true story

driving through HUD housing and observing many long-braided men:

Me: Corbin, why do Indians wear their hair long?
Corbin: Because they can't afford scissors or a barber.

...haha. i think.

small things

It was 105 degrees in the town of Pine Ridge today.

I'm thinking about how even the crappiest office I worked in at Columbia is worlds better than any OST (Oglala Sioux Tribe, the official title of the tribal government here, according to the feds) office I've visited.

Apparently solar panels can withstand golf ball sized pieces of hail.

There was, by chance, a great jazz song on the radio today as I was coming back from Oglala. I miss hearing live jazz, and jazz in general. My thoughts of New York are of St. Nick's Pub for hours on a weekday night, serenaded by sweet trumpets and keyboard tones.

I'm reaching the middle point of my stay here in Pine Ridge. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something, not sure what. The Black Hills seem closer to me when I look at them nowadays.

South America seems like a dream.

It is ice cream thursday, and tomorrow I'm going to watch a solar panel assembly demonstration--shooooooot. I'll never get tired of this sun.

---

I've found myself digging into books again. I finished Sherman Alexie's Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven in two days, and have started The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America by James Wilson and Skins by Adrian C. Louis. Alexie's book was heartbreaking and comical, sparse and wonderful. Felt like Hemingway and Bukowski living on a reservation--I highly recommend.

days go by like weeks

Many things and many thoughts have happened since I last posted.



I helped out with building an Eco-Dome (this is the foundation of the residence).




I went horseback riding twice! My first time ever was bareback, to the top of a hill and back. My second time was on a 24-year-old horse (yes, older than I am) who was the gentlest but also the laziest. Traveling on a horse over the black hills is incredibly different than traveling in a car going 75.



I visited KILI radio, maybe the best radio station in the history of mankind. They are completely wind-powered, though their methods of obtaining music are slightly less sophisticated. I am in love.

My thoughts are scattered right now... I'll just say that I really think I could live here, for an extended period of time. It may be lonely and difficult and frustrating, but there's nowhere else that I've felt this incredible sense of absolute place and the true effort at community that I've seen here.

And now, the obligatory sky picture:



Thinking of you all.

"it's still indians and cowboys out here"

or so says Yolanda, the wife of one of our speakers tonight. In a lot of ways, in terms of land and relationships, that's still true.


Sunset fields on the hill behind Re-Member

On to the real story. What happens to activists who occupy Wounded Knee for 5 months to protest a lack of justice in the murders of several Indians and a predatory tribal government?

Apparently they don't stop being kickass. Duane Locke, a 1973 occupier, is one of the friendliest and most talkative people I've met out here AND happens to have three gardens out near Porcupine, all of which are beautiful and thriving. Through some local organizations, he's helped tons of people set up their own gardens. Last year he gave away 900 lbs of potatoes, among other veggies, to feed people healthy, local, and tasty produce. I love it. We brought two crews of volunteers out to destroy weeds, waterboard bugs (Duane's term), and fertilize. It actually was pretty brutal, the weeds were taking over because of all the rain that we've been getting. I learned what a watermelon plant looks like, and that weeds like to imitate the plants that they are surrounding. And grow thorns.


This is actually LaDonna and Harrison's community garden for her non-profit, which is also really cool; I forgot my camera today.

The whole day, while pulling weeds, I thought about structure. About how even if we place beds, skirt trailers, put up siding, insulate houses, and build outhouses, the majority of South Dakota is still prejudiced. Indians will continue to be unemployed and forgotten. I want two prongs! I want to attack immediate issues and pave the way for future improvement. I also want Re-Member to stop buying processed white bread, institutional powder Powerade packets, and going through dozens of plastic gloves a day. I think, if we are really going to effect change, we have to change the way we think about everything. We have to build Eco-Domes on a wayward time schedule with some random international volunteers. We have to power our offices with solar power (check! :)). We have to grow companion plants in a garden to avoid pesticides and reuse plastic bags and make our own rags. And we have to figure out how to build houses efficiently and sustainably--which might mean dismantling the Bureau of Indian Affairs and their awful land policy, and rebuilding from the ground up. Some fun facts: the tribal government has only had the resources and ability to deal with land issues (like leasing, ownership, etc.) for the last three or four years. 20 people own 40% of the land out here on Pine Ridge, which is the size of the state of Connecticut, and lease it to others. I'd bet that the majority of these large landholders, if not all, are white.

