Sikik Grace Eegeesiak from far north Alaska starts her first journal.
*Note* Some spelling errors are in this story; the story is intended to be this way. Sikik isn't that good of a speller. :)
Saturday, April 21, 2007, Barrow, Alaska~
Dear Journal~
I have never done this before, so please bare with me.
For those who don't know who I am, my name is Sikik Grace Eegeesiak. I'm in my forties, never married, no kids, but plenty of brothers and sisters. Just about all of them live close by to me.
I am a full-blood Native Alaskan. I am Inuit (formerly called Eskimo, but that term is insulting to us, so we changed our name of our People to Inuit, which in Inutpiat means "The Beautiful People"). I live in far northern Alaska, in Barrow. Barrow is small, but it's home to me. I'm comfortable here.
I choose not to live in the city. Too many Dog Children (non-Inuit) roaming about. Dog Children scare me. All they do is try to change me, try to take over our land, which they have. Many of my Inuit ways have disappeared not only for me, but for all Inuit. The Dog Children steal our land, put their houses upon it, drive our animals away, take over our schools and residences, not as many Inuit or Native People left like there used to be. It's sad.
I did work, but now am disabled. I have MS, walk on crutches (or a cane on good days), use a wheelchair on bad days. When my eyes bother me I don't even bother getting out of bed because I get dizzy from the double vision I sometimes suffer. MS is a cruel disease: you never know what is going to happen, you never know when you will have a good day or a flare up of the disease; it is an unpredictable disease.
Today is a good day; I can see well enough to be able to write, am going to use my crutches today.
I can no longer work; my health won't allow it. I get a pension from the US government for disability; it isn't much, but it is enough to pay my bills, get food at the store when a neighbor or one of my brothers or sisters take me into town. I don't get out much except to go to the store or go to doctor appointments; I don't have a very exciting life.
More often than not, I stay in my little house, holed up like a nanuq in winter's slumber, eyes glued to a computer screen. The computer is my lifeline; it allows me to know what is going on, and in this way, I can go to places I can't visit in real life. It's fascinating, that's what it is: fascinating.
Spring has sprung here in Barrow, but to look outside, you wouldn't know it: no trees here, just scrubby little bushes, and the landscape is covered in snow. The aurora borealis is dancing above in the sky, and she is in a friendly mood today: pinks and greens and whites dance in her magical rainbow; the spirits are quiet today.
On early Monday, when the shootins happened in Virginia, the auroras were a brilliant fiery red-orange when I awoke at five a.m. Very frightening to see. I knew something was up when I saw the anger in the auroral display. Later when I turned on the news, I learnt of the horrors at Virginia Tech that played themselves out earlier in the day.
I cried.
Why couldn't the police have stopped the killer before he struck again? Whey did so mnay people have to die? Why did he take the coward's way out and end up killing himself; why couldn't he have just surrendered to the police? It doesn't make any sense; it just shows what a coward he really was, and it shows that he was a very sick person.
I wonder why our world has gotten so mean. I tell you, the Dog Children are ruining it for everybody. I don't trust them. I will never trust them. When I see a Dog Child I clam up or I retreat to my house and wait until they are gone.
I have frew friends. Probably my most important friend is Louisiana Sandusky who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She has written to me, but lately I haven't heard from her. I wonder if she is mad at me. I know she is very busy with her Northern Lights Family, but still, she could take a breather and write to me, let me know what is going on in her life. When I don't hear from her I get sad. I am lonely; her letters are so full of life, and she keeps me informed of world events (as does my computer and my CNN).
Maybe she doesn't write to me because I'm Inuit and she is a Dog Child. Maybe she thinks that she can't change me to think as she does so she doesn't want to bother with me anymore.
She's tried to tell me of her God, her Jesus Christ, but I find that confusing. How can a person be "born again"? You only get born one time; that's when you are born as a baby. It's as simple as that. And if this Jesus person claims to be good, why can't He stop the madness descending upon our world?
Is there even a person called Jesus Christ??
To think of this (or about Louisiana Sandusky) is enough to make me cry. It really hurts me.
My other friend is Jenny Q'u'ualak, who lives a few blocks away from me. She sometimes comes over to chat, to visit, and she is very nice. I met her a few weeks ago, and she's a homemaker, she has two kids: Paulie, who is eight, and four-year-old Vincent. Her husband, Kenai, is a schoolteacher, teaching native languages at a college in Fairbanks, so he's hardly ever home excepting on weekends--and then all he does is sleep, she says.
The weather here is cold, temps in the 20's, lows in the teens or single digits. That's normal here. Sometimes we have snow for eight months, with a short summer season lasting only a few weeks, it seems like. We are used to it; it's normal for us. We also have the sun shining for nearly 24 hours a day in the summertime, and in the winter, we live in total darkness with only the stars, moon, or aurora borealis lighting our way. It's different to many people, but to us it's normal; it's the Arctic Circle, it's the way it is here.
Well, I will go now. I will write in here agian soon. Thanks for listening to a lonely Inuit woman ramble on. I hope you don't mind, but if I didn't write, I'd go stir crazy with boredom! (Oh, I could read, but the truth of the matter is this: I'm not good at reading English, never was. They don't have many books translated into the Inuit language. I am embarrassed at my inability to read English, so I don't even bother.)
I speak English better than read it, but when time calls for it, I can just as easily speak Inutpiat. I'm fluent in both languages, but English can still throw me off sometimes: English is such a hard language, a confusing language!
Finally got around to pay your site a visit. Wonderful. You live it Texas? Doesn't sound like it. Great description, beautiful writing. BTW. If you are considering going with a POD publisher, go with Aventine Press. Stay away from publishamerica.
Pax,
L.
Another native culture that still strugles. This journal does bring out the point that the internet is a wonderful way to keep contact with others when life confines you to your rooms. It is a lifeline and many who use this life line have to also learn to not take things personally sometimes. The words we read on a screen do not have the facial expressions or the advantage of being able to ask for clarification of the words as it would in person. I've seen many an flare in online groups. Lady J
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