My body has gone through so many different states in the past week,´I´m losing all sense of place (not to mention the ubiquity of things like Papa John´s and McDonald´s, of which I saw at least 3 each on my way from the airport to the hostel). But I am most definitely now in Lima, Peru, staying at the Red Psycho Llama hostel in Miraflores. I slept through the first flight, took a 2 1/2 hr nap in Fort Lauderdale, FL (I think people thought I was crazy), and was restless on the last leg of the journey. I can´t believe I made it. I can´t believe I now have to stretch my mind and figure out this language thing and an entirely new continent.
Apparently, I can never sleep enough. It´s time to crash again.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
in the places you go, you'll see the places where you're from
...or so says modest mouse. My returning culture shock does not agree. I am home! If very briefly--I leave tomorrow at 10:05 a.m., for a serious continental shift. First stop: Lima, Peru.
Being home after ten weeks in South Dakota, I'm noticing different things--like how well manicured everything is, how all the grass on the side of the road is mowed, the roads are kept up, and neighborhoods are fenced in with these stylish and expensive iron contraptions that Re-Member volunteers would have serious problems with. My hands automatically move to the side of the steering wheel when I want to put the car in park, and I couldn't figure out how to turn off the windshield wipers because it wasn't a 15-passenger van. The humidity feels deadly. I miss open space and no traffic and slow evenings.
The last few weeks were packed--what with getting our vans stuck on dirt/mud roads (twice) and me taking off for a weekend in the hills to attend a wedding. When I say "in the hills," I mean literally: they didn't rent a space or anything, they just choose a spot overlooking the lake and said their vows while the guests sat on rocks and a bluegrass band played to the side. It was gorgeous.
One thing I will not miss, though will no doubt encounter again and again, is the blatant prejudice that came out from our volunteers. I heard from one volunteer that "these natives" just needed to clean out their houses and burn "all that shit" in there. This is one of the tamer examples.
The danger in bringing primarily white volunteers from off the rez into Pine Ridge to do work projects is that it reinforces these binaries. Not only are the Lakota people "these people" who don't look the same, but they live in a demarcated zone with specific grievances, histories, and issues. While it's important to understand the unique problems of a reservation, I think it's too easy to extrapolate that uniqueness to one-sided essentialization. What I wish people would understand is that this is a window not into the soul of Pine Ridge, as Tom says in Wisdom of the Elders, but a window into the darker soul of white culture. This is product of your inheritance. This is the consequence of centuries of genocidal arrogance AND of awfully misguided benevolence. And that's not just limited to white culture--these are the characteristics of an extended interaction, which by definition involves other peoples. There are ways the perpetrator and victim have blended, shifted, and taken from each other. What I wish we would investigate, together, is how we now stand, not as separate and static peoples, but as a tragic community of the powerful and the powerless.
I suppose I will keep musing about Pine Ridge over the next few months, though I have an entirely new continent of colonization to explore. Wish me luck.
Being home after ten weeks in South Dakota, I'm noticing different things--like how well manicured everything is, how all the grass on the side of the road is mowed, the roads are kept up, and neighborhoods are fenced in with these stylish and expensive iron contraptions that Re-Member volunteers would have serious problems with. My hands automatically move to the side of the steering wheel when I want to put the car in park, and I couldn't figure out how to turn off the windshield wipers because it wasn't a 15-passenger van. The humidity feels deadly. I miss open space and no traffic and slow evenings.
The last few weeks were packed--what with getting our vans stuck on dirt/mud roads (twice) and me taking off for a weekend in the hills to attend a wedding. When I say "in the hills," I mean literally: they didn't rent a space or anything, they just choose a spot overlooking the lake and said their vows while the guests sat on rocks and a bluegrass band played to the side. It was gorgeous.
One thing I will not miss, though will no doubt encounter again and again, is the blatant prejudice that came out from our volunteers. I heard from one volunteer that "these natives" just needed to clean out their houses and burn "all that shit" in there. This is one of the tamer examples.
The danger in bringing primarily white volunteers from off the rez into Pine Ridge to do work projects is that it reinforces these binaries. Not only are the Lakota people "these people" who don't look the same, but they live in a demarcated zone with specific grievances, histories, and issues. While it's important to understand the unique problems of a reservation, I think it's too easy to extrapolate that uniqueness to one-sided essentialization. What I wish people would understand is that this is a window not into the soul of Pine Ridge, as Tom says in Wisdom of the Elders, but a window into the darker soul of white culture. This is product of your inheritance. This is the consequence of centuries of genocidal arrogance AND of awfully misguided benevolence. And that's not just limited to white culture--these are the characteristics of an extended interaction, which by definition involves other peoples. There are ways the perpetrator and victim have blended, shifted, and taken from each other. What I wish we would investigate, together, is how we now stand, not as separate and static peoples, but as a tragic community of the powerful and the powerless.
