Trip 3: Days 46-52 - Nearing the end

Another week gone, and the end is sadly in sight. I miss my bed. I miss pizza. But even with all of the anxiety of getting here. And then all of the anxiety and stress of getting work done. And all of the anxiety about if its enough work, good enough, helpful. I am always sad to leave Kotlik and this time is no exception.

I now wear my jacket, and wind break and an under layer, a beanie, glove, and keeping your jacket hood up is important out on the tundra. We still don't have much snow, which many people of commented on its absence. However the ground is covered in a permanent layer of white, the boardwalks are permanently slick and the ice is building (I need to buy some of the crampons that most people wear) the air is as sharp as a razor and when the wind is blowing your ears and fingers will fall off if you don't protect them. Basically the traditional Eskimoan clothing: boots fur pants, park lined in fur, enormous parka ruff all make a ton of sense. I saw a guy wearing traditional mukluks at the Thanksgiving Eskimo dance. They are awesome. I want a pair. So its cold, but I still wished for more snow (but not until after I leave, the weather already cancels many of the fights in this region due to high wind and visibility issues – so until after Monday afternoon I wish for clear, calm weather).

My weekend wasn't very exciting. I wrote. A lot. Even though my blogs have become less frequent, due to my desire to not bore anyone with the repetition that is life/data collection set up/data collection after-party (data collection and data analysis are fun but difficult to write about without being technical or in a different language. The in between parts on the other hand...) I still write a lot. I'm up to 40 pages now and still going when I can, unfortunately its not academic right now. When the muses strike one must take advantage and go with it. Sometimes a muse is academic, sometimes creative, sometimes physical, and hopefully none of them require me to pull out of my wallet (going on an adventure to the mountains/HI/YK/gym). Also my academic writing creativity needs to come back in the next week.

On Monday I met with the Drum troupe chief again and we talked with audio recording for nearly an hour and a half. He talked all in Yup'ik to answer my questions so I have no idea what he said. But I asked about: the weather and its forecast, natural disasters that have occurred in Kotlik, the landscape, the stars and constellations, direction telling, and a few other things.

On Tuesday the Lower Yukon School District provided a community feast at the school. Thus I got to eat shredded turkey, stuffing, and potatoes. I also talked with many people about this and that. Nothing of Interest happened on Wednesday.

On Thursday I began the day by going over to a young consultants house. He grew up here in Kotlik but spent many years as a kid down on the Kuskokwim so he is familiar with both dialects. We talked for a while and then I pulled out my recorder and he went through my word list with me. So YAY I now have two people who've done the word list which is the barest minimum requested by paper's supervisor! He then spent about an hour talking in Yup'ik and he told me two ghost stories that he has experienced personally. We talked about monsters and fantastical beasts (I can't wait to get home and watch that movie!). He talked to me about slang, insults, flirting. We then called his parents and grandparents and siblings (all of whom knew this was happening) and we recorded short Yup'ik conversations between them (as best as you can over speaker phone and across two dialects). I then went to eat Turkey with my Hosts, I was hungry because I prepare for Thanksgiving by not eating. They didn't eat until 7. But the food was good, we had turkey, potatoes, gravy, rolls, stuffing made with turkey heart and kidney (it was good).

Thanksgiving evening I went to the final Eskimo Dance occurring while I'm here. I saw and talked to many people (The science teacher went to someone's house for dinner and they had Swan and Seal for dinner (I'm a little Jealous) so she gave me a strip of dried seal (I've never had dried seal before, but I'm saving it to take home for uhm-hm J, so I hope its good)). The dancing was awesome and there were some hilarious moments of people having fun. After-wards I made sure to search out all the elders and wish them a happy Thanksgiving and to say Thank you (Quyana) very much (ceknaq) for talking with me and sharing their knowledge. The Northern Lights were supposed to be out but I checked every 15 minutes until 1 am and saw only a black starry night.

Today I walked around to as many of the elders as I could and gave them little gifts (maple syrup, tea, candy from Canada) to say thank you, and happy thanksgiving, and thank you, and I'll be back in April if you'd be willing to work with me some more (most said yes, so hooray!). Thanksgiving is a great holiday because its good food, good friends, good family all thankful for one another and for the year they've had and its the same up here as anywhere else. Anyone who says its about a peaceful historical event amidst a series of misunderstandings, fears of persecution, brutal conflicts, deterioration of relations, survival attempts, cultural/physical genocide, cultural clashes – isn't paying enough attention to what's important in their life now.

I came up to the school and set up the camera and recorder and pulled out my prompts for the day, and got a water jug and cups and then waited. And waited. And called the airline people to check on my flights for Monday. And then called my elder and she was taking someone else to the clinic for an appointment. so. She kinda, almost, not really hinted at rescheduling with me...

Tomorrow I'm meeting with an elder in the morning to record traditional knowledge, hopefully. He's the guy I worked with first in the very beginning so many weeks ago but didn't want to be recorded. He has now said that maybe audio would be okay. Then in the afternoon I'll go work with the young guy again and do some elicitation/semantic distinctions (because he's talked briefly about inflections before and I think he might be aware of it enough to help identify contrasts in meaning) /demonstrative elicitation. So we'll see how all of this goes!

Piurra.