Sailing
– August 17th - 19th 2012 (Qaqortoq)
WARNING:
There is photographs of reindeer being used for food. If the reader
has issues with this, then leave this particular blog. Do not post
any negative comments on my blog if you're against hunting for food.
This is a way of life in this country.
This
blog will be about my 3rd sailing experience with my
friends Torben & Hanne. I will write more blogs about the first
and second trip when I get around to it. LOL
Day
One:
We
sailed out of Qaqortoq sometime after 3pm like we always do. I
didn't know where we were going this day either. Each time I've gone
with them, we've camped at a new place and new things were
experienced at each place. Torben and Hanne are both native
Greenlanders. It turns out that I have a lot in common with Hanne
and because of that we have struck up a new and good friendship.
She
has been tutoring me in Greenlandic which at times turns out to
be a laugh here and there at my expense but it's all in fun and I'm
having a great time with it. Other times I find it frustrating due
to the fact that my Southern American accent is getting in the way of
me learning this fascinating language and challenging language.
The
Greenlandic language belongs to the Eskimo family of language. It is
a “poly synthetic” language which means that words are formed
with a root, one or more affixes and a suffix. Because of this a
Greenlandic word can be very long and can mean what corresponds to a
whole sentence in other languages.
There
seems to be different dialects depending on where a person is in
Greenland. There is four dialects: South Greenlandic, West
Greenlandic, East Greenlandic and the Thule dialect. Being I am
living in South Greenland, South Greenlandic is what I'm learning.
Anyway
being I find myself sidetracked writing about the language, lets get
back to what I was writing about to start with. I think it will be
awhile before I can become fluent with Greenlandic but I'm not going
to give up on it. I have been giving some thought to learning Danish
though. I am beginning to think it might be beneficial for me to
learn it long before I learn Greenlandic due to the fact that this
language is also spoken in Greenland and it might make my life much
easier if I did and I shouldn't have as much trouble with it even
with my southern accent. I don't really know until I give it try
though.
So
we started out trip with exceptional weather and light winds. The
waterways seemed to be choppy though and it made it difficult for me
to get many photographs while we were traveling to our destination. I
did get a couple of video's and a few photographs on our way there.
We past a small settlement on our way there called "Qassimiut." There is
only about a hundred people that live there. From what I understand,
they tend to leave this settlement during the fall, winter, spring
months and return back to Qaqortoq so that children can attend
school. It is more or less a summer place for most that live there.
I'm not real sure if any of the remain during the winter months
though.
Much
to my surprise, the first thing we all saw once we got to our
destination were reindeer. Six of them in fact. Torben decided he'd
have to try and get a shot off to take one of them down if possible.
Two of them was laying down sunning themselves and the other four
were standing around eating the local fauna. Torben took one of them
down and got off the boat using the dingy to go and see to the deer
to make sure he wasn't suffering or anything like that. It was a
good kill and the meat will be tasty. Greenlandic people hunt
reindeer, muskox, seal and sometimes polar bear. Polar bear hunting
though only can be hunted by licensed hunters and even then there is
only a small amount of them taken for meat. So Torben and Hanne got
the boat tied off and settled in for the night as far as the boat and
things that have to be done.
Once
we were tied off and could get off the boat we all went to have a
look at the reindeer. Hanne and her mother (who had joined us on
this sailing trip) started the process of getting the deer ready for
butcher by gutting him and removing body organs and things that were
not edible for food consumption. Things were handled in such a way
that nature was not disturbed and the leftover parts of the dear were
placed in a particular fashion so that the local predatory wildlife
could enjoy what was left but at same time didn't cause any negative
impact on the environment. It was interesting to watch them work on
the deer and it brought back memories of when I was a child. My
father used to hunt deer in Florida himself. He'd bring them home
and gut them and dress them and get them ready for butchering. So
this process was nothing new to me, just haven't seen it done in a
long, long time.
It
seems that the men do most of the hunting in Greenland. The women do
the gutting, skinning, butchering of the meat. One of the first
things that was removed from the deer was the heart. I found that to
be interesting. Apparently this is a special delicacy for
Greenlandic people.
The
reindeer was cleaned and moved to a closer area so that it could be
further butchered on the rocks nearby as well as kept cool by the
current Greenlandic weather conditions. After that was done we went
back to the boat and I made dinner that nice. We had a nice stir fry
that consisted of Teriyaki marinated chicken and beef, bell peppers,
onions, snow peas, pineapple, mushrooms, broccoli and rice. Once I
had all of it cooked, then I used a special kind of soy sauce and
sweet and sour sauce to complete the taste I was trying to
accomplish. I have discovered that most who haven't ever had this
style of dish end up loving it and it was a big hit that night too.
Everybody was full after that.
I
thought it'd be fun to mention some of the following Greenlandic
words at the end of day one blog.
Reindeer
– tuttu
Thank
you – Qujanaq
Your
Welcome – Illillu
I
love you – Asavakkit
a
lot – assut
I
miss you – maqaasivakkit
I
will mention more over time as I write more blogs relating to my
living in Greenland. I am not sure if I'm happy with how I wrote this blog so it might be possible that I rewrite it.
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