I suppose I will keep musing about Pine Ridge over the next few months, though I have an entirely new continent of colonization to explore. Wish me luck.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
the crooked path of the conscious
I'm entering my ninth week at Re-Member and on Pine Ridge. My momentum has significantly slowed down.
Last weekend, as I was driving home (back to Re-Member) from Pine Ridge, I looked out the window and saw the street corner of the one big four-way intersection in town, where the post office/employment office/Billy Mays community center sits. It looked just like a street corner. The street light was on and gave it the muted yellow look that street lights tend to cast. It hit me then that this was just a normal street corner. We talk a lot about being "on the rez" and how the things we experience are emblematic of living on the rez--example: when we heard that the tire on the van we were driving may or may not fall off while we were on the road, the two staff members who were with me and I just shrugged. That's how life goes on the rez. But this is the status quo for a lot of people. I think, also, that if I were to live here, I'd have to live here, not live in an idea of Pine Ridge or what it should be.
This is an odd thought, but I think part of why I feel comfortable here is that the inconsistencies of our national rhetoric and overarching narrative are physically apparent here. In NYC, there is poverty on the streets and in the buildings, but there are tons of non-profits and public announcements and also nice places that do a very good job of screening out everything and everyone that may make someone feel uncomfortable. Here, though, I'm aware of power politics everywhere. The Subway is owned by the BIA Superintendent (who has the means and the clout to get a loan and start a business?). The tribal government office sits next to the BIA office. The gas station has a steady clientele buying cigarettes and fried food, while the produce aisle in the overpriced supermarket (the only one on the rez) is usually deserted. People approach us in parking lots when we drive Re-Member vehicles, asking us whether we can fix their trailer or their house or their plumbing. The roads instantly improve when you leave the rez. Hitchhikers on the roads come in all shapes and sizes. Marginalization is almost palpable in the air.
I know I want to devote my time and energy to public service in some form, but the delegation of aid is difficult to bear. Someone called the office the other day with a work request; part of the ceiling had caved in, they had rattlesnakes climbing up a deteriorating outhouse and were afraid for their toddlers, and needed new siding for their trailer. I had to tell her that I didn't know when we would be able to come out, and that we may not even be able to come out until the next season, which starts in March 2010. It was a position of power that I felt incredibly uncomfortable occupying.
People talk about how satisfying it is to be able to meet the family that they've just built something for--like meeting the kid in a wheelchair who now has a wheelchair ramp to go in and out of his house on, which you built. I understand that to a certain extent, but I have to be honest and say that while I feel a little bit of the satisfaction that comes with completing a project well, meeting the family and inviting them to lunch still feels invasive and uncomfortable. I don't know if it's because I become painfully aware of my privilege, or because I don't want others to have to publicly recognize their poverty or need... I just know that my ultimate goal will always be working to make interactions like these unnecessary. I guess the trick is figuring out how to make the most of them while they are necessary.
I don't know if any of that made sense. The days are starting to drag a little, now that the end is in sight. I have a whole new continent to explore. I will miss the sky and the storms and the constant socializing here, though.
Last weekend, as I was driving home (back to Re-Member) from Pine Ridge, I looked out the window and saw the street corner of the one big four-way intersection in town, where the post office/employment office/Billy Mays community center sits. It looked just like a street corner. The street light was on and gave it the muted yellow look that street lights tend to cast. It hit me then that this was just a normal street corner. We talk a lot about being "on the rez" and how the things we experience are emblematic of living on the rez--example: when we heard that the tire on the van we were driving may or may not fall off while we were on the road, the two staff members who were with me and I just shrugged. That's how life goes on the rez. But this is the status quo for a lot of people. I think, also, that if I were to live here, I'd have to live here, not live in an idea of Pine Ridge or what it should be.
This is an odd thought, but I think part of why I feel comfortable here is that the inconsistencies of our national rhetoric and overarching narrative are physically apparent here. In NYC, there is poverty on the streets and in the buildings, but there are tons of non-profits and public announcements and also nice places that do a very good job of screening out everything and everyone that may make someone feel uncomfortable. Here, though, I'm aware of power politics everywhere. The Subway is owned by the BIA Superintendent (who has the means and the clout to get a loan and start a business?). The tribal government office sits next to the BIA office. The gas station has a steady clientele buying cigarettes and fried food, while the produce aisle in the overpriced supermarket (the only one on the rez) is usually deserted. People approach us in parking lots when we drive Re-Member vehicles, asking us whether we can fix their trailer or their house or their plumbing. The roads instantly improve when you leave the rez. Hitchhikers on the roads come in all shapes and sizes. Marginalization is almost palpable in the air.
