Muktuk & Kuspuks

Finally getting back home to the village feels great!  Everyone came back to school excited to see each other and continue learning together.  During one of the first days back, we did some Eskimo dancing with the high schoolers and adults:

A family from the village also invited a few of us teachers over for dinner!  We ate so many yummy native foods!  We enjoyed homemade reindeer soup, fried salmon, Eskimo salad, Eskimo ice cream, fermented walrus blubber, and dried fish.  The dried fish is definitely a favorite.  And it's all beautiful, especially the Eskimo salad:

Eskimo salad can vary between villages and even from person to person depending on who makes it, but it usually has greens, whale blubber (called muktuk), fish, walrus (called aiviq), and is dressed with seal oil.  There were also herring eggs in this salad, and other yummy things I know I am forgetting, but definitely enjoyed as I was eating them!  The Eskimo ice cream (called agutuq) was delicious as well!  It is made from berries (black berries and salmon berries from the tundra in these two pictures), reindeer fat, and seal oil.  The black berries are sweeter than the salmon berries, but both are super yummy in the middle of winter when fresh berries are such a rarity!

Yum!

One thing I did not try, was the fermented walrus blubber.  It's called aivuinaq and it's the stinkiest thing you've ever smelled.  Many of the Eskimos really like it, but it's not something I'm adventurous enough to try quite yet.  The fermented walrus (not the blubber) is called ushuk, and the process of making it is quite interesting.  After a walrus is killed, it's wrapped in it's own skin and completely buried underground out on the tundra.  After many months (I believe about 6), it is ready to be dug up out of the ground.  During the months it's underground the meat and blubber ferment.  Many of my students like the fermented meat, but some of them think it's too stinky!  I have to agree with them- it is pretty stinky!!  But more than that I don't know if I can stomach the texture of the blubber- it looks a little too slimy for me.  Maybe someday I'll give it a try... 

Whale blubber (muktuk), on the other hand, is a quite different texture and I do enjoy it a lot (in the Eskimo salad) even though I was skeptical of it at first.  Along with being yummy, Eskimo food is also beautiful!

Another awesome part of the culture up here is the way Eskimos dress!  Lots of furs are used to stay warm, and after purchasing a pair of beaver fur mittens and wearing my rabbit fur hat 100% of the time, there is nothing that will keep you warm like real fur.  When the wind speeds reach 30+ mph and temperatures are below -20 degrees Fahrenheit, real furs are essential.  That's all there is to it.  Most of the natives also wear kuspuks.  Kuspuks are a type of shirt that vary in style depending on where in Alaska they are made and even who makes them (like the Eskimo salad!).  I've made two of my own after learning how to use my body to measure and rip the fabric into pieces to fit me perfectly.  

One of my students helped her brother sew a kuspuk.  Sewing is offered at the school to the high schoolers as part of the bi-cultural program, and the kuspuks they make for themselves and their siblings are beautiful!  

How cute is she though?  :)  

And these little ones too!!

Along with school starting again, basketball season is now in full swing with the first few games under our belt.  Practicing and travelling with the girls has been a blast so far!  More details on that coming soon!!