Heading Home

Fri. & Sat. June 24 & 25: We were all up by 6:00 again to have a quick “Continental Breakfast”. Macel, Kari & Laura left quickly to try and get Laura to a family gathering in Kalamazoo Saturday afternoon and Kari home to prepare to lead the service Sunday morning. The van with Alex, Eli, Carol, Linda and Sue left next. When Jackie, Ed, Marv & I left, only Mary, Emily, Karen, Katie, Summer, and Maddie remained. They were heading to the North Badlands unit to do some hiking since we missed out on that on Sunday with the rain. We decided to drive up to Wounded Knee one more time. As we walked around, Dakota came up again. He was taking a picture of the grave of his uncle, which now bore a small Swedish flag. It turned out that his uncle had traveled to Sweden and married a Swede. Dakota has cousins and other relatives there and has visited them, near where Ed once lived. The relatives sent decorations for the grave and he was taking a picture to send back to them. Then the four of us got on our way, stopping only to get postcards in Nebraska to mail to James & the McCoy kids for their collections, and for lunch at a local café in a small town in Nebraska (Marv & Ed had the special—chicken fried steak—and Jackie & I had the Navajo taco salad, served on Indian Fried Bread.). Along the way in the morning we saw several deer and prong horn antelope, and more evidence of flooding. We stopped at another small town café just inside the Iowa border and then drove on until about 10:00 to stay in Waterloo, Iowa. The first place we found was a Howard Johnson’s that had no vacancies, but the desk person kindly called 4 places before finding a Motel 6 that would take us. It was not nearly as nice as our stay on the way out and didn’t offer breakfast. We got a sandwich at Subway and plowed east, stopping at Wendy’s south of Chicago and Panera’s in Battle Creek for faster meals than our first day. We got home about 8:30, looked at the yard and gardens as twilight fell, checked in with our moms and kids and fell into bed. In the next few days I finished the wonderful book, Neither Wolf Nor Dog, by Kent Nerburn, which was so helpful in putting much of what I had seen on Pine Ridge Reservation in context or me. I recommend it highly! Marv found a Pandora program online that recovered most of the pictures he had deleted, but none of the videos. Once we were home we again had access to the internet and our email. So I am able to offer this latest adventure, with pictures, to you on The Savage Traveler.

Final Work Day

Thu. June 24: Our final day dawned sunny and less cool than the day before. Marv, Mary, Macel, Maddie, Emily, Alex, Elijah, Katie, and Karen got up at 4:45 to climb the hill and watch the sunrise. I got up and saw that I could see the sun rise from my bed and decided that would do. After breakfast my group and one other went back to Agnes’ trailer to finish up while Marv’s went to continue the roofing job at a long, added-on-to house. There was a nice breeze that kept the roofers cool enough but Marv said that the shingles were really too hot to have so many people walking on them. They finished the job, though, and that was very satisfying. They stopped for ice cream and got back earlier than scheduled. Our group finished the front porch/deck, repaired and remounted the back porch with the old steps from the front, and completed the corner caps for the skirt. There were plenty of jobs for everyone there. Then we headed to the Grandma’s nearby trailer to repair gaping holes in the floor. There were not so many things to do there and most of the group ended up sitting around and chatting. Karen and I measured and cut while David and Mark did the repairs inside. We fixed two and, although it was getting pretty late, David really wanted to do a third. I suggested that Marisa take the van full of people back, leaving Karen and the men to finish and Maddie to play with the many kids (that was her preference). When we got back to Re-Member we found that two groups were still out and that everyone who had returned had done the cleaning on their own. We began packing and, when one of the groups was back, we enjoyed a Pizza Hut dinner that no one had to prep or clean-up. We had Wrap-up of the experience with just our group again, telling the Greatest Gift from the week and the thing we would like to leave here when we go tomorrow. I found it interesting that about half of the people talked about negative ideas or behaviors that they hoped to “leave behind” and half spoke of the ways they hoped they had had an impact to “leave behind”. The final activity was ice cream sundaes and then Marv and I climbed the hill one more time and watched the sun set from the same place he had watched it rise. We got our Prayer Partner gifts and tried to finish all but the last minute packing. It had been an emotional, and in some ways heart wrenching week, where we all learned a great deal and could leave with the feeling that we have had an impact on this very impoverished but culturally rich community.

