By now these places are starting to blend together. The buildings we are sent out to survey are cookie-cutter images of each other, making the work ubiquitous from one village to the next. But the villages themselves... they are not the same. Some leave me with a longing to explore further, to get to know the place and the people.
The flight to Hooper Bay was a surprise. Seven people crowded around the door to the runway when the flight was called, which was unusual to say the least. So far our flights into a village had been us + cargo, or perhaps one other person. What could possibly be happening at Hooper Bay to entice 5 others to board? In fact, this flight carried no cargo but that belonging to the passengers.
Our fellow passengers included a couple of folks enlisted for the medical clinic, two guys contracted to install a new fuel tank for the village school, a local, and us. The flights themselves are noisy affairs that don't lend themselves to conversation, but upon landing some of us huddled in the frigid wind waiting for our rides.
There are people who you want to associate yourselves with in any situation, and those you wish you could politely step away from. "I'm not with them," you want to say to the local community, because of word, deed, or just vibe. There might have been a woman on our flight that made me have these thoughts... And yet... In this job, we swoop in and practically demand that the village community share thoughts, feelings and history with us, without preamble or justification. We are usurpers in our own way, demanding nothing but information from strangers. Are we any better than the typical "rude American," with assumptions that people will want to talk to us, want to share all? Are we any better than those that came before us?
No comments:
Post a Comment