Spring, May 2007, Barrow, Alaska~

Dear Book Of Words~

My name is Aama. I am twelve years old. I am one of the Beautiful People; I am Inuit. I live in northern Alaska with my family.

I live a simple existence: I make clothes for my younger brothers and sisters,  I take care of my brothers and sisters, and I hunt (sometimes). I don't go to school; school is too far away to walk. May be eaten by a nanuq; then my family would be without a daughter. Not good.

I have two older brothers Qisuk (he's fourteen) and Sorqaq (he's sixteen), two younger sisters Maki (three) and two year old Mikisoq, and two younger brothers (twins) named Ululik and Sammik (they're both a year old). I also live with Grandfather Elk and his wife Bird Woman, and of course Mother and Father.

We have a very big family, as you can see.

Where I live it is cold most of the year. We have short summers, but very long winters that seem to go on forever. Even in May or June there's snow all over; looks more like the Long Night than the Long Day (what you Dog Children--non-Inuit--call "summer"). Flowers are a rare existance here, the warm season lasts only for a few months before the winds change or before it gets colder.

We have very long winters: darkness envelops our world, with only the lights from the Night Rainbow (Northern Lights) or the Moon lighting our way. In the Long Period of the year, the Sun shines almost continously, very confusing to most people; but we are used to it. It's our world, it's normal for us.

I live in a small dwelling with my family. It's not much to look at, but to us it's home. At least we aren't living in igloos like the Inuit used to do before the Dog Children came and changed the world as we knew it. Now we have schools, churches, apartment or regular dwellings, even stores, even a hospital to go to when we become injured or sick. Barrow is still small in comparison to a city like Fairbanks or Anchorage, but it's comfortable for us.

At home I do my book learning on a computer. It is interesting, I learn so much about people from other lands, about the ways of the Dog Children, about things going on in the world. The world is a scary place; all of a sudden I wish I didn't have the computer. It scares me. Mother and Father and my older brothers help me with my learning, and I have learned much. Father and Mother both say I am a very smart girl.

When I am not taking care of my brothers and sisters, making clothes, or hunting, I like to read word-books, play on the computer, hang out with my friends, talk on the phone, watch the Night Rainbow when she traverses across the sky. The Night Rainbow is very pretty, but it makes me sad: I see my dead Ancestors, and it makes me sad. How I wish I could dance with them!!

I think that would be wonderful!

Well, Dear Book of Words, I will go for now. I have to tend to Sammik and Ululik; they are crying again. Seems that those babies never stop; it drives me crazy! I will write in here another day when I have more to say. Writing in a Book like yours is hard. I can't think of what to write about!

~Love, your new friend, Aama Tyorek, aged 12 winters, Barrow, Alaska.