So... I know it has been a while since you have heard from me and so much has happened. I still love my school and my town. I still like my roommate. We had a heaver snow, I went to bingo (which was actually a lot of fun), our school hosted our first farmers market (all fresh fruits and vegs), I started coaching cheerleading, Our prom committee met for the first time and I bought my plane tickets home for Christmas. Yes, I have been really really busy. But Today was a real exciting day. We had our culture camp and it was awesome! We started it by hearing about Atqasuk in the beginning how it was started up as a coal mining community, how the four-plex I live in now was the original school and how they only had 4 teachers here originally. We were then invited into the kitchen and we learned how to make some traditional dishes like, bow head muktuk (aka. is the outer covering of the whale. It includes the white skin, approximately 1-2 inches thick, plus a thin pinkish layer immediately underneath.),
Tuttu soup (aka. reindeer soup),
Beluga Meat and skin/blubber-
Eskimo doughnuts (aka. Fried dough)
I helped make these!!!!!
Overall the food was different but it was all good! My favorite was the fried whale meat. But I did try it all and finished almost all my food.
When we all had our fill we took the rest of the food to the elders.
After we ate lunch we talked about ice fishing and we made the traditional fishing rods. We made the notches on the poles and everything!
We then were awarded our Eskimo names. I was named Nauyna after one of the ladies Grandmothers. It is an honor to be named after someone and I am in awe that they would name me after someone so close to them. :) Oh by the way Nauyna in inupit means seagull which is an important thing for the inupits they even have a dance for them.
Well ta ta for now I will keep blogging! I miss my friends and family very much but still loving it up here!
-Danielle
