Creative Ethnography

Incense and Basketball in a Strange Place
As I was coming flying to Hawaii in my beat up old space ship I saw the most beautiful flowing river and mountains and I knew I had to stop and explore. I landed in a large field and got out of the ship. The first thing I noticed was an interesting skunk smell hanging in the air, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from because no one else was around. I could see some sort of civilization off in the distance, so I started hiking through a thick forest of trees that had a crisp, refreshing smell that reminded me of Christmas at home. When I finally reached the outskirts of town I tried to find someone to ask for directions and help, but there was no one around. There were no spaceships, cars, or people on the street. Confused and feeling lost, I kept walking down the street hoping that I would eventually find at least one person. Finally I got to the top of a hill and looked down. There were thousands, maybe even a few hundred thousand people in the downtown area of this city. I was overwhelmed by the site, but I slowly hiked down the hill to see what was going on. There were teams of people playing with an orange bouncy ball and trying to throw it through a hoop on the street. There were hundreds of these hoops with one at every corner of the street. These strange people were bouncing this ball down the street and many of them weren’t wearing any shirts. I was staring at one of these games when all of a sudden I was hit in the back of the head with one of the balls and fell to the ground. Luckily a nice woman helped me up and asked if I was alright. I brushed the dirt off of my clothes and asked her what was going on. She said “This is Hoop Fest!” Still looking confused she went on to explain that this was the largest three on three basketball tournament in the world. I had never heard of basketball before, but it seemed simple enough. Still confused and overwhelmed, I asked the woman where I was and she said “You’re in Spokane, Washington. Are you lost or something?” I asked “Spocane?” She laughed and responded “no it’s Spokane (pronounced spoh-kan).”
So I finally figured out that I was in a city called Spokane and a state called Washington. I have vaguely heard of Seattle before, but never had I heard of Spokane. My friend had left me to return to here basketball game so I was left trying to find my way around. As I was walking down the street I smelled the strange skunk smell again, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Desperate to find someone to answer my questions and help me, I started to think of ways to fit in with these people. I decided that I should try to play basketball and see what it was like. I waited until the end of the first game and I grabbed a basketball when no one else was on the court. I started to bounce the ball and threw it toward the standing ring. I missed badly and the ball went bouncing down the street. Luckily a young man stopped it and passed it back to me and asked if I wanted some pointers. Of course I said yes, so he came over and showed me how to properly bounce the basketball and he called it “dribbling.” I picked up dribbling pretty quickly and then we moved on to throwing the ball into what he called “the hoop.” He then showed me the proper form and with a little bit of practice I was able to make a couple shots. My friend, his name was Kevin, asked if I wanted to play a pickup game with him and his friends, which I happily agreed to.
I stepped out onto the court with Kevin and his friends and they gave me to ball “up top.” I passed the ball to Kevin and he shot it toward the hoop, but it bounced off and the other team got the ball. This went on for about twenty minutes when finally the referee blew his whistle and said that the game was over. I don’t know who won, but Kevin and his friends invited me to go to a place called Barracho Tacos. I was starting to feel accepted by these people, but I still wanted to understand their way of life more. I was hoping that getting to talk to Kevin over some tacos would give me some more information. When we got to Barrachos the server asked me what I wanted, but having no idea what to order, I told him to give me whatever Kevin was having. As we waiting for our food Kevin was telling me all about Spokane and that it was the second largest city in Washington State, but it constantly got overshadowed by Seattle. I watched as a table next to us passed some sort of incense around and took turns with it. Confused by what this sort of ceremony was about I was going to ask Kevin what they were doing, but all of a sudden I was overcome by a much stronger smell of skunk in the air. Before I could ask Kevin what was going on, our food came. The food was amazing. It was so simple, yet so good. It was a thin piece of dough that was fried and then chicken, cheese, and vegetable were put on top of it. Kevin showed me how to fold it into what he called “a perfect taco.” Kevin and I had a long talk about the good and bad things in Spokane and he told me where to stay if I ever come back. Unfortunately he told me that he had to get back to his basketball team so they could try and win the championship. I decided that it was time to head back to the spaceship and get to my next destination, Hawaii.
Walking back to the spaceship was harder because it was uphill, but it did give me quite a bit of time to think about what I had just experienced and what these Spokanites were like. I decided that they were a fairly friendly group of people, but didn’t like to talk randomly talk to other people. Once you made friends with someone, they were very nice and generous though. These people did love their basketball though. They hosted the largest three on three tournament in the world and also had a college basketball team called the Gonzaga Bulldogs that everyone loved. I thought that this event symbolized the people of Spokane as a whole. It showed me that they were a friendly community that loved to come together and have fun, but they are also a competitive group of people. There were some customs that were strange to me though. I found it entertaining that people would yell and dance around when they made the basketball into the hoop. I also found the ceremony involving incense was interesting, though no one ever explained it to me. As I was walking I again smelled this skunk smell. It was always in the air, but I could never see where it was coming from. Finally I could tell I was getting close to the grass field where I parked the space ship. As I rounded the corner I saw an empty field where my space ship should have been parked. I panicked because it was gone. I didn’t know what to do so I ran to the nearest person I could find and they let me use a device to talk to the local police. It turns out that Spokane has one the highest rates of car (or spaceship) theft in the entire country. It looks like I will be spending even more time here. Maybe I will go figure out what this strange skunk incense is and I will try to join in on that custom.