The Fry Bread Journey

Another week's flown by: kids writing their myths and typing up final drafts. I got a beautiful myth called "Brent's Fry Bread Journey." He goes to a party, and he starts talking to his friend, the talking donkey. Talking Donkey informs him that there is no flour to make fry bread, so they go on a journey to buy flour (having to battle the evil Otis along the way).

Now it's Tribal Fair time and the start of a 4-day weekend! I'm going to sleep under the stars, fish, eat an Apache burger, read, and try to get as much work done as possible inbetween.

Bigfoot Sightings on the Rez!

Officer Katherine Montoya, a mother to a student of mine, alleges she spotted Bigfoot in Northfork (a neighborhood a few miles north of Whiteriver) on August 14, 2006. Here's part of her account:

“I was called for a prowler at the Lupe’s residence. The caller had told dispatch there was something black, tall, and hairy looking at him through a window. While on route, dispatch advised me that the subject was standing by the freezer behind the house. I pulled into the driveway and my patrol unit headlights hit a black tall being, standing between two pine trees by a broken down truck. The being turned his head towards the light, grabbed, what looked like, its head and ducked down. I advised my lieutenant that the thing was down, sitting by the truck. Lieutenant Kahn then came around the back heading by the truck. I then heard a loud crashing sound! Upon further investigation, we found that the fence behind the truck had been broken out! I noted that when I saw the subject standing by the truck, about 30 feet away, it stood approximately 6’7’’ tall. It appeared to be about 220 pounds or more. It had exceptionally long arms, it did not appear to be wearing any clothes and just appeared black. When it turned towards me, the most obvious feature was its eyes. The skin around his eyes was a lighter color than the rest of the face. It appeared almost white while the rest of the suspect was black. I could smell a distinct odor, like a stink bug. You know, when you squish a stink bug it smells. It never made any sounds until it crashed through the fence behind the truck.”

Check out the full story here.

My students are exploring Wikipedia and are all abuzz about the Bigfoot sightings; I think these two topics are linked because one student found the Bigfoot wiki and wants to do his own version.

Elysium

Had a hopelessly fun, disgustingly delicious weekend and now it's Tuesday, only two more days until the Tribal Fair and a four-day weekend. I have a friend visiting from Portland, Oregon. I picked her up at the bus station in Holbrook, home of the Wigwam Motel, where you can sleep in air-conditioned wigwams on Route 66. Ye-haw!

Saturday and Sunday, we went exploring; ate our first Fry Bread, wandered about Elysium fields in the White Mountains, discovered mountain streams and bear scratches on birch trees, wandered about three-thousand year old ruins, sweated, and spent hours watching shooting stars, the Milky Way, and the new moon.

It's been...unreal. Now I'm grateful that this weekend is a 4-day, and I can spend some time checking out the Tribal Fair, some time camping in the mountains, and some time playing catch up!

School life

What an exhausting week! We had to give our first four-week assessments, which is a comprehensive assessment of the key standards addressed in the past month. For the kids, it's not a big deal in terms of points; I counted it as a weekly quiz. But we chart the scores and recommend those who are struggling to extended school day, where they will get extra help.

Then, parent conferences were yesterday. They went well, I think. I had about twenty parents/guardians show up, which isn't great but isn't terrible. There were some sad moments: One mother told me that her daughter's biological father shot himself. Another student, who is large and dark, showed up with this tiny white guy with blue eyes who looked to be in his mid-twenties. I was dying to ask their relationship, but being new, I didn't want to offend anyone. So I bit my tongue and answered questions. Later, I found out that the white guy is part of the Catholic Youth and my student receives much more love, attention, support, and structure there than he does in his wrecked home life. Thank goodness this sweet kid has someone looking out for him.

Sunrise

Today I woke up to my cell phone alarm, set on the kitchen table. When I went out to hit snooze (I'm a pro-snoozer), I stood by the window and watched the sun rise over the White Mountains. No matter how many spiders I may squash or leaks I may have, I still have an unobstructed view of the sunrise over the mountains.

Speaking of bugs, I still haven't seen any (living) scorpions (knock on wood). I told a friend of mine that I'd be wearing nothing but boots down here, and she predicted I'd toughen up and run around barefoot. I'm not quite there yet, but sure enough, I am wandering about outside in flip-flops!

Tomorrow's Parent-Teacher Conference day from 1-6. No conferences are actually scheduled (apparently that just doesn't work here: people live on their own schedules.), so I just hang out in my classroom and hope people show up. I'm nervous and curious about what the turn-out rate will be. I'm scared that it'll be abysmally low.

Mountain Woman

This weekend, I explored the terrain around my new home, and I found something that will hold me together when I've got the homesick blues or whatever other shades of blue find me. I wandered down the road behind my apartment to the river, a lovely little trek bordered by various lower-level peaks of the White Mountains. I sat by the river for a while with my new friends and two neighbor dogs, watching them chase each other and climb around on the bolders, and then we wandered back, enjoying the desert sunset and the wide variety of colors on display: reds and pinks and blues and golds and greens.

