the best teaching is through experience and its more fun to do linguistics than hear about it. And that was Monday.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a good day. Until I turned on the news in the evening. Can't wait to get back to Canada. My hosts made no convincing arguments except “we want to keep are guns,” “taxes are sucky,” and “rural people think different.” But when it came to international affairs...blank stares, or equality for everyone, or diversity is good... at least Trump's speech was coherent this time. ANYWAYS... onto the good stuff. I went over to the corporation office and talked to the Yup'ik Dance and Drum Chief. I turned on the camera and the audio recorder and he spent a good thirty minutes introducing himself and talking about Eskimo Dancing. We then spent some talking talking in English (sadly) but he was answering questions about how Eskimo dancing and drumming works, the traditions, and rituals, ect... I need to become fluent in Yup'ik so that I can do all this in the language. He answered my final question in Yup'ik because he was talking about when he was young. Then he agreed to meet with me again on the 24th. Then I saw my second terrible mistake in my three years of work here. The camera was pointing down to the floor for who knows how long. Oops. Always learning.

I headed over to the river, it is frozen. It is no longer moving. The Yukon has finally frozen over. I talked to one of the guys down there and he said it took 4 hours to go 8 miles from the coast to the village last night by boat and the little ice breaker they have here was having trouble. So we'd probably be able to walk across in the next day or two (I'll wait a week). He said they'd probably string the safety lines (ropes to hold on to) across the river by the end of the week. So exciting!

I then went and backed up my recordings and watched the video and watched as I turned on the camera, walked and sat down, and the camera just slowly began to slide down and the rest of the 59 minutes of work, the camera is looking at the floor. I was hoping to nor bring attention to the camera by not looking at it, but next time I'll double check every few minutes. I then went and talked to the Yup'ik teacher. I started by asking some questions about how to say things so I could put together a linguistics puzzle for the kids on their own dialect. I was successful but it took longer than I thought it would. I then pulled out the toys and map and tried to learn about demonstratives. I learned some things. You have to point to elicit these words, so the map may not be the best prompt. Some other things too, so it was good. She agreed to work with me on Thursday, so I will finally elicit my first word list that I need to do for a paper – not as fun, but necessary. I then went and put together my puzzle and handout and had J solve it to make sure it wasn't too hard but was still challenging, if he was honest with me then I'm excited and like it for this task and maybe a 101 level class too. Watched the voting. Said good bye to J and went home. Watched the voting and had to deal with out. I think the biggest problem I have with fieldwork is that I have to go back into the closet, and that doesn't always feel great. But I love Yup'ik, linguistics, fieldwork, and I know that J is waiting at home in Canada for me so I can do it for my dreams I guess. Yep.

Wednesday

I woke up at 5am but didn't want to get up. I should have because after talking to myself (silently) for 2 hours and then falling back asleep for two hours I woke up with a head ache. I then turned on CNN and pulled out my computer and finalized my word list prompt for the Yup'ik teacher's session. It took a while. I then ate lunch. And wrote most of this to catch up on my journal blog. I'm going to go check out the river here in a moment, then off to the school to print off the prompt and handouts. Talk to J. read, work out, meta-data, dinner, bed. Tomorrow I talk to the class and elder. I will also stop by a few elder's houses and try to set up times to meet with them in the next week or so. And yep that's that.

Tengerrciqamken

/təƞƔ.tsi.qam.kən/

tengerr-ciq-amken

see-FUT-IND.TRAN.1A>2P

I will see you (later)