Provisional Purgatory

Provisional: 1.) arranged or existing for the present, possibly to be changed later.

Purgatory: 1.) in Roman Catholic doctrine, a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven.

Put the two together and I think I have a perfect explanation of what it feels like to be serving/living/working in Kivalina.

I remember explaining my quest to the sweet little old lady seated next to me on the flight from Portland to Anchorage last July and she responded, “So you’re a Missionary? And this is your Mission Trip?”

Little did I know how true her prophecy was.

My Dadd recently commented on a Facebook photo of the neighboring village of Noatak...        

“This is the Alaska that they advertise.” 

Yep, Dadd you’re right and the one they advertise is the one I get to only visit on weekends. I go “home” to Kivalina and wonder why it’s acceptable to drop trash every place except in a receptacle. Is that a feminine product at the base of the steps leading up to the school? Is that a soiled diaper on the road to the store, right near the new Annex. Why are the dogs in Noatak tied with enough room to run while the ones in this village are lucky if their tether is 3 feet long? Trees? No dice. Running water? Only in the school and teacher housing. 

Is this what Purgatory is like?

I have failed to share with the followers of this “Adventure” one of the unique pleasantries that I’ve experienced while using the student bathroom here at McQueen. I’ll be the first one to admit, I was fooled for weeks by the wads of toilet paper that I regularly saw on and around the commodes. The use of indoor plumbing is something that that those of us raised on porcelain can only truly appreciate after actually seeing this mess first hand. You see at home, the children of Kivalina use Honey Buckets. Without running water and subsequently no sewer hook ups, the villagers use a bucket lined with a trash bag. In order to fit more waste in to the Honey Bucket, some people wipe and put the toilet paper in a bin beside the bucket to be burned or disposed of separately. So, when the preschoolers and kindergartners make their way in to the grade school, many have rarely used conventional toilets before. They wipe and toss the paper on the floor to the side – you can fit more poo in the Honey Bucket this way, right? This isn’t savagery. They know no different. And so the floor at school is littered with TP that has been used but not flushed. Imagine my disgust when I only figured this out after a couple of weeks of police calling the trash in the bathroom.

What came first – the chicken or the egg?

Kivalina is stuck in this gunslinger’s duel over who is going to pull the cord first. Who is going to pay for village relocation? Is it a responsibility of the State of Alaska? Is it a Federal Responsibility? What are “we” waiting for people?

Climate Change is debatable but Coastal Erosion, no matter the cause, is real. More than the shores of Kivalina are eroding though. Their way of life, values and traditions are being figuratively washed away to sea as well. Village life is bearable but no longer is it suitable living conditions in the 21^st century United States. This is more like Third World living but with, Cheetos, Pepsi, Cell Phones and Satellite TV. Nobody wants to pony up the necessary money to build roads and the necessary infrastructure to start an entirely new community. Pay first, build second and then drop the people in place later. The fact is the Oil Money of Alaska isn’t as readily available anymore. Federal money is hard to come by as well… and so they wait.

Waiting on someone to draw first - A gunslinger’s duel of complacency.

Move?

When?

Where?

Who’s going to pay for it?

And in the meantime little to nothing is done to take care of the assets “we” do have here.

Very little in home improvements – why? We’re just going to move.

Very little in improvements to the school – why? We’re just going to move.

Trash and recycling – why? We’re just going to move.

Roads and travel routes – why? We’re just going to move.

Replace the playground – why? We’re just going to move.

It’s a harsh reality to live with, this local feeling of complacency.

Recently, we experienced a couple of days in a row of uncomfortable weather. The winds howled and the westerly waves pounded the shores. What I’ve since learned is that the beaches are scalloping. The ocean is rising and at the same time coming in at an angle. This lethal combination is eating away at the coastline. The high school students were pulled from class to help the adults fill sand bags. These aren’t the typical sandbags that one might think of using to reinforce a dike or hold back a river. These Super Sand Bags are the size of a small Volkswagen but have a shelf life similar to a bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter.  The Chukchi Sea was threatening to punch a breach in the runway. When I went to investigate, a village elder pointed at the sea and back at the lagoon and then hollered in broken English, “Bad! New channel coming! Bad!”

Facing north @ the Breach 10/20/15

It was an eerie experience being there with him that day. One I won’t soon forget. The runway erosion has been patched but like most “patch work” it is temporary – provisional. The edge of the beach is now only 9 steps away from the edge of the runway. If the runway becomes compromised, the village looses contact with the outside world. Nothing in and nothing out…

So they scrambled to save the runway with a provisional fix that they must know won’t last.

A sad truth though is that if they let it go and stood by and watched as our only safe connection was taken back to the sea, maybe we could have declared a State of Emergency. In a State of Emergency political red tape is more easily manipulated or even avoided. If they didn’t put in the Super Sand bags maybe it would have gotten bad enough to fix the problem now. Relocate. Here’s the money.

But nobody could just stand by and let that happen.

Facing south midway down the runway in Kivalina - 10/20/15

When do you take care of what you have and when do you let it wear down and wear out because you know help is on the way?

And that’s the mindset that creeps in to every thought around here… things are wasting away and “we” wait on a fix that might never come. But the solution is being worked on and in some cases, promised. It’s going to be difficult to teach these children to appreciate anything that is replaced or built new. Undoing years of  “provisional” thought…things are going to change – later.

Possibly?

An Arctic sunset...

And a visit from Nadine...