Then on Saturday, with the same friends, I climbed Saw Tooth (or so it's called around here). This peak can be seen from my school and neighborhood. We started off by driving across the highway and parking on a road that was closed due to rains. Two months ago, it was a regular gravel road; now, it has caverns and canyons, and the gravel is all washed away. It's amazing how drastically the landscape changes after a month or so of monsoon. We walked most of the length of the road to the Kinishba Ruins, where we explored a bit before leaving the road and all trails, bushwacking our way up Saw Tooth.

It took us five hours to get there and back; I was covered in scrapes and bruises; I haven't been so tired since the AIDS Ride for Life; and it was worth every splinter, bruise, scrape, wound, etc. The view from the top, down to my new home, was blue and green valleys and peaks, with more peaks in the distance. Apart from a road or two, all I could see were mountains and valleys.

I've made a new goal to try to explore and venture forth in some way or another every weekend. Next weekend will hopefully include some hiking in the high country.

(The picture shows the Kinishba Ruins and Saw Tooth.)

On the edge of no where

I wanted to take a moment to describe where I live and work; I don't mean the entire rez or even the town of Whiteriver, which I do not live in. I live about six miles south of Whiteriver, the main town on the White Mountain Apache Tribe reservation, in a small community or neighborhood called Canyon Day. After pulling off the "highway" (two lane roads are called "highways" around here), one drives past Apache housing, a few wild, mangy dogs, and perhaps a few horses grazing by the side of the street or in someone's front door. I've even seen a cow in someone's back yard. After driving through this neighborhood stands my school, Canyon Day Junior High, and past that is the teacher housing, a terrifyingly small housing community for district employees and their families.

How small is it? Well, my principal lives two duplexes away; I could hear my coworker outside complaining about something or other two evenings ago; and the football coach could tell you which direction my livingroom window faces!

But apart from that, it's on the edge of the wilderness. From my living room window (which faces north-east, btw) looks out to the White Mountains. I can see Mount Baldy in the faded, distant blue, which is the highest peak in the White Mountains, the seventh highest peak in AZ, and is sacred to the Apaches, being seen as a source of all nourishment. And surrounding our little community are hills and peaks, the rocky sides of which gleam bright red in the sunset, fields reaching to those peaks, and trails that lead to the White River (which is actually quite gold in the sunset).

That's enough for today, me thinks.

Peace,
J.

Sweat

Last night, I experienced my first sweat. It was nontraditional, a square structure built by my coworker and containing three women and only one man (only men are traditionally allowed to enter). My friend cooked up the rocks over a fire, while I sat in his backyard enjoying the view of the fields and the distant White River turning gold as the sun set behind the peaks. As it grew dark, I enjoyed gazing up at the star-filled sky, wishing I knew more constellations, especially now that I'm studying Greek Mythology with my 8th graders. After the rocks cooked for an hour or so, they were shoveled in, and my friend hauled in two buckets filled with lavender-scented oil. And in we went.

In Larry Colton's book Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn (a book I recommend to those of you curious about what life's like on reservations), he describes his first sweat with a group of Crow men as an experience in torture, where all of the men wilted towards the cooler ground, lying face-to-ass in fetal position trying to escape the heat. So, I felt quite strong and proud of myself for being able to stay seated, never even tempted to run outside to escape, until my companions commented that the rocks never got hot enough in the fire. Still, nothing could deflate me at that point. An easy start's better than not, and I felt so good, I didn't care about anything. So relaxed, so calm, so limber. Then we climbed out, steaming in the cool desert night air, our bodies looking like they were smoking. We stood there, steaming and cooling off, still silent, still in our own little worlds, until finally we went inside to feast on a big salad that we'd made beforehand.

I told my friends that I was hooked. There's something so calming--yet challenging--about breathing in that steam and feeling pores open up and lips tingle and water drip down your back, your chest, your face.

Peace,
J.

Proud parents on the rez

I'm still trying to answer for myself a lot of the questions that CDH wrote. But sadly, the statistics are grim. I don't want to start throwing out numbers and figures that aren't accurate, but I'll keep the questions in mind as I continue this blog.

So I'll start with a positive: On Saturday, I met two proud parents of a daughter who is about to begin her second year at Duke, studying pre-med. One hopes for the rez that she'll come back and share her success story and skills, but few come back. Usually those that end up here are those who never left.

Peace,
J.

Greetings from Canyon Day

I decided to go ahead and start a blog for family/friends/interested parties about life here in Canyon Day, teaching 8th grade ELA on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

I'm sitting in my classroom right now listening to pandora.com and contemplating how to even begin this blog. So if you're out there reading this, send me your questions/comments/suggestions. I think I feel a bit overwhelmed because so much has happened. So I'll summarize:

Th first two weeks and two days of teaching have been fabulous. I like my students more and more as time goes by, and so far, they're great kids. Right now, we're studying Greek mythology, and I want to transition into some Apache/Native American mythology and legends. The real excitement of the past week was when the school got struck by lightning. I taught the second half of my class without power, and then we all hung out in the increasingly stuffy classroom until the buses arrived to cart the kids to safety. I have a pic of what the front parking lot looked like, so stay tuned.

Ok, well, I'll try to keep on top of this. Would love to hear your comments and know that you're out there reading.

Peace,
J.