After I finished this blog, I figured I'd throw in a recent picture of me... so there you are...
Yup'ik, Inupiaq. Both names for mankind in different Native Alaskan cultures and languages. Both mean "the real people."
Thanksgiving marked the end of my second month living among the real people, and I've been trying to pick up on to the cultural as much as I can. Following are a few random thoughts, verbal snapshots and conjectures, as usual.
Before I came to Nome, a priest who had lived and ministered in Western Alaska for 50 years told me the people's lives here are centered in their hearts. In the modern world he said he noticed that our heads are at the center. But here feelings are often more important than thoughts. Attitude is more important than knowledge.
I recently read of a linguist in Alaska who is struggling to write a dictionary in "Eyak," a native language with only one living speaker. She's 90 years old. Only Central Inupiaq, just one of the 60 Native Alaskan languages, is still spoken by children. All the others will be gone in a generation if nothing changes. The language is the way a culture communicates itself, and it's disappearing.
Stories and presentations here aren't usually linear. Ideas don't move from "Point A" to "Point B" to "Point C." The thoughts flow, and they branch out. Real people expect tangents when they listen. But the tangents are really the meat of the story. Eventually it comes full circle -- in its own time -- and then you realize the tangents weren't a distraction. If you ignore them, you miss the point. Instead of communication tools, they should call them instruments here. And from what I've seen, the stories and their audience are felt so that they draw words from inside the listeners.
In Bush Alaska, the real people live a subsistence lifestyle in a consumer economy. That's the conflict. Hunting for your meat and gathering berries, but to do that you use expensive equipment like a truck, a snowmobile, hunting rifle, refrigerator, motor boat, $5.50/gallon gasoline.
People talk to each other. Strangers and kids here talk to you on the street. Last Friday I was walking through the locker room at the gym. I was the only one there, and an 8-year-old boy walked in from his Tae Kwon Do class and told me it was his birthday. I didn't know him. Then he said someone gave him 10 dollars for his birthday and he spent $1.75 and gave a quarter to his friend. I told him it was my sister's birthday and started to walk away. He said, "Yeah, that means I have eight dollars left over. Maybe seven-seventy-five... Goodbye, I'll see you later."
I have conversations like that every now and then. Maybe it's just the small community, but I don't remember having little chats like that with anybody, even kids, back home. Opening up just makes more sense than ignoring people you don't know. If I told a stranger it was my birthday, I think people would say, "Why should I care?" The answer you can't really give is, "Because I'm your brother. We have these things in common. We're the same. We're both real people."
The stories people tell have conclusions in the middle and at the beginning. They have middles at the end and beginnings in the middle. Somehow it makes sense.
I have a conjecture about public schools. I think one reason so many people drop out of high school is that they don't feel it. I mean if a kid wants to pass high school, he can. But if they don't see the point, then they're not going to do it. The system is supposed to teach kids how to think, not what to think. And maybe even more important is teaching how to feel, how to create, how to be real, I think. It's too many tests of knowledge than don't take a bearing on who we are.
Well that's about all there is to say about that. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. It was great up here; Ric and Lynette had a 25 lb. turkey, a ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, wine, cranberry sauce, five or six pies, all the usuals.
I got my small game hunting license and went out after ptarmigan with no luck on Friday. Then Father called me up and we drove around looking for caribou with his .338 Winchester bolt action. No luck there either, but we did manage to get the parish truck stuck in the snow and had to use the shovel.
Pictures from hunting (I didn't take many; not the kind of shooting I was after...):
I hope all is well, thanks for reading. I've been trying to keep up with everyone as much as possible. Sorry if I haven't been in touch as often as I'd like.
Take care and God bless,
Jacob