I know I want to devote my time and energy to public service in some form, but the delegation of aid is difficult to bear. Someone called the office the other day with a work request; part of the ceiling had caved in, they had rattlesnakes climbing up a deteriorating outhouse and were afraid for their toddlers, and needed new siding for their trailer. I had to tell her that I didn't know when we would be able to come out, and that we may not even be able to come out until the next season, which starts in March 2010. It was a position of power that I felt incredibly uncomfortable occupying.
People talk about how satisfying it is to be able to meet the family that they've just built something for--like meeting the kid in a wheelchair who now has a wheelchair ramp to go in and out of his house on, which you built. I understand that to a certain extent, but I have to be honest and say that while I feel a little bit of the satisfaction that comes with completing a project well, meeting the family and inviting them to lunch still feels invasive and uncomfortable. I don't know if it's because I become painfully aware of my privilege, or because I don't want others to have to publicly recognize their poverty or need... I just know that my ultimate goal will always be working to make interactions like these unnecessary. I guess the trick is figuring out how to make the most of them while they are necessary.
I don't know if any of that made sense. The days are starting to drag a little, now that the end is in sight. I have a whole new continent to explore. I will miss the sky and the storms and the constant socializing here, though.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
you only live once (the strokes)
I'm considering changing my Re-Member-given name, Chen Chasing Bear, to Chen Chasing Mammoth, given my recent trip (with 14 family week kids) to the Hot Springs Mammoth Site. Check it out:
That is almost a full mammoth skeleton. !!! Can you imagine? That was, seventy thousand years ago or so, a living, breathing, heaving, HUGE animal. It got caught in a small, warm lake, which happened to preserve over 70 skeletons (not all this complete). The things you find!
Of family week, I'll just say that I survived, and I've decided I only like kids 6 and under or over 15. Not sure what I'll do with my kids, if I have any, during those nine years.
Last Saturday, Re-Member participated in the annual Oglala Lakota Nation Parade. The staff, with our spiffy matching t-shirts, threw candy and toilet paper from our makeshift float, featuring a (non-functioning) outhouse, one of our many spectacular products.
Pine Ridge at its finest! I'm proud to say that I escaped from Re-Member every day of the powwow and circled that arbor quite a few times. Unfortunately I managed to forget my camera every time. Alas, I'll just have to come back someday.
So, I'm pondering:
about place. I've always felt caught between places, and never really let myself settle, mentally, in a place. This is a place where history has refused to die, and which people have pondered for generations. They were selling t-shirts with images of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud on them at the powwow. Your history, or at least the romanticized and martyrized version of it, is lurking at every corner. It seems odd to be living in a building with transitory volunteers who spend six days on the reservation, while meeting people who can trace their ancestry to a certain hill that is only a few miles away. My sense of time is becoming warped, and it makes this place feel heavier, laden with something that has already happened and something expected to happen at the same time.
My body is also attuning itself to this schedule. Time is approaching 10:30; I can tell because I can feel my limbs start drooping. I think it's time for some sleep.
That is almost a full mammoth skeleton. !!! Can you imagine? That was, seventy thousand years ago or so, a living, breathing, heaving, HUGE animal. It got caught in a small, warm lake, which happened to preserve over 70 skeletons (not all this complete). The things you find!
Of family week, I'll just say that I survived, and I've decided I only like kids 6 and under or over 15. Not sure what I'll do with my kids, if I have any, during those nine years.
Last Saturday, Re-Member participated in the annual Oglala Lakota Nation Parade. The staff, with our spiffy matching t-shirts, threw candy and toilet paper from our makeshift float, featuring a (non-functioning) outhouse, one of our many spectacular products.
Pine Ridge at its finest! I'm proud to say that I escaped from Re-Member every day of the powwow and circled that arbor quite a few times. Unfortunately I managed to forget my camera every time. Alas, I'll just have to come back someday.
So, I'm pondering:
about place. I've always felt caught between places, and never really let myself settle, mentally, in a place. This is a place where history has refused to die, and which people have pondered for generations. They were selling t-shirts with images of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud on them at the powwow. Your history, or at least the romanticized and martyrized version of it, is lurking at every corner. It seems odd to be living in a building with transitory volunteers who spend six days on the reservation, while meeting people who can trace their ancestry to a certain hill that is only a few miles away. My sense of time is becoming warped, and it makes this place feel heavier, laden with something that has already happened and something expected to happen at the same time.
My body is also attuning itself to this schedule. Time is approaching 10:30; I can tell because I can feel my limbs start drooping. I think it's time for some sleep.
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