Touring Day

Wed. June 22: Today dawned sunny and breezy. Teams 1-6 were “Touring” so after breakfast we all loaded in to the flat nosed Blue Bird Pine Ridge Bus and headed to our first destination, Red Cloud Indian School. Those who had seen it before were given a tour of the High School. The rest of us were given the history of the school by Tina, an alum turned staff member, who met with us in the lovely, lofty sanctuary that was rebuilt a few years ago after the original 1893 building burned down. Their chancel area is made from bricks and the cornerstone from the old building. We learned that Red Cloud demanded that the “Black Dresses” that had treated him well be included when they formed the school and that is why it is Catholic. They are a Preschool through high school and 92% of graduates go on to College. They have a high number of Bill Gates Scholarship recipients. There is no tuition charged but students must “test into” the school and they offer no Special Education Services. After her presentation we went to the cultural center to see the Art Show and purchase crafts made by students, if desired. From there we drove around the town of Pine Ridge. They made a quick stop at the gas station and then we proceeded to KILI radio station to look around. The DJ who was featured in the video we had seen Sunday was there and we had a good chance to talk with him. The view from the station is really beautiful and it was a good chance to enjoy the lovely day with temperatures in the 70s. The Reservation is very large and everything is quite a long drive so we spent a great deal of time riding in the bus between stops. Along the way I saw several magpies and an antelope lying in a field which was still there half an hour later when we passed it again. Everyone was really ready to eat lunch when we arrived at Betty’s Kitchen. Great Granddaughter of Black Elk, Betty serves preordered lunches at her double-wide on a hill side, eaten outside under a pine bough shelter looking over the rolling countryside. We both had a turkey sandwich that turned out to be much like what we had been eating all week. But it had hearty potato salad and pork and beans with it too. We also bought a piece of Betty’s chocolate cake for dessert. Many people made the steep climb up the hill behind Betty’s to enjoy even better views. But I was having trouble with vertigo and just couldn’t make it up. That was a first for me and I found it very discouraging. From Betty’s the bus took us to Singing Horse Trading Post. It is a small place under a log house with a variety of items for sale but we didn’t buy anything there. Our final stop of the day was at the cultural center at Oglala Lakota College. They played an audio guide to some of the paintings, photos, and maps that gave a history of the area. We were hurried out of the center before we could watch the video that was supposed to follow. But the group mutinied a bit and did manage to stop at the College Bookstore, where I finally found postcards and Marv bought a t-shirt. We arrived back at Re-Member just about exactly at dinnertime and had hamburgers. Kari’s group continued working for some reason and they arrived an hour late for dinner. They were pretty exhausted! Several Lakota artists were invited to bring their work for us to peruse and I finally managed to buy Dreamcatchers for the grandchildren and we bought a painting by a “ledger artist” named Joe Pulliam who, like some other artists, is doing paintings on old ledgers pages, the way Lakota artists had to do when they couldn’t get any other paper for their artwork. The evening presenter was a dancer who worked with the US Park Service named Corbin Conroy/Good Man to Walk With. He explained his Regalia and dressed one of the young volunteer men in most of it, telling the history and story behind the pieces. He had a dry sense of humor and made it very enjoyable but the whole presentation took about an hour and a half. Our group had hoped to climb the hill behind the dining hall to watch the sun set but it was too late for that. So we returned to our Kiksuya for Prayer Partner presents and to practice our song for which Kari had written a verse. While trying to work on pictures on the camera Marv inadvertently erased everything on the card, deleting about 200 Pine Ridge pictures and our anniversary dinner pictures as well. It was a sad note to end the day on as we wearily got ready for bed.

Second Work Day

Tue. June 21: This was another cloudy, breezy day that threatened rain; cooler but with only a bit of drizzle. The same three groups went with one of the same Project Managers (Marissa) to continue a different skirting job with a different Construction Manager (Dave). The big van got stuck in the mud going down the wrong driveway but a man came out of the trailer and masterfully backed it up and got it out. Dave told us to forget everything about how Matt does skirting and do it his way. He proceeded to give us much more instruction and we got more done. Four kids came out and spent the rest of the day with us, playing with volunteers and sharing our lunch. We only stopped skirting when we ran out of fiberglass insulation batting. We began making a deck for the same trailer and then made the nearly one hour drive back to Re-Member. We ate spaghetti for dinner and then had my favorite speaker thus far. Larry Swallow/Cetan Tanka Tokahe Kin Ye/Hawk Who Flies First used song, words, drum, and projected slides to tell The Lakota Creation Story. He is a gifted and mesmerizing story teller and I enjoyed it immensely! Marv & I bought a copy of his DVD where he does his presentation in his Ceremonial Regalia. After practicing the song and getting our Prayer Partner gifts we tried to do a better job of getting lights out on time at Kiksuya.

First Work Day

Mon. June 20: Although we were well prepared for hot, sunny weather we were less so for the cool, breezy, rainy day that greeted us. After a quick breakfast of hot and cold sweetened cereal all 50 or so people went down to the Workshop to unload lumber across the deeply rutted, muddy lot. It seemed best to do by “Bucket Brigade” and took about an hour to finish. We then took some of the lumber just unloaded into the Workshop and semi trailer and put it BACK onto two of the trailers to take to worksites. Groups 1, 2(mine), & 3(Marv’s) went together to put a skirt on a mobile home about a half an hour drive from Re-Member. The highway is being redone along our drive and, especially right where we needed to turn off, it was pretty dicey as we dealt with the slippery mud. We settled into diverse roles of varying expertise only-sort-of guided by an Oglala construction leader named Matt. There was no safety equipment and many half-charged power tools and there was a great deal of standing around wondering what we should do. But despite the nearly all day drizzle we managed to get nearly half finished before it was time to go back. The van and trailer became hopelessly mired in the mud as we tried to pull away, but a helpful 4-wheel drive pick-up came along and managed to give enough assistance to get it up the drive, onto the new but unpaved roadbed and back on the temporary highway. Along the way we found out that, along with not having a director this week, the Cook hadn’t been seen for 2 weeks so the kitchen was being managed by the Project Managers with help from the volunteer teams. The potatoes hadn’t adequately cooked for a potato bar so they creatively put out chips instead and it became a nacho bar. The evening’s speaker was a Lakota musician named Will Peters/Ta Canku Luta Waunspewicakiya/Teacher of the Red Way who wanted to mainly talk to the Youth about respecting themselves and others. He spoke for about an hour, sang one song, and gave us the opportunity to buy jewelry and his CD, made with his son. I bought a turtle necklace and Marv bought the CD. Afterward the Edgewood group returned to Kiksuya for “Thorns & Roses”, to work on our “group” song, and to get Prayer Partner gifts.

