Pow Wow

Thursday June 11, 2009

Today we were supposed to go to Bob Bear Killer’s house, which I was really excited for because that was one of the projects I worked on when I was here in March. I really wanted to see all the progress that was made. Unfortunately, Bob lives at the bottom of a big hill, and to get to that hill you have to drive at least 2 miles on dirt roads. Today, all the dirt was mud and there was no way we were going to make it to his house safely, left alone be able to make it back up that big hill at the end of the day.

So after the 45 minute drive, we got about half way down the dirt road, we had to turn around. We drove 45 minutes back to Re-Member and we ready to work in the workshop for the rest of the day. We got there and found out that we were needed elsewhere. So we went to help Corbin and his crew at the pow wow grounds because they needed help supporting the canopy –thing that surrounded the grounds. We got a lot of work done and now none of the canopy is going to fall on people. The pow wow starts tonight with the 200+ Crazy Horse Riders arrival. It continues Friday night, Saturday night and ends Sunday night. Corbin is actually dancing in this pow wow, so that will be fun to see. He’s really a highly rated, highly honored pow wow dancer. All of us interns, minus 1 or 2, are going to go to the pow wow tomorrow night, so that should be a lot of fun.

Bunk Beds

Wednesday June 10, 2009

Today we installed bunk beds in a couple homes on the Rez, 6 homes and 21 beds. We installed 2 bunk beds in a trailer in Porcupine, somewhat near Dwayne’s garden. Two more bunk beds in Evergreen Housing across the street from Marie’s house. Another bunk bed and two single beds were put in the cluster of houses near Wounded Knee. Four sets of bunk beds were built for the Rescue Team for the Rez, so that the people on call have a place to sleep. Two more bunk beds were installed in Pine Ridge, near the high school. And finally a bunk bed and a single bed were installed in Pine Ridge somewhat near John Nelson.

We did so well today, everyone worked together great. We kicked butt. Tonight, Corbin gave a talk about his regalia for powwows. Normally, the interns don’t go to the talks at night, either because we’ve heard them before or we need that down time. But tonight, I think all but 1 of the interns was there devoting their attention to what Corbin had to say. It was actually a really fun and interesting night.

Porches

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Today we went to the house of a man named Darryl, who lived right next to Antoinette Brave Heart in Kyle. We had a big day ahead of us: rip out two porches, build and install two porches, build and install a ramp, build and install a set of stairs, and paint the entire inside of the house (walls and ceilings). But, we all had the mind set that we were going to get everything done. 

It was me, Mike & Chris, Maureen (who we had forgotten and left without, she caught up later), and three work crews. Mike was going to do the porch with the ramp all by himself, I was gonna get a few volunteers and take over the other porch project, Maureen and Chris would take the rest of the volunteers inside to paint.

It took a while to get the porch started and progress was slow (mainly because none of us really knew what we were doing. By the time we had the porch frame attached to the house, Mike was already done with the porch itself and started on the ramp. But, at the end of the day we got the porch done (minus the handrails). It was a very productive day, hard honest work felt really good.

Tomorrow, I just found out, I'm going to be install bunk beds into homes with Phil and Breanne. That sounds like it's gonna be a good day.

Before: After:

Wheelchair Ramps

Monday June 8, 2009

Today was the first work day. I was with Phil and we went out to Marie Lamont’s house in Porcupine. We installed two wheelchair ramps, a new porch, some handrails, and fixed up a different porch. She had a surprisingly really nice house, not just for Rez standards, I would say she had a nice house in general. However across the street from her there is a grouping of about 20 houses with 4 gangs in the group, so she can’t ever go out at night. Just when you think things are good, something else happens. She was extremely nice and smiled all day.  Everyone one of the groups that came this week was represented in the crews we worked with today so it was nice to see everyone work together so well. 

Wounded Knee, Again

Sunday June 7, 2009

We went to Wounded Knee again today, per usual. It was our shortest trip there. We were there for at most half an hour, 2 weeks ago we were there for at least 2 hours. What helped was that everything was mud and it was raining the whole time.

After Wounded Knee, instead of the Badlands, we started on work projects since there were so many people. The crews I was with had to move three huge wicked heavy stoves on to a trailer to bring to the recycle center/dump on the Rez sometime later in the week. Then, I got to drive that trailer around for a while. We cleaned up the workshop, in and around it, some other groups mowed the grass because snakes like to hide out there.

Also today a new intern arrived, Christian. All of the other interns are college students, but Christian is a 30 year old teacher, so I was anxious about meeting him and having him as an intern with us. But once I actually met him all of that went away. He seems like a really cool guy, but I haven’t gotten to know him yet. We’ll see.

Even Newer People

Saturday June 6, 2009

Another new batch of volunteers arrived today. It’s our biggest week of the whole summer. We had a UCC (United Church of Christ) group from St. Louis, a whole mix of kids and adults, a UCC group from Denver, same mix of people, a Congregational group from Illinois, everyone is over 65, a family from Idaho, and a group from an all boys school in St. Louis. It’s a very mixed group this week.

Busy Day

Friday June 6, 2009

Last night was the last night for the volunteers; I was hanging out with a couple of them because I had gotten to know them over the past two work days. I ended up staying up ‘til about 12:30 playing cards with them, which is a big deal because normally people go to be at 10:30 when it’s lights out (and the night before, I had fallen asleep by 8:45). So I said goodnight, and they told me they were going to pull and all-nighter. They invited me to stay up with them, I couldn’t I was way too tired. But they told me they were going to watch the sunrise. I told one of them to wake me up before they head out because I had wanted to see the sunrise at least once while I’m out here. At 4:30 they woke me up and the now only 5 of us (there were about 12 people at midnight) walked up the hill behind Re-Member to watch the sunrise. I was glad I got to see it. We hung out there for a while, talked a bunch and got to know everyone. I’m glad they woke me up so early.

So all the volunteers left, everyone was gone by 7:30 in the morning, last week people were hanging around ‘til 10:00. Us interns, now including Naomi, were all going to go to Rapid City again but those plans fell through because all the keys to the Re-Member vans were locked in the Office and no one had a key.

So we waited around for a while, in the mean time, we watched a movie, did laundry and dog-sat for one of the other staff members. Naomi, Breanne and Bekah took Maggie (the dog) out for a walk. As they were walking down the road Maggie suddenly jumped back and then Breanne jumped over Maggie. A snake had tried to bite her. Breanne came running inside calling for me because they needed my “man strength.” I got outside to see what was going on, and then gave me the pleasant job of killing the snake because it was hissing like crazy and started to coil up. I was extremely hesitant but, to spare details I ended up killing the snake. I told myself I was protecting the girls and Maggie and that is why it was OK of me to kill the snake, I kept telling myself I was on defense. More than almost being attacked by a snake, Maggie stepped on a cactus and has needles in her paws, and later on puked all over the rug in the girl’s room. We shouldn’t be allowed to dog-sit. 

Eventually we got some keys from a person who had keys to the Office and decided instead of going north to Rapid, let’s go south to Nebraska. It was great, on the way we saw the biggest brightest rainbow ever, and the full rainbow too, both sides, it was cool. We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and then went to see “Up” in 3D in this small, old, 50s style theater. It was great, there were 15 people in the theater, and we made up 8 of them. The movie was great and we had a lot of fun. All 8 of us bonded together so easily, I was afraid Naomi wasn’t going to fit it but she fits in perfect.