There's something else to think about: what is the place of large groups of white people coming out here to "work with" the Lakota nation? How do we build relationships in the span of a week? How do we get people to think about (white) privilege and how that shapes realities out here on the rez? Our daily wisdoms and history lessons can only do so much. I've noticed that the older folks find learning about certain cultural practices like the Sundance... distasteful (though Duane makes a good point about many religions, including Christianity, centering on violence and flesh sacrifices). Sometimes I feel like people come here to view the situation and to lend their services in the way that Re-Member has organized it, but don't take the extra step to examine themselves and how they in their daily lives contribute to the overall situation through perpetuating stereotypes or failing to understand racial and class stratification. I also think we have to let ourselves redefine the relationships between races. Which happens, I think, with the staff here; we all live together and learn from each other and love together, but I don't know if volunteers know how to--or that they can--cross these lines and get to know people, not just representatives of cultural practices or histories.

Anyways, other rez happenings: 13 people from our Chicago group have some sort of stomach virus; I am steering clear of that building. Also, I found out that a group called Aide Abroad was charging volunteers 400% what we normally charge volunteers to send them out here--talk about voluntourism and profiting off good intentions and guilt. Sometimes people make me sick.

It's getting harder to drag myself out of bed at 6:30 a.m. There are a lot of Iowan high school boys here. Some people think I'm Lakota. Also, today I had a great conversation with Tom, our executive director, about projects I can do out here and I'm psyched...!

...and I just watched a lightning blitz storm. Jeff, another program manager, says that it's probably 40-50 miles away. First of all, wtf, I can see 50 miles away. Second of all, we can see lightning flashing at least twice a second. And we're under tornado watch. We'll see what happens.

white stars

There's a scene in Tolkien's Return of the King where Sam and Frodo are resting at the foot of Mount Doom (I think, it's been a while I read it), in the dark and cold, and wishing they were back in the lush, green Shire. Sam looks up and sees a white star, and tells Frodo to have hope--somewhere in the high heavens a light is shining.

As dorky as a reference that may be, I feel like these past two days--at our second annual Housing and Economic Development Summit--have shown me many white stars in what seemed at first to be a desperately bureaucratic tangle of misplaced jurisdictions and varied levels of incompetence. I met Bret of Windpower by Bret, who built a $400 wind turbine that produces 700 watts of energy out of a used car engine and David and Calvin of Village Earth, who work on the ground helping people consolidate their land and escape the leasing system (read more here). Bret, who blew in on a rickety blue truck with a canoe strapped to the top with some sketchy looking knots, has lived off the grid for 8 years, even growing and making his own biodiesel. I finally met Henry Red Cloud, direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud, who founded Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center and produces solar energy heaters on the rez, and some folks from Cal-Earth who are building an eco-dome out near Wounded Knee. Whenever I hear about something like Cal-Earth, or Rosebud Log Homes, I wonder why we still do things the inefficient, unsustainable, wasteful way.

Seeing a solar panel on a tipi and dancers in full wacipi (powwow) regalia texting on cell phones--as well as people selling indian tacos out of a car on the side of the grounds--makes me happy too. I don't believe in static culture. Talking to some of the people working for housing made me realize also that this wayward governance is now part of the culture, too. People expect only delays and broken promises from the federal and tribal government--but that's just a thin backdrop to living their lives, making community, shooting the breeze while watching the beautiful black hills.



I talked to Tony (not pictured below; but they did include the vets who were present in the Grand Entry to the wacipi), a Vietnam vet, for a while by our powdered Powerade coolers. I later saw him walking down the main road leading to Porcupine (a happenin town of 127 houses, one small gas pump next to a tiny store selling coffee brewed in a 20 cup glass pot, and a clinic). My first inclination was to feel indignant--this man fought in an unjust war for a country that tries to erase the memory of his people, and he has to walk in the hot sun for miles to get to his old trailer. But he wasn't broken. He wasn't bitter. In our 20 minute conversation, he probably smiled more than I saw some of our bored, dehydrated volunteers smile (though many of them have been really great and good spirited) all day. Someone shoot me if I say something about the stolidness of Lakota nature or the strength and depth of their spiritual souls--but I guess it's important to remember that poverty doesn't define someone, and I've got to let my big picture analysis live side by side with little person realities.

I can't say enough about the sky. Yesterday, when I walked outside after dinner, there was a storm sweeping slowly in from the west (I think it was west at least). We have such a wide view of the sky that we could watch these large expansive storm clouds push their way towards us. I've never seen such bright and insistent lightning. I walked to the top of the hill behind Re-Member and watched the clouds slipping forward, thundering and raining all the way, lifting up eventually to let the setting sun light up the horizon.

I don't have a picture of the storm (we can't go back into the building if the volunteers are having a program) but I have some of a sunset I took my first week here.



Tomorrow I go to a community garden, started by one of Re-Member's staff members--I am super excited. And now, for the first time in years, I'm going to bed before 10pm.

Thanks to everyone who's written me--I'm working on writing everyone back. :)