Our First Full Day

Sun. June 19: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!! Today only we got to “sleep in” until 7:00, as opposed to our usual 6:00. My team was on Breakfast Prep so I went up early to cut oranges and put out milk. All the cereals are sweetened, underscoring that Re-Member is really more geared to Youth Groups than intergenerational groups such as ours. One of the staff read verbatim, in a stumbling monotone, the Wisdom of the Elders quotes, which was pretty disappointing. (We would hear many times through the week how wonderful the Wisdom of the Elders and the Reservation Tour are when presented in context by the missing director.) We left right after that for Wounded Knee. The rain was spitting a bit but we stayed mostly dry under a shelter of pine boughs as a young man named Dakota welcomed us and gave us the history “as he learned it from his elders”. It was pretty much the story as Marv & I have learned it, since we have both done extra reading and study, but it was sobering and moving to hear it from Dakota at the sight. He did a nice job and then sent us up to the graveyard to look around for a while. Kari suggested we also go down to the Museum at the bottom of the hill, which dealt more with the problems in the 1970s. It was raining harder and harder as we drove on to the White Cloud Visitors Center for the south part of Badlands National Park. When this part was added to the Badlands National Monument it was put under Oglala Lakota management with native Rangers and Interpreters. The Lakota people had access to this land until it was procured for bombing practice during World War II. They call it not “Bad” but White Land, for the light color of the rock formations. They allowed us to eat our picnic in their “basement” as the rain picked up. After a bit more time in the Center we climbed back on the bus, thinking we were going to hike in the Bad Lands. To my great disappointment, we learned that the rain caused the roads and trails to be too slippery to proceed on, so we just drove back to Re-Member. After killing some time, we watched an interesting documentary about the reservation radio station, KILI, called “No More Smoke Signals”. After chicken for dinner, we had a speaker whose Lakota name, Inila Wakan, means Quiet Spirit. He first blessed us each individually with burning sweet grass and then offered an ancient prayer-song, turning us all to the directions of the four winds. In a VERY quiet voice, which unfortunately some people were unable to hear, he told us about the history of the White Land/Wilderness. He is a land acquisition leader in the Oglala Lakota nation and has taken back his own family’s lands, where he lives with three generations “off the grid” with no plumbing or electricity. His is the only one of his extended family that hasn’t succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse and the ramifications of them. He held us mesmerized for over an hour. When we returned to our building we got our Prayer Partner packages, talked about the growing bed bug problems and went to bed.

A Journey to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation: Time with Re-Member

Friday, June 17—Saturday, June 18: We left Edgewood Church for Re-Member at about 8:00, half an hour later than planned due to late arrivals. Marv & I are riding with Ed & Jackie, and the other 14 people are in two minivans and a truck. Friday was a VERY long day of driving, with brief stops for lunch and dinner. We arrived in North Sioux City, SD, barely inside the state line out of Iowa, about 10:30 “our time”. The Comfort Inn & Suites was very nice, with an indoor pool, cookies, and a large room for Marv and me to share. After a good breakfast we got back on the road. We saw a lot of evidence of the record flooding of the Missouri River in the area and even had to take some detours to get around closed roads and exits. Most of today’s driving was on highways, not freeways, and we had little traffic and only a few small towns across Nebraska as we made our way to Pine Ridge. When we arrived we found we were all staying in the smaller, “extra” building called Kiksuya. There is more than enough room for us there and it gets us away from the bustle of the main building, where they are dealing with an infestation of bed bugs. At our orientation we were warned about that and also learned that the Director is gone this week, fetching his family to come live with him here. That leaves about 60 volunteers, mostly youth, in the hands of about 6 college-age workers. We had dinner then went to a Pow-Wow, held at the nearby Oglala Lakota College (Associates, Bachelors, & Masters Degrees). It was interesting and entertaining to see all the dancers in their Regalia and some of our group joined in on the dancing. Marv and I especially enjoyed going from Drum Circle to Drum Circle and watching them. We got back to Re-Member late enough that we met only long enough to get our Prayer Partner gifts and go to bed. With a fan in the window making white noise and ear plugs in my ears I was soon asleep in a room with 4 other women.