Weekend Recap

Apologies for never finishing my thoughts from Friday night/Saturday morning. Fun Friday, as I wrote earlier, consisted of no classes after lunch and a Staff vs. Students basketball game. Rachel, Molly, and I were recruited to help the Staff side, as groups of kids rotate every two or three minutes, while there aren't nearly as many staff players as student players. I got to the game late, but ended up playing my fair share. As mentioned earlier, the Staff won by 30 points, no big deal. :)

After school, the three of us who had played basketball walked outside in our shorts to catch the van back to Ilisagvik, which seemed warm as the temperature was around 25 degrees. Friday night was Ilisagvik's Commencement at Ipalook Elementary, so our Barrow father drove us back into town after dinner. I was surprised by the number of people in the gym and the number of graduates since we had previously been told only four people were graduating. Anyone who earns a certificate during the year, even if the program was only 3 or 6 months, is given the opportunity to take part in the ceremony, so there were roughly 25 graduates on stage. Dr. Russell Means, an actor from Last of the Mohicans and the voice of Pocahontas' father, was the guest speaker, who apologized for having to speak in English. English, according to Dr. Means, does not do native languages justice, as it is one of the least expressive languages on the planet. Dr. Means was quite thought provoking when we could hear him, as the microphone kept cutting out, a problem which was rumored to be caused by "sun spots" which interfere with electronic currents and waves in the air. Whatever the problem was, we did not hear the entirety of what Dr. Means was saying. The ceremony lasted two hours, half the time our earlier Whaling Service would have taken had we stayed. After eating our fill of cake and appetizers following the ceremony, we returned to Ilisagvik with Lilo, one of the drivers who joins us from Tonga (google it, it's gorgeous).

When we got back, we played BananaGrams with Scrabble pieces for an hour or so, before trying a game or two of Catchphrase. Some of us wanted to watch t.v., but apparently since it's the end of the school year, no one thought to pay the t.v. bill and thus we no longer have cable. By 12:30 am, Liz, a college student visiting from Fairbanks, offered to drive Tony back to town, so John and I accompanied her. On the way back, we decided to explore Barrow as it never gets completely dark here anymore. We were to the arches at Brower's Cafe, took a picture in front of the Eskimo cut-outs, and even visited the Northernmost Totem Pole in the World. We went to see the Distant Early Warning system (DEW Line) and up to the point before returning to the college around 1:45 am. Due to this little excursion, I failed to blog before Friday was over and thus am writing now.

On Saturday, most of us slept in until noon and rushed to get ready for Steve to pick us up around 1:15. Dr. Russell Means had agreed to speaking for the Saturday Schoolyard talk, but this time we were at the Tuzzy Library and the lecture ended with a book signing. Molly, Rachel, Michele, and I went with Steve to meet Tony at the Library, where we sat front and center, a rather intimidating location. From earlier discussions of Dr. Means, I was expecting his lecture to be aggressively persuasive, controversial, and possibly even offensive. Dr. Means started his Saturday talk as he had his speech at commencement, but branched off to talk about his people's history and his past, going further in depth with his activism and struggle for natives' rights. As a Lakota native, Dr. Means mentioned some familiar subjects such as NDSU's Fighting Sioux controversy, South Dakota's Black Hills, and native activist groups located in Minneapolis, all things that hit home for us Gusties. Dr. Means adamantly argued that natives needed self-determination, to be free from the dictates of the U.S. Government and to recover from the era of Boarding Schools that continues to haunt numerous generations.

Even though Dr. Means had never attended a boarding school, his parents had not been as fortunate. One of the mandates of this era was that siblings could not go to the same school for fear they would continue speaking their native language to one another and would keep remnants of their culture, things the U.S. Government wanted to eliminate. Older students at the boarding schools would be expected to beat younger students for their use of native languages, literally beating the language out of them. Without parents throughout their education, in addition to the corporal punishment found at most schools, the boarding school graduates did not grow up to be nurturing, supportive parents. This trend has plagued a number of generations that never went to boarding school, but still receive the effects of the anger and violence that occurred at these institutions.

As a future Social Studies Teacher, Dr. Means put U.S. History into perspective as well, labeling our Founding Fathers as "Indian Killers" and rightfully crediting the Iroquois for representative government being included in the U.S. Constitution. He was quite thought provoking, thanking teachers for what they do and giving a few examples as to how teachers positively or negatively affected his life. At the end of the lecture, Dr. Means agreed to take a picture with us girls, but the picture happens to be on Michele's camera so you're going to have to pester her for it. :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent in town going to the Dry Cleaners/Fur Shop where Molly and Rachel did some damage, while I only purchased a Barrow shirt and a few other things. We met up with Michele and Tony at the AC Store before heading back to Ilisagvik for dinner and a relaxing evening of movies and reading. I've done enough damage of my own with this post, so happy reading and enjoy the remainder of your Sunday evening.

Peace,

Alyssa