Trip 3 - The first Weekend

Makineq (Saturday)

With the North-Eastern winds whipping across the tundra and the pitter patter of the infrequent 5 minute rain fall today was a very lazy day. I slept to late, I caught up on some much needed reading, I played Dwarf Fortress, I finished the draft for my grant proposal. I donned my wind and rain breaker over my thermal, which kept me comfortably toasty as I fought the wind to the AC store to pick up chicken nuggets, egg rolls, and buttered brussel spouts (all microwavable) to keep me through the long weekend. Then let the wind push me back home and then to the school so I could send the drafts off to people for proof-reading, and most importantly to talk to J. I starred in envy as J showed me the several inches of snow that has fallen in Edmonton, while I'm up here in the Arctic without any whats-so-ever. I worked out, I headed back, I made tea, I made two egg-roles and had some peanuts and now I'm writing this and then I'll read for a bit. (I'm reading 'Describing Morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists” by Thomas Payne, a book I have flipped through and cited often but never actually read cover to cover, so...). As you can tell it was a lazy, windy day, full, but lazy and windy. Which is why today's and Sunday's (Agasuneq) posts will be combined. Tomorrow, on Sunday (agasunermi), I shall attend church, Roman Catholic, and if times are complimentary then the other one to. Oooo super excited. :)

/təŋxtziqumkın/

tanger-ciq-amken!

See-FUT-TRAN:IND:1SGA>2SGP

I will see you (statement)

“see you!/goodbye!”

-I learned this from the next door neighbor yesterday, so the transcription is my own, then the orthography (but w/o morpheme boundaries) I checked in the dictionary made for the dialects down south. I'm pretty happy with my transcription. :) :) :)

P.S. The wind is howling outside and I can't stop thinking of the 45 degree support beams on the outside of the other side of the house that were put up because when the wind blew it used to rock the house. Yep.

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Agasuneq (Sunday)

I started the day by reading and overcoming the wind sickness from the house swaying to and fro all night (I didn't really get sick but it helped to show you what I was up against) and then went off to church. Church was a lot of sitting then standing, then sitting, then singing, then repeat. The priest only comes about once a month so it was all community run and there were two songs in Yup'ik which was fantastic, but hard to follow. Then I talked to the high school teacher for a while and was invited to come talk about what I do one of these days in her class. I read another chapter in my book, then a long article that has been on my list for a while and walked some more and then actually for the first time in three years encountered...well liberals don't like the term when its not applied to... a certain majority group. Basically: “You American, you want to study Eskimo language, what gives you the right (race/gay slurs) I have a shotgun and can kill you...” Yep that was interesting. Then I ran into the Yup'ik teacher and was invited over so I grabbed my gear, prepared and headed over. It was her and her husband who has been a life long hunter, both are from the region and speak Kotlik Yup'ik so I went through what I was doing, what I wanted to do, consent and everything. And he didn't want to be video or audio recorded so yep, great start. So I basically just talked about who they were and their backgrounds, lives, history, and took notes. Pretty much all in English, though he's not the best at English so I got to hear some awesome dialogue, and learned kaa? “right?” Basically, great Ethnography. I tried to breach the topic of demonstratives but it didn't work. Then said thanks asked to work with them again. Well see what happens. They may take me out on the river next weekend though which would be amazing! Then came back and talked to my hostess a bit and learned more ethnography and about subsistence vegetables and berries, and she's going to cook moose roast tomorrow for me and try to get Cisco fish, and Seal for me to try while I'm here so I can try all of their subsistence foods before I leave. Then, chicken nuggets for dinner, wrote this, and I don't know read some? So yep that was my up and down and up and down, roller-coaster of a day. I'm going to try to meet at least with one of the elder's I have worked with before this week and do an hour of recording, I hope, and then hope to maybe get another hour somewhere. Today, while a bit disappointing was a great start though and I did learn a lot from my new consultants, and from church too, so I will consider this day a success. Yep, If you're in Canada then happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Piurra!

P.S. I saw three beautiful rainbows today. One was a perfect half circle, double rainbow spanning from one side of the village to the side of the river, it was awesome!