Red Cloud Projects

I made a blog!

Ok, so it's a work in progress. I'll try to fill this out as quickly as I can, so stop back often. Also, anyone with pictures from the 04 trip who would like to share, hook me up...because I didn't take any.

In case you haven't noticed, the dates on these posts are way in the past.  I changed the dates to approximately the time when this stuff occurred.  The 07 posts are emails that I wrote over that summer.  And I know that the photos don't always match up with the text...but I wanted to get as many as possible on there.

I have more photos from last summer, and I'll put them up soon.  More to come.  Stay tuned.

Henana; the end

Hello all!
Well, the reason I was feeling so busy last week when I wrote you was because Cangleska hosted a family camp from Monday to Wednesday. They set up six tipis on the lawn, and several women came with their kids and stayed in the tipis for two nights. I camp from the Black Hills with my family on Monday morning, and stayed both nights there at the camp.
We had several activities for the kids which I helped with, including painting pillowcases, drumstick making, a treasure hunt, and games. Their ages varied so we had to be pretty flexible as to what we did with them. Over those two days, the women participated in cultural mapping, equine therapy, an inipi (sweat), and an ObGyn talk. I wasn't with them for the cultural mapping, but it sounds like it was very helpful. The purpose of it is to help them learn about their cultural heritage and how their culture has become what it is today. It helps them reclaim their own identity.
Cultural mapping was on the first day. Then that night after dinner, we sat around the campfire and talked for a long time. One of the women, Connie, whom I told you about before, had gone to see her cousin, whom I'll call Shirley. Then they walked back up and Connie brought Shirley into the camp with her. Shirley was sobbing.
At the time, she was taking care of nineteen kids, some of them her own, in her house (she now has twenty-two). Some of the kids are her sister's. Her sister and her sister's husband are both drunks. They had shown up that evening to take their kids back; they said they were moving to Rapid. But the kids all starting crying and running to Shirley, saying they didn't want to go with their mom; they wanted to stay with Shirley because she was the only one who took care of them. Their parents managed to haul them all into their car, but one got away and came to Shirley again. Shirley told her sister that if she was going to take her kids there was nothing she could do about it. She told her to take the kids' clothes and belongings, and to take anything else they needed, like food or other items; anything they wanted they could take. Then she left and came up to the camp with Connie.
She needed to talk so badly! We just listened to her for a long time, and finally went to sleep. I stayed in a tipi with Jenna and her mom Laura.
The next day, it turned out that Shirley's sister never left. Currently she is still around, still talking about moving to Rapid and living off Shirley. Anyway, that day Shirley went down and brought some kids up with her. By mid-day a couple of the girls had basically attached themselves to me!The activity that day was equine therapy, and I was able to participate in some of this when I wasn't with the kids. It seemed to be very effective. One of the exercises was a trust exercise: a woman would get on a horse bareback, and the horse would be led around the round pen while the woman sat with her eyes closed. She chose two supporters to hang onto her legs and walk around with her. I came over to watch this exercise. When it was Shirley's turn, she pointed to me and her cousin Connie for her supporters; both of us were outside the pen watching. She and Connie are very close, but I thought it was funny that she picked me because we had barely said two words to each other! But I did know some of her kids from the previous church game day, so maybe she recognized me.
When Shirley was getting on the horse, she climbed on from the side Connie was standing on. She slipped as she tried to climb up. Connie got nervous and didn't help her in time; I grabbed her arm from the other side. But then the horse shifted its weight and stepped on my bare toes; I yelled and this scared Connie even more! She started to back away. I held onto Shirley's arm and dug my elbow into the horse to get it to move its foot. Shirley finally got up, and the rest of the exercise went fine, but she was a little shaken.
The man who was leading this therapy chose to pause and talk with Shirley about that experience. Who were the people she trusted in her own life? Did she always choose reliable people? He also talked with Connie, who confessed that even though she cared about Shirley, she needed to look out for herself sometimes.
Jenna didn't want to do the exercise; she said she had trouble trusting people. One of Shirley's kids did the exercise twice with me as one of her supporters. She's so cute! Then I did it with Jenna and Shirley as supporters.
Norma led a sweat--inipi--that evening. At first, Jenna said she didn't think she wanted to participate. "I respect it," she said, "but I was born and raised a Christian."
So I said, "Well, you know, my Tunkasila does both."
"Really?"
"Yep, he goes to church Sunday morning and sweat Sunday evening. And he's a priest and he speaks Lakota."
