Sat. August 29
th. I woke at 7:30 Alaska time and decided to take a walk alone to reflect about my last two days with the
Cup'ig Eskimo people. I wanted to try to
remember as many stories and interesting things I had seen and been told. The children have been a delight and as sweet and funny as any children one meets in the world.
I had one last thing I wanted to get done while I was on the Island and that was to walk through the
cemetery. I tried during several of my tours with the children to go see the
cemetery and the children simply changed the subject or they
immediately changed our direction for another destination. I quickly understood it is not the same as my children who grew up playing in our
cemetery. They even played basketball over there as the woman who rented the
caretakers house had two boys the same age as two of my youngest kids. The cemetery was the playground out in the country as we were 2.5 mi. from town.
The cemetery was only a short walk from the little house we were staying in. So with movie and still camera in hand I began my
trek through the silent streets. As I
trudged through the sandy street up to the grassy windblown hill over looking the sea I could see the white crosses. The brightest white ones I came to see whee the newest. All the crosses where the same and for the exception of three or four they were all just crosses, no adornments, flowers or other decorations. The crosses all
had the name of the deceased, the DOB and the DOD. It appeared they were put up painted and
labeled and then they were never repaired or repainted after the time they went in. There were many that had been long stripped of their paint and information by the constant winds, blowing sands and harsh weather.
There was one grave that was heavily adorned with silk flowers, a sitting angel, many little shells and rocks. I looked through the
artificial silk flower vine wrapped around the cross which covered the DOB and DOD. I carefully moved the flowers to see the name and information only to find it was the 6 years old girl that Nus and Howard had told me about.
This little girl fell through the ice and went under the water. They said how fortunate they felt to be able to recover the body. It would have been an even more
tragic death to have not recovered her for burial. That would have been the case with us all. When there is no body one feels
empty and has an even more
difficult time with the morning process without a body. This young and
tragic death impacted
everyone in
Mekoryuk as one can only imagine.
This entire ordeal was horrible. When something happens to someone in
MekoryukI have come away from this
village a changed woman. I will
never view life or circumstances the same again. I was so richly and deeply touched by all the people I met on the Island. having the precious opportunity to give copies of all my books, audio books and to spend time with each child if only for the time it took to ask their names and sign each book for them it was still life altering.
I only pray they feel a little the same...that would satisfy me. There are actually no words to
describe the feelings I felt and the instant and deep affection I feel for the
Cup'ig people. Their beautiful faces and gracious smiles are enough to win even the coldest heart. I am still pondering the praying about the emotion I continue to feel about this
adventure I so
desperately knew I had to make. I had to do more research and see, feel, smell touch, everything I could in my short three day stay in order to
finish the last three books for my
Nuni of
Nunivak Island series.
Beside all this my poor artist Juliann Kaiser said, "you had better take thousand and thousands of pictures for me!" We had both worked on
Nuni basically blind and when I walked and came across one beach which looked exactly and I mean exactly like the one in our book I stood and with goose bumps running all over my body I just wept
uncontrollably. I asked God how is it possible Juliann and I could have
made such an incredible
connection without ever seeing this
incredible place?
I always say that as soon as we meet another person our lives are
altered forever. You can never go back to being the same person as that new person who comes into your life changes you. So I say thank you to Nus for helping me these past three years, and to Howard her dedicated and gentle husband, i will never forget the fast and easy smile of
Solomon, the first
Cup'ig man who met us at the air strip, I thank Alice, Edith, Annie, Pam, Boyd, Peggy from the school for their warmth toward us. I will never forget Ralph, Stephen, Nathan, Sandra and most of all all those wonderful, wonderful children in the
Mekoryuk School. I love you all and
pray the
Nuni books bring pride to you and enrich your lives.
I want
the world to know about this quickly
vanishing people. Their language and very
existence is in peril. We could actually see them become swallowed up by our present day
society. They need to find work, go away for their educations and they marry into other cultures more readily in this day and age. I hope the
Nuni series will
capture and preserve some of their culture and beauty. Thank you my dear friends.
I will be adding more as I can think back on all this. I will be posting pictures and video after I can get home and get settled.
As they say on
Nunivak "
tawa piura" my
friends.
Labels: adventure, Alasaka, audio books, books, bush, Children, cultures, Cup'ig, education, Eskimo, geography, homeschool, Island, language, life changing, Mekoryuk, Nunivak