The Social Scene
In response to L's questions:
If you look at a map of the White Mountain Apache Reservation, you'll see that it covers a lot of land. It takes me a healthy half an hour to drive up to Pinetop (the closest town that is not on rez-land. I'm usually grocery shop there, because Basha's on the rez has a rather limited selection, unless you need lard for frying or candy.). To drive off the reservation to the south takes me over an hour. Some kids have 1-way, 1-hour bus rides to school.
In all that space, there's a population of 13,000, one grocery store, one bank, two post offices, one gym, two small restaurants (if you like pizza and hamburgers), a bunch of churches, tailgaters (if you like Apache burgers and Indian tacos), vendors (if you like Bob Marley and Tupac t-shirts or black hoodies), mangy dogs that run loose, wild horses, fields, mountains, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, desert.
I'm lucky though. I live in teacher housing right next to where I work, and I've made friends with ten of my neighbors. Eight of them are within a five-year age range to me. Since it does take half an hour to get to the closest bar, we usually hang out at home. It almost feels like a sedate version of dorm life, walking to and from each others apartments, planting a garden with a few friends, making pot luck dinners, watching movies, playing cards, having bonfires, going hiking, going to Phoenix or Flagstaff together, or going and pitching a tent somewhere for the weekend.
We also live on the edge of no where. So we can hike out into the wilderness for miles without seeing anyone. The other day, two of my friends and I hiked along the river and saw fresh elk scat. On our way back, we could hear the elk huffing and groaning to us from his hiding spot in the woods up on the hill.
So that's a bit about the social scene here. It does feel like a different world, but that's because it is. The rez is like a third-world nation. When I went to Mexico over spring break, I was reminded of the rez over and over again. Plus, having grown up in the green North East, I'm still adjusting to life in the desert: its smells, feels, and seasons. It's spring, with purple and yellow wildflowers and green vines electrifying the desert floor.
If you look at a map of the White Mountain Apache Reservation, you'll see that it covers a lot of land. It takes me a healthy half an hour to drive up to Pinetop (the closest town that is not on rez-land. I'm usually grocery shop there, because Basha's on the rez has a rather limited selection, unless you need lard for frying or candy.). To drive off the reservation to the south takes me over an hour. Some kids have 1-way, 1-hour bus rides to school.
In all that space, there's a population of 13,000, one grocery store, one bank, two post offices, one gym, two small restaurants (if you like pizza and hamburgers), a bunch of churches, tailgaters (if you like Apache burgers and Indian tacos), vendors (if you like Bob Marley and Tupac t-shirts or black hoodies), mangy dogs that run loose, wild horses, fields, mountains, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, desert.
I'm lucky though. I live in teacher housing right next to where I work, and I've made friends with ten of my neighbors. Eight of them are within a five-year age range to me. Since it does take half an hour to get to the closest bar, we usually hang out at home. It almost feels like a sedate version of dorm life, walking to and from each others apartments, planting a garden with a few friends, making pot luck dinners, watching movies, playing cards, having bonfires, going hiking, going to Phoenix or Flagstaff together, or going and pitching a tent somewhere for the weekend.
We also live on the edge of no where. So we can hike out into the wilderness for miles without seeing anyone. The other day, two of my friends and I hiked along the river and saw fresh elk scat. On our way back, we could hear the elk huffing and groaning to us from his hiding spot in the woods up on the hill.
So that's a bit about the social scene here. It does feel like a different world, but that's because it is. The rez is like a third-world nation. When I went to Mexico over spring break, I was reminded of the rez over and over again. Plus, having grown up in the green North East, I'm still adjusting to life in the desert: its smells, feels, and seasons. It's spring, with purple and yellow wildflowers and green vines electrifying the desert floor.
posted by Jessica at 3:32 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like quite a change of pace for you, Jess. Thanks for letting me know what it's like out there... it's nice to be able to picture how you're living a bit more.
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