"Oh, that's cool."
In the end she came. So did almost all the women except for those on their time. For Jenna and I, it was a first time, and some of the others hadn't been to one in many years. Before we started, Norma asked everyone to write something down about difficulties or bad things that had happened to them that they needed healing for. I tried hard to do this as well.
"Norma, pretty much everything I can think of, I've already had healing for."
"Then you're very lucky."
Then just before we went into the sweatlodge, each woman threw her paper into the fire.
If you've never seen one, a sweatlodge is a low, round, totally covered structure. Hot rocks are heated in a fire and placed in a pit in the center of the lodge. Then, during each round (there are four) the leader pours water over those rocks and the whole place heats up, much more than a sauna. The first round was the most difficult, and after that it cooled off. It wasn't even as bad as I thought it would be. The women prayed for each other and asked for prayer requests. During the second round we went around the circle and prayed, and Norma asked me to sing the one prayer song I know. During the third round we smoked the pipe, and the fourth round was a short 'wopila' (thanks) round. It was more relaxed than probably most, especially because there were some children there. It seemed to me that it was much like a typical Christian prayer group, except with sweat and the pipe. And it turned out that Jenna was very glad she had come. Everyone felt very good afterwards.
A couple of days later Laura went on to the shelter in Rapid City, and as far as I know she is there now. She is hoping to have surgery on her back soon and is working to get custody of Haley. Connie is still in the shelter with her two kids and is struggling to create a stable environment for them. Jenna has a job and is trying to put her life back together, to figure out herself. She wept on Wednesday, my last day.
"Why do you have to go?"
"Oh, we'll keep in touch."
"Do you promise?"
"I promise."
Last Sunday, Tunkasila did a mass in part Lakota as a favor to me. Then we had another lunch with everyone. The usual kids at church are so good. Earlier this summer Tunkasila and I did the prodigal son story with them using some of those materials some of you helped put together. They always take coloring pages home with them. They are back in school now, as is Christie, who is finishing her degree. Oh, and some new people are moving into the rectory. Aldo and his family moved out to a trailer in the country after his wife finished the women's program at Cangleska.
After church that day we had our last game day. I had a whole bunch of the kids from Shirley's house. They can be a little rowdy all together, but I was impressed this time with their behavior. They really look out for each other too: I didn't have any problem getting them to share when I ran out of "busy bags" for prizes at the end. And they picked up all the trash and things they had left lying around.
But it is clear that their values differ depending on who their parents are. Two girls were playing with some Barbies that had been left at the church: one of them was Shirley's daughter, one of them her niece. After I drove them home, I stopped and chatted with Shirley for awhile. After a few minutes, Shirley's daughter walked out and handed me a Barbie. She told me that the other girl, Shirley's niece, had tried to take it.
Shirley, Connie, and Jenna attend a bible study on Wednesday nights. I went out there on Wednesday with Shirley (the other two were busy). It's amazing to me how hungry Shirley is for the gospel, for some good news in her life, and how she has hardly ever heard it before. She even asked me to share some of my knowledge with her, and I have promised to keep in touch with her and her kids.
One small part of the experience was that I came home broke. By the end of the trip I didn't even know how I was getting my next meal, except for dinner and my uncle's house. Needless to say this ended when I arrived home, but is still affecting me. But the interesting thing was--how would I ever experience this otherwise? This is the way that the majority of the world lives. There is a deeply ingrained sense of 'fairness' in me--something like, if there are people in the world who don't know where their next meal will come from, why should I? And if they can rely on God to provide for them, why can't I? And so I have come to the realization that this is the way I am going to live my life. It's not about how much money I have, but about an attitude towards wealth. That small experience, I feel, has brought me a little closer to my impoverished relatives.
I don't think I could ever tell you everything about this summer. I promised to keep in touch with many people, and there are several projects I want to follow and support. It has been good for me personally as well; I slept well, I exercised, I took time for Scripture each day. In many ways the things that have begun this summer will not end simply because I am in Minnesota again. It was hard to leave, even though I was homesick. And it does feel strange to be in the wasicu world again.
I hope this was at least somewhat coherent! I feel I had better leave it there, but if you want to know more about my summer, just ask. It has truly done its part to shape who I am, and the work I have become involved in there is far from finished.
Mitakuye Oyas'in
-Jenny

