Musk ox, basketball, thinking about community

1. Musk ox

Our neighbor G, a native man from a village not far from here, shot and killed a musk ox last night. To do this he had to stand on line for several days to get a permit - one of I think 30 that are handed out in this area every year. Each year a village hosts this permitting process, this year it was our village's turn. Apparently there's a lot of potential rancor around this process, not least because of outsiders and downstaters who come up and get a tag and shoot a musk ox just for the fun of it, when on the other hand you have locals and natives who want that tag so they can have meat all winter. Alaska state laws prohibit Fish and Wildlife from making any distinction among subsistence and non-subsistence hunting in their policy making, which seems like a poor decision to me, exactly because of situations like these. In any case, G got his tag and yesterday there were some musk ox right up the hill near the rock people, so while we (and maybe you) were watching the Superbowl, he went out to get one. A little before 9 H, G's wife, came by to tell us that G was back with his musk ox, and we all went out to see it.

The first thing that struck me was how small it was - it wasn't small, of course, but smaller than I expected. I've only ever seen them at a great distance, so it's hard to gauge how big they generally are, but G estimated that this one was 3 years old. It was a female - the permits state which sex your musk ox must be. It was lying on its side in G's snowmachine sled. We all walked up to it, and I put my hand into its fur, which was incredibly thick and long. Its stomach felt massive and very firm. After a few minutes G, E, and our other neighbor D all worked together to tip it out onto the snow, where G took out his ulu (a curved knife) and began removing the skin.

I was really curious as to whether this would be hard for me to see - as a vegan I'm obviously opposed, in a sort of general way, to eating animals. But there are lots of different reasons to be vegan, and my reasons don't stem from any sort of overall argument that humans in general should not eat animals at all. Rather, my problem is with the way that animals are raised for mass human consumption, and the effects this causes on the animals, our environment, and our health. I don't have any philosophical problem with people eating animals for a subsistence diet. Still, having not eaten animals for so many years, I wasn't sure what kind of emotional reaction I would have to seeing a dead animal right there in front of me. I was surprised to find that my reaction was rather muted. On the one hand it was definitely sad to see such a beautiful and strong animal just lying there dead, and particularly so when G said, "I think it's pregnant." On the other hand, that was greatly tempered by knowing that a)this animal lived out what life it had in its ideal environment and was never mistreated by humans (before being killed by one, obviously) and b)nearly every scrap of this animal will be put to use - the meat will be eaten, the hide will be tanned and used for clothing or some other purpose, the bones, if desired, can be carved or sold to someone who will carve them, several of the organs will be eaten, and those that won't can probably be given to someone's dogs if desired. The head, I guess, will be the only part not used - not counting the tongue, which is apparently being cooked this evening.

I think in a way my animal-loving side felt grateful to have a chance to see such an amazing creature close up, to get to feel its fur and its muscles and horns, and also to see that the relationship between human and animals, even when not a peaceful one, doesn't have to be disgusting. There was nothing (in my opinion) disgusting about this, the way there is about an industrial pig farm or a slaughterhouse. I don't think I'll be eating any musk ox, but if I do, you'll be reading about it.

2. Basketball

This past Friday E and I accompanied the basketball team on our first away game, to a village about 20 minutes away by plane. Traveling around these parts for athletic or extra-curricular events is no joke. First come eligibility sheets and permission slips, then the night before a big packing job, because on the one hand I'm packing for an overnight, and on the other hand I'm keeping in mind the team that got stuck in another village for 9 days last year, and I'm calculating how many instant boxes of pad thai and clif bars it'll take to keep me alive that long. Then on Friday the weather was pretty bad, so I was kind of thinking we wouldn't go, but halfway into my writing block I got the message: plane coming in half an hour. The sub arrived, I hastily threw together some last-minute plans for her (I hadn't realized I'd be leaving so early), and E and I and the team climbed into the snowmachine sled and headed to the airport. 25 minutes later we were on the ground in the host village. We played 3 games that night (lost 'em all) and one the next day (yep, lost that one too). It was kind of frustrating, not to lose (though I do HATE to lose) but just to see our kids give up - each game we were doing so well in the beginning, and then the kids just kind of poop out and lose. The first 2 games we only lost by 7 points each, and we definitely could have won them both. So E and I have been talking about how to get our kids ready for the next two weekends of travel, this weekend and next. Then again, we may not even have to worry about it, depending on the weather.
The traveling part of the experience was so-so: not as bad as it could have been, but not my favorite thing, either. The sleeping arrangement was me, my 3 girls, another chaperon and about 4 girls from a different school on a classroom floor. I was in a sleeping bag I'd borrowed from a neighbor, which was nicer than nothing but not as nice as my bed. The water at this school is not too good, not okay for drinking, so they have jugs all around with potable water, but it still didn't taste great, so I was rationing my water bottle. And also it just got boring. When we weren't playing, there was nothing else to do except watch other teams play. I brought a deck of cards and some books, but I couldn't really just chill and read because I had to be responsible for the kids. We walked to the store, but it was just like the store in our village. The worst part was Saturday morning: waking up un-refreshed after an uncomfortable night on the floor, no breakfast to speak of, no shower, feeling greasy and sweaty and old. When we first heard that our whole area was on a weather hold I was just miserable, I could feel a cold coming on and I just knew we'd be stuck. Luckily, thankfully, we got out around 3. B and D picked us up at the airport and I was in a hot shower as soon as humanly possible. Two more weekends of travel coming up and then basketball season is over.

3. Thinking about community

A few days ago I needed to get to the post office and didn't want to wait till Saturday, so I asked GK, one of our custodians, to drive me down there right after school ended. Usually either he or another custodian goes to pick up the school's mail. On this day he was going to make a trash run to the dump, so he drove me down on the snowmachine, dropped me off, and came back for me about 10 minutes later. While I was waiting for him outside (I finished my stuff quickly and it was beautiful day - cold, but clear and sunny) I saw about 4 people I know coming and going from the P.O. Not people I know like I'm close friends with, but enough to say hello how are you. And I just enjoyed that feeling, one that I haven't had here very often, of being a part of this community. As much as I enjoy the dorm-y feeling of the BIA, it does cut us off from the rest of the community, geographically (our building isn't really part of either of the two residential sections of the village) psychologically, and logistically (when you have a bunch of neighbors right there, you don't really go out much to see your slightly-further-away neighbors). It made me wish that we had made more of an effort during these past 6 months to be a part of the community. I think we were waiting for invitations instead of taking the initiative to just show up at things: yuraqs, church, bingo, fiddle dances, whatever - and now it feels like it would be weird to start, especially with the end so close. And I think that was a part of that feeling, too: I think I'm starting to feel sad about leaving. I know it's still a ways off, and the majority of what I feel is anxious to leave and happy for each day that brings me closer to being done - but suddenly I also have some sadness about that too. I feel caught off guard by the very obvious fact that the relationships I've built so far, as small as they may be, are still real and will still end in a very sudden and real way in just a few months. I feel selfish, and a little guilty, for seeing this whole experience as just that: an "experience" for me to have, without considering how my desire for that experience would affect those for whom this experience is just life. And I feel like slowly, gradually, the community is beginning to open up to me just the tiniest bit - and if I stayed, there would be a point at which I might really feel at home here. Don't read this the wrong way - there's not a single part of me that's considering staying. But there is a significant part of me that's starting to feel sad about that.