Adventures in Fieldwork Part 2

Adventures in Fieldwork Part 2

(all names have been changed and all photos are by Shari Burke)

Note: This essay is about my own culture shock and is not in any way intended to be disparaging towards the people in Village. The conditions there are complex and I am not being critical of the place or the people. My focus is on my own mindset and shortcomings in this situation.

At the end of July, I boarded the plane for Anchorage—passengers in the back half, cargo in front. I do not remember any of the trip to Anchorage or from there to Village, but somehow I got there and was met at the airport by my friends.  We went to their house and had coffee, then went around town to meet various family members and friends.  Everyone knew I was coming and I was quite a novelty—Kuukpiaq—this white woman who could eat Eskimo food and speak some Inupiaq.  Fortunately for me, there was no niqipiaq—just vats of coffee—although this would change. 

After visiting several homes, we were in the last one for the day and when asked if I wanted coffee, I said, ‘No, thank you, I’ve had a lot today.’ I can drink a lot of coffee without issue, but I’d had so much on that day that I was feeling jittery and I didn’t need any more jitters! Nevertheless, when I was handed a cup of coffee a few minutes later, I took it and said thank you. The next morning, I was told that, since there was no running water in my friends’ house, I should go back to that house and tell them I wanted to take a shower. I was really unhappy about this, but my friend would not have it any other way, so I took a towel and walked over there, hoping more fervently with each step that they would not be at home. They weren’t.

 

I learned quickly how unusual I was.  Village is extremely segregated—Native people live on one side of town and white people, who are virtually all government employees with agencies like Bureau of Land Management and the Park Service lived on the other.  They were not wanted in town and people were suspicious of them. They had good reason to be suspicious of the government agencies, although many of the people working in them meant well. Sometimes whites and Natives mingled at the grocery store, but mostly, they just stayed in “their” parts of town.  My presence in the Native section raised some eyebrows and earned me some hostile stares from people.  My excitement began to dissipate a little and my nervousness grew.

On a practical level, I was learning to overcome some more discomfort.  The house my friends lived in was essentially a plywood room with curtains hung up in front of the beds.  Since there was no running water or septic, the “bathroom” was a bucket next to the furnace in a tiny alcove.  There was a piece of plywood over the bucket with a hole and a toilet seat.  The bucket was lined with a plastic garbage bag and when it was full it was taken into the yard and a new bag was put in.  This is called a “honey bucket” in Alaska.  It is a common system in rural areas.  That was fine—I expected something like that.  What I was completely unprepared for was the fact that the door didn’t reach the floor!  It was about two feet short.  I had never before had to attempt going to the bathroom behind half a door while people were sipping tea a few feet away!!  I began to time my beverage intake so that I could use public restrooms while we were out, but sometimes that didn’t work.  I had to just deal with my discomfort, which wasn’t the worst of it in any case.

 

I had only been there a couple of days when the dying began.  There were three deaths in town the week I was there—a very large number in such a small place.  The first one was a 17-year-old girl who was somehow related to my friends. She died when the minivan she was drag racing in (on a gravel road) flipped over.  I was asked to go along and give my condolences to the family since they were relatives and I was Kuukpiaq.  I went along, and felt awful.  They had never met me, but I was introduced as Kuukpiaq. They glared at me. As I murmured how sorry I was about their loss, I was trying to take in the house.  We walked into a kitchen, which was a plywood room with a cooler on the floor. There was nothing else. A filthy sheet was hanging up beyond that blocking off part of the house.  Everyone was congregated in a narrow dark room with a bed at each end, a couch against the wall and a TV, VCR and cable hook-up on the other wall.  I looked down and saw I was standing in piles of dirt and cigarette butts. I was no longer excited.  I was sad and scared—not an uncommon thing in a new fieldwork situation.