Tunkasila

First, fun facts--If you haven't caught on yet, Tunkasila (or Tunkasida) means grandfather (It's what I call Fr. Apple most of the time). It is also used to refer to Wakantanka, or God, the way we say "Father" when referring to God. There are also four beings called tunkasila in each of the four directions, and these are referred to in the four direction prayer.

The dynamics between Tunkasila and I have changed over the past couple of years. He's become more open, and more blunt, with me. And it's become easier for me to understand him and pick up on how he is feeling. But there's something else: For the most part, it's in my nature to listen to him quietly most of the time, especially because he's an elder. But increasingly, he asks for my opinion on things and I found out recently that I don't speak up often enough! So that's something I'm trying to work on when we talk. But in a way it means that I have to listen even more, because I need to understand what he is teaching or telling me so that I can respond intelligently. The latest thing is that he's asked me to give feedback on the church--Wi Wicahpi as well as the wider church on the rez--at the end of my summer. So I think I will write him an email soon. I have a lot of thoughts and ideas, and I will share them with you too if you are interested.
Two weeks ago, I hung around after the game day, talking with Christie, Sheryl, and their cousin Beth, and then talking with Tunkasila. It had actually turned out that when I went to pick up pops and lock up the church, he asked where I was and said he wanted to speak with me. It made me a little nervous when Sheryl told me this, but it shouldn't have. He wanted to tell me that he was suffering from four bad things that had happened recently, but that he had managed to balance it out with four good things. I didn't say much, but did a lot of thinking as I listened. Sometimes I think so much about the rez that my head hurts. I have felt my heart ache so many times this summer.
Then at sunset, we drove out to see Freda's gravesite. It's in the cemetery near the little church they used to go to ("I used to think that was a cathedral!" he said). I was unsure of how to behave while doing this. But Tunkasila was fine--I think he's healed more than I knew in some ways. He pointed out the headstone. It's some kind of beautiful dark stone, engraved with the head of an eagle, a pipe ('peace pipe'), and two crosses. I'm not sure if I'll ever know whether Freda struggled with reconciling her traditional ways with Christianity the way others have. "My wife was a cradle Christian," Tunkasila always says. Then we prayed briefly and drove back.
There was something I'd been thinking about a lot, because it's something Tunkasila always talks about with me. "So, Tunkasila," I said, "What if the reason the church is struggling so bad is that it's getting ready for revival?" I'm not sure if I said that very well. The idea I had in my head had to do with the whole rez; something along the lines of all the corruption that the church had brought to Indian country needing to be demolished so that God can really get to work, something like burning bridges, something like rebirth, something like maybe going back to square one and starting over was the only way reconciliation could ever happen. I'm not sure if I conveyed that.
"Oh, revival? Yeah, that's why I want to talk to that new Catholic priest about doing some things with the drum..."
Earlier this summer, I had pressed him about where he thought the church was headed, what needed to happen next. And he told me that he wants to sort-of re-work the services, incorporating the drum and other traditions into worship. But I don't think he wants to do this alone. So he's been waiting for this new Catholic priest to arrive so he can talk to him about collaborating on this. I think they're meeting on Wednesday. But, I keep thinking, what if he doesn't want to collaborate? What if nothing comes of this meeting? Who will help Tunkasila? So, please pray for him that God would provide the means for this to happen in accordance with His will. There are things that I can do, and perhaps even have done this summer, but I cannot help with this; I can only pray. But I feel in my heart that it is of utmost importance, that much hangs on it. Not necessarily this meeting with this Catholic priest, but this idea in general. It's the only thing I've ever gotten out of Tunkasila about a direction or goal for Wi Wicahpi, and I guess that's why I feel it's important. So your prayers are much needed. Pidamayayapi!

Mitakuye Oyas'in
-Jenny

Han mikodapida

Hello my friends!
Phew, what a week! I've just gotten some down time today and that was really good. But I'll tell you about this week later. I want to back up a little bit because I promised you stories, and so much has happened! But these stories aren't for the weak-hearted...so now I've warned you.
Remember Haley and Marshal? I've seem quite a bit of them and their mom and grandma. Both Denise (fake name for their mom) and Laura (fake name for their grandma) are living in abusive situations. Denise was in the shelter for awhile, and Laura, who takes care of the kids part-time, is in our women's program.
I'd play with Haley and Marshal (and Caitlin, the baby) often while I was hanging out with the women in the shelter. It surprised me a little bit how different they acted around Denise. They misbehaved more, hit each other and things like that. And then when I would tell them to stop, Denise would say, "Don't be afraid to just hit them." I said little in response to this.
Laura was essentially homeless. I'll try to get a picture of the little covering where she slept if I can. She has an old engine-less van to keep her stuff in, but she lived pretty much outside--with an abusive man. She needs to have a rod put in her back to correct the damage from her last beating, but the doctors won't do surgery until she is safe. The last time those three kids came into shelter, they were covered in what looked like chicken pox. It turned out to be mosquito and/or flea bites from staying with Laura.
And it's not that Denise is homeless. It's just that three kids is way more that she can handle. Maybe that's even part of the reason she keeps going back to her man. The last time they were in the shelter, Haley started acting out and Denise got frustrated. Finally she threatened to send Haley back to her dad, and Haley started screaming and crying in a tantrum like I've never seen before.
There is a tradition of adoption--they call it "hunka" when it goes along with a ceremony--in Lakota culture. They say that adopted relatives are even stronger than blood relatives. Laura has an adopted daughter (Denise's adopted sister) whom I'll call Jenna. She came into shelter about the time Denise was last here, and she's incredibly sweet and talkative. Somehow we randomly struck up a conversation about horror movies and Stephen King--I think it was because we were watching a scary Lifetime movie. Anyway, a day or two later, I came in and found out that Denise had just left that morning, without even taking her things with her. So I sat and talked with Jenna for a long time. She showed me pictures of her six kids. Three of them live with one family member and three with another. The eldest, I would find out later, was born because Jenna was raped by her gym teacher when she was fifteen. The girl, who is now fourteen, doesn't know that.
One picture she showed me was of Denise with a bruised face. Jenna said, "I took this the last time she got her nose broken so I can remind her of what it was like. But she won't even look at it." Jenna was clearly upset that Denise had gone back to her man, but didn't have much to say about it.
That was on a Friday. It turned out that