Adventures in Fieldwork Part 3

Adventures in Fieldwork Part 3

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.  All photos are by Shari Burke

As July turned into August, my fear grew.  Suddenly the streets were filled with drunken people.  I speculated that unemployment and/or welfare checks had started to arrive and the bootleggers were getting some beginning-of-the-month business.  Whatever was going on, I did not like it. The same people that were looking at me as an intruder in their part of town now knew where I was and they were quite out of it.  They were not just tipsy, but staggering, falling and slurring their words so much it was impossible to make out what they were trying to say.  They banged on the (lockless) door at midnight and at 6 in the morning.  I was often alone in the house as my friends went to comfort families of the people who had died. I sat on “my” bed in the back corner of the house and wrote frantically in my fieldwork journal, trying to stay ahead of my own thoughts. I became irrationally convinced that I would never make it back to Fairbanks. I also knew that I was having a big bad case of culture shock and was probably not handling it well. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had strayed way too far out of my comfort zone and I wanted to get back. I wanted to talk to Bill, but there was no way to do that, except at a public phone, where I would be overheard. 

 After what was unquestionably the longest week of my life, the day of my departure arrived.  It had not been a very successful week, as far as my goals to meet people went, other than the first day, when I was paraded around as a novelty. I did meet with one woman, who worked in some official capacity, but she was kind of suspicious of the work I wanted to do. This is unsurprising in retrospect. The situation in Alaska was changing at the time and Native groups and people were starting to be more clear about telling White researchers to back off. I hadn’t realised this when I’d arrived, but the department I was working out of was just starting to transition to Russian studies more than Alaska Native studies as a result. Native people didn’t like the colonial nature of the university and the people working there—a view I rapidly came to share. So on some level, I knew I would have to rethink some things, but at the moment, I just wanted to go home.

My friend went into her freezer in the yard and got out a big salmon for me to take home—for Bill, she said.  She had no box so she put it in a trash bag and used the one thin strip of duct tape she had to close it.  I thanked her for everything and went to the airport.  I was there before the building opened.  I waited by the door with my suitcase and my fish. All week, the radio had been making announcements about cancelled flights and I was terrified that mine would be another one.

   When the ticket agent arrived to open up, she looked at me as though I was the strangest person she had ever seen.  She said it would take her a few minutes to get her computer set up.  I told her that was just fine—I was extra friendly as if that would help ensure that I would get out.  She told me I needed a box for the fish.  I was about to thrust it at her and ask if she wanted it when she told me I could buy one for $10.  She was very apologetic, but I cheerfully told her that would be great and please give me a receipt.  My grant would pay for the box, thought I would have happily paid it myself.  Before long I was officially checked in.  I thought my knees were going to buckle I was so relieved.  The plane was coming and when it left again, I’d be on it!!  YIPPEE!!

    As we taxied down the runway and lifted off, I was repeating, “Thank you, thank you, thank you” in my head like a mantra.  The next thing I remember I was in Anchorage and my name was being called. I went up to the desk and they asked me if I’d mind sitting in first class on the flight to Fairbanks.  I said that would be no problem and inquired whether anyone ever refused this request. They said sometimes people who travel together don’t want to be split up. Not a problem for me and in fact I would have sat in the cargo hold if it meant getting home, but there I was in Row 1 while the extra solicitous flight attendant asked me if she could get me a beverage before the others got on the plane. I was rather amused when I asked for coffee. I had not showered in a week—just taken sponge baths when the house was empty and washed my hair in the yard.  When I went to use the bathroom on the plane, the door reached the floor.  I was getting into more familiar territory.

    I was first off the plane in Fairbanks and my husband was waiting.  As we waited for the suitcase and the fish, I began to tremble.  We were almost home when he asked me, “Well, how was it?”  I burst into tears and sputtered, “It was HORRIBLE!”  He looked at me in shock.  We got home. I greeted our daughter and got into a very hot shower.  I began to scrub my body while the tears that were still flowing scrubbed away the fear, discomfort and disappointment that my own naïve ideas about what village life was like were shattered.  The relief I felt that it was over continued to wash over me long after my shower.  I didn’t stop trembling for a long time and I have never forgotten the pain that I witnessed in Village.