Community is the only truly sustainable thing

So I've almost completed my first week at my service placement, how strange. I have really run the gammut of feelings and responses to a new place this week. Sunday, as I wrote, I was just thrown into the new culture full on, and it was exciting. Monday I started to understand how long I was here and feel a little overwhelmed by the new culture, and then I started to feel a bit homesick. It is a little hard knowing there is only one other person in my program right now and she is 4 plus hours away having a totally different experience on a totally different reservation.

I spent monday reading, reading, reading about BraveHeart society, cultural resouce managment, establishing a tribal historic preservation office, stuff Brave Heart and the cultural committee has done in the past, etc. There was a lot of information and I was kind of lonely reading alone all day (my host mom was at a tribal meeting only members are allowed at) but it was OK I learned a lot of valuable information. Monday night we briefly went to a corps of engineers meeting regarding land use around the Missouri river basin, really interesting stuff for someone like me. It was interesting to see how many different groups were there all with stakes, histories and interests in the same land: there were sport fishermen, hunters, people from the National Park service, Faith and I representing the Native interest of course, and people from the Corps of Engineers. There was one guy, a rancher named Less who is reallly an advocate of the Native people of the area. He spoke up and said there should be a visitors center in the recreation area that tells the story of the indigenous people that live on that land and Faith was really happy about that. Then she showed me a Tipi they constructed by the information center for the Ft Randall Dam recreation area and we are thinking maybe one of my projects could be to make some story boards to put around it and see if Less can help us out.

Tuesday my host mom left for a VERY important tribal court case in Minnesota. The federal government is trying to diminish the land holdings of the Yankton Sioux nation (traditionally they are known as the Inhanktonawan Dakota). This is a huge deal because this is their ancestral land, and they have already been so disposessed and abused by the government. My host mother becomes extremely emotional talking about it, so I have not asked much about it or brought it up. I figure after we win the case and it is not so scary I can ask more. I can't believe that indigeneous people in the US still have to deal with that kind of stuff, hasn't there been enough damage? Tuesday I spent getting a 605 area code cell phone that works here and kind of settling into my new room and relaxing. I also read a ton more, did some other errands and worked on a grant application.

Faith and I are writing a grant to get money from Honor the Earth for a community garden we want to start in Lake Andes. We are asking for five thousand dollars to plant, publicize and have a summer farmers market. I wrote most of it tuesday and wednesday and we are finalizing it tomorrow.

I spent tuesday night alone in the house (which I am tellin ya, is in the middle of nowhere) and that was a little rough, but I figure it is good for me. There are spirits in the house that kept me company. I have been sick with a cold all weekk, and wednesday I was not feeling so hot so I slept in and took it easy all day. I finished the grant, and then read more on THPOs and made a check list of what we need to do to get ours. There is so much!! The Ponca tribe of Nebraska has a good model but man are there a lot of details and nitty grittys! I read through their proposal to get some ideas for ours, and Faith was really excited to come home to that check list. We are going to start working on the THPO app soon I think, which is overwhelming but I am looking forward to it.

Faith got home late wednesday night and we had diner and watched some TV together. I went ot bed early cause I was still feeling so sick! Today I got up late again because Faith had left at like, 5 am for another court case and took the day to get some schoool work done, which is hard to get back into the groove of! I read an article by Winona LaDuke and did an analysis of it. It was really good, talking about restoring a sacred balence, breaking uot of a culture of colonialism, etc, and building community. She says that community is the only truly sustainable thing she knows of, and I think that is such a beautiful and true statement. It is also very very true for Native communities in America and I see it here in Yankton. Without keeping community there is no way to sustain culture and without sustaining culture there is no way to truly sustain life. Cultural revival and understanding brings about healing in Native communities.

This week has been somewhat lonely and for one of the first times in my life I am experiencing pretty intense homesickness for cincinnati, or maybe just a city in general. I miss my friends and family a lot, but I know they will all be there when I return. For a while I was overwhelmed and second guessing myself, and to some extent I still am but I am promising myself right now that I will make a conscious effort to only manifest the positive and to be here now where I am

A friend from work that I was talking to today told me that not many people get this kind of experience so I need to embrace it and he is right. All of my friends have been extremely supportive, my host mom has been great, and my parents back home have been so great as well. I realize the only thing holding me back is my own apprehensions and fears, etc. I need to just be here right now in the moment because I know this is a valuable, once in a lifetime experience that I should be fully embracing.