Zonkies: The Cool Kids of the Animal Kingdom

When I went to college I was in one of the first classes to have a significant number of multiracial students.  In an effort to be as transparent as possible I will take this opportunity to admit I actually had to look up the proper term.  A multiracial American is someone who belongs to two or more races.  This is different from being multiethnic.  Most Americans are multiethnic by default.  If you say you are an American whose ancestors are from Ireland and Germany you are multiethnic.  But someone who is multiracial is from two (or more) different races: black and white, or Asian and white, or Native American and Asian, etc.  Again, please keep in mind, I am a professor of tourism, not a race or ethnicity specialist.

But as I was saying, when I went to college I had a lot of classmates who were multiracial.  This made a lot of sense because kids born in the late 70s/early 80s had parents who were the first to consider and accept interracial marriages in the U.S. And all these kids were very open about this; they really embraced and were proud of the fact that they were a little bit different.  A lot of my friends had dads who were former U.S. military and met their wives overseas during either the Korean or Vietnam wars.  And then I had a lot of other friends who had one black and one white parent.  There were so many of these interracial kids at Hopkins they actually formed a club: the Happy Halfies.  They would introduce one another as, “This is my friend Chris.  He’s a Happy Halfy, just like me!”   To be completely honest, those of us who weren’t halfies were almost a little jealous because they were definitely the epitome of cool kids.  And they were all good looking.  I’m not sure if there is a biological explanation, but there wasn’t a single bad looking guy or girl in the group.

A few years after I graduated I moved to Galena, Alaska to work in a boarding high school.  All of my students were native Alaskans.  Some were Inuit, others Yupik Eskimos, Athabaskans, Aleuts and a few Inupiaqs.  Each year Galena would host a huge basketball tournament in which teams from around the state would fly in and compete.  I always looked forward to this event because there was a huge cultural component, and it gave me a real opportunity to learn more about the differences between the various native groups.  The team from Aniak always amazed me.  Their mascot was the halfbreed.  In the 1970s the Aniak high school students selected the mascot because “it made sense.”  There was a large population of white settlers who intermarried with Yupik Eskimos, resulting in mixed-race kids.  When I was in Galena almost 15 years ago, the mascot was shown as a face cut in half: one side of the face looked like a white settler, the other half of the face had native features and a long braid.  The portrayal has since been changed:

The reason I am writing about my friends the Happy Halfies and the Aniak Halfbreeds is because a story about a zonkey in Crimea recently went viral.  (At least something positive is coming out of poor Ukraine.)  I was looking at CNN this morning and there was a zonkey born in a Crimean zoo recently.  When I was in Botswana I used to see zonkeys from time to time.  They aren’t terribly common, but when a zebra and a donkey fall in love, or have the opportunity, a zonkey is what results.  I am certainly not equating my friends to animals, but anytime I see a zonkey I was always reminded of the Happy Halfies and the Halfbreeds.  In case you are unfamiliar with a zonkey here is a picture from Botswana.  We used to have donkeys wander around town all the time, but here is one of the zonkeys not far from UB:

Extreme Home Makeover: Botswana Edition

I lived in Alaska not long after 9/11. Shortly after I arrived my mother sent me a newspaper article from the Baltimore Sun. If I remember correctly the title, or at the very least subtitle was something along the lines of: “Everyone is now realizing what Alaska already knows, the power of duct tape.” The article was written during the time period when there was a lot of speculation about weapons of mass destruction. According to the author people were stockpiling duct tape and plastic sheeting in anticipation of a possible terrorist attack. However, while these supplies were running low in the Lower 48 states everyone in Alaska was using it with reckless abandon. More than once I boarded a plane only to realize the window was broken and “fixed” with duct tape. Here is the Baltimore Sun article if you are interested.

Remember the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding? And regardless of ailment the father would always prescribe Windex? Have a zit? Spray it with Windex! Sore throat? Windex! Broken toe? Yup, Windex should definitely do it. I think after two years in Alaska I adopted a similar approach to duct tape. If duct tape won’t fix it, then you might as well throw it out. Today, once again, duct tape served me well.

This morning I woke up and decided I had had enough. I simply couldn’t take the mosquitoes anymore. The problem is that it has gotten to the point that I can’t sleep through the night because I can hear them buzzing around my head, and will slap myself across the face in an effort to kill the mosquitoes. But last night was more than I could bear. I woke up constantly scratching uncontrollably. And the worst part was that I have about a dozen bites on the bottoms of my feet and the palms of my hands. I had already decided by the time I got to work that I needed to find mosquito netting for my bed. But when a student asked me this morning after observing my pasty white legs with giant red blotches all over them from broken skin, “Does that hurt?” I knew there was no other option.

After work I went to the mall and after visiting about six stores was finally able to purchase mosquito netting. This just might be the best $28 I’ve ever spent. The challenge was finding a way to hang it up in my bedroom. Here is my bedroom pre-mosquito netting:

I attempted several times to affix the mosquito net using duct tape and shower curtain hooks, but I wasn’t tall enough to stand on the bed and affix it to the ceiling. I tried to jump and use broom handles, but neither worked. Fortunately, I have two additional beds in my house, so I piled them all on top of one another, climbed up, and was able to affix it myself. I suppose in the end I could have slept on all three mattresses a la The Princess and the Pea:

Here we have the final product:

And with a model (moi) for full effect:

I’m so excited I may just have to go to bed early tonight.

Don’t worry about finding us. We will find you.

One of my most memorable jobs was in Alaska.  I lived in a small village called Galena along the Yukon River in what is known as bush Alaska.  The bush villages are not connected by the road system, meaning you must either fly into them, often landing on a dirt runway, or you arrive by boat in the summer, or via snow-go or snow-machine (known to everyone in the Lower-48 as a snowmobile) once the river freezes over.

When I was hired for the job as Residence Hall Director for a boarding high school, sight unseen, via a phone interview, I excitedly asked the principal on the other end of the line how I would know who to look for when I arrived at the airport.  I distinctly remember his response, “Don’t worry about finding us.  We will find you.”

In order to get to my final destination I flew from Baltimore to Anchorage and was then scheduled to take a six-seat prop plane to Galena.  In Anchorage I collected my belongings and checked in for my Anchorage-Galena flight. The difference between the major carriers like Alaska Airlines and the bush planes are immediately obvious to new arrivals who noticeably wince the first time they recognize that duct tape is used to hold the windows together.

Unaware of the nuances associated with Alaskan travel I was taken aback at the Anchorage airport when I was told I needed to step on the scale.  After significant confusion and objections on my part, the woman behind the counter said, “We have to weigh you because we need to know exactly how much weight the plane is carrying so we don’t overload it and cause it to crash.” As if the mention of a crash once wasn’t daunting enough she mentioned I needed to wear my winter coat on the flight.  “But, it’s August and 90 degrees out.” Shaking her head and rolling her eyes disapprovingly at my ignorance she responded, “Yes, but this is Alaska, we have lots of mountains and snow here.  If the plane crashes on a mountain you don’t want to freeze to death!”  It took every fiber of my being to restrain myself from telling her if the plane crashed I would like to request a much swifter demise than freezing to death.

Obviously, I survived my first Alaskan plane ride, and dozens more during my two years there.  And the principal was right, when I arrived in Galena, they found me right away.  I suspect my dazed and confused expression of relief at finding my feet back on solid ground in the Galena “airport,” which was really a wooden shack about eight feet by eight feet, may have given me away.

I remembered this story recently as I was preparing for my flight to Botswana. I emailed my new department chair with my flight itinerary and was assured I would be met at the airport and taken to my new home.  Without any idea as to the location of my accommodations or a phone number to reach someone in case I arrived and no one was there to meet me I asked him how I would know who to look for when I arrived.  His response was familiar, “Don’t worry about finding us.  We will find you.”  Here’s hoping lightning strikes the same phrase twice.

Here's also hoping my escort brings doesn't bring a moped to pick me up: