Getting to know the Village

July 14th, 2012

We ran into the post office today as it started to rain while we were down on the beach. We tried standing under the porch but it leaked and we were getting wet. It's in a wooden building which overlooks the river. The man there sits at a small desk behind a screen. Above him are rows of boxes, each with a name of a family in the village. One of the girls here, Kelsey kept asking him why she did not have a box with her name on it. He said, "Well, I guess you never got mail here before." She seemed quite disappointed about that. The mail is brought in from Bethel once a week by plane. It's hard to imagine there are still places like this in the world.

The office politics continue. Apparentlty the woman in charge doesn't like another woman who has been really helpful and is being very vocal about it. The helpful woman doesn't like another office worker. Our contact Heen is basically praying for eveything to turn out okay.  We are gingerly walking around the office (our accomodatiom remeber) drinking coffee and trying to seem like we don't notice any of this.
 
Last night Amy and I received a call from Helen to come and have a steam bath. We were given directions like, "Go down the hill. Make a left at the log cabin with the broken down green snowmobile. Follow the path to the shack on the right."  Luckily for us there were kids standing on the road along the way. A man was standing on the porch of his cabin pointing to a shack in the back. Amy and I walked down a path in the tall green grass and  to an old shack with smoke coming out and a curtain in the door way. We went inside and there were two naked old ladies. ( Actually they probably weren't all that much older then me.) Both of us were wearing out bathing suits but Helen said, "Oh no, you need to be naked. That will be uncomfortable." As close as Amy and I have become we have not been planning on seeing each other naked. To make it worse we were both having a bout of ....well how should I say it...stomach problems which was made only tolerable by the fact that both of us have sinus issues and our sense of smell is basically dead. We turned away from each and took our suits off and went into the steam part of the shack self conciously holding our small travel towels in front of us.

It was dilapdated old wooden structure with a large black stove in the middle. Helen was feeding wood into it. As first we had been so cold outside that it felt good. It warmed us and helped soothed the excessive amount of mosquito bites that we had. We had a bowl of water beneath us and soap for washing but Helen told us to just let the steam get into our pores. So therer we were four naked women sitting in this old shack with the glowing embers of the hot stove in front of us. Once we go used to being naked it was comforting sitting there in the warmth - four women together. But then Helen warned us to hold our face clothes on our faces and she threw water onto the rocks. This intense wave of heat came at us and it was suffocating. I started to have a bit of a panic attack and went back outside. I told Amy not to look at my cellulite.

I sat on the bench for awhile, cooling off and watching the wind blow the old curtain open. I could see the tall green grass and trees made golden by the evening sun.  Helen came out and pointed out yellow hummingbirds in the trees. I waited till I was freezing and then went back in. It felt good to have the hot steam ooze out the toxins from my skin. I've never been a clean freek but between the bug spray and lack of showers I feel extremely dirty here.  Hot steam oozing all the toxins and dirt and just a sense of peace sitting in silence with these two ladies. It was great. In and out several times, talking about how the village used to be, the troubles now, how they use wood stoves to keep warm in the winter and steam baths to clean and apparently never sleep.

Afterwards one of the villagers took us fishing. He told us we would only go for an hour but we ended up coming home at 3:00 am. It was beautiful out on the river at that time but so cold and we coverd ourselves up in blankets while he talked about how he had to go looking for wood in the winter at 11 because his parents were drinking. He seemed to need to talk and we floated there wrapped in blankets for awhile.

The dogs of the village, of which there are many, follow us everywhere we go. Peopele here would be shocked at how much we baby dogs at home. Here they are like stray cats, running around. I suggested to one of the boys that we bathe them. He looked confused and said, "Why?" It is interesting to see how differently another culture deals with their animals. They throw rocks at them sometimes and apparently the dogs aren't allowed in the houses even when it is 30 below outside. They grow an extra layer of hair here. One of the dogs, called fungus, is really weird looking - big head and long hot dog body. He has taken to hanging around our house with Harley, the golden retriever who follows us everywhere. We are hoping she will alert us if there are any bears around when we go walking. Aparently you can smell a bear before you even see them. Eric saw one walking past his house yesterday morning.They saw a bear in town last week and this is apparently the busy season for them as people are smoking their salmom in these outdoor shacks called smokehouses.The bears smell them and come into town.

Eric has somewhat controversial status here - could possibly be the chief (if that's the right word). Personally I like him. Some prior groups indicated that he was a busy body. He's a bit inquisitive but that's okay. He has the most well kept house in town and tells us much about how living in the village used to be. How people fished most of the time in summer and smoked salmon so that they had enough to get through winter. How the kids would help cut trees for wood so they keep their houses warm. How there was little time for children to run around and stay up all night as there was so much work to do. He comes by regularly to check on us and will ride around town at night. He'll tell the kids to go home if they are hanging around the tribal council office and tell them to go to bed. He's concerned about the village. But then he has lost a son in a way, so that makes sense. I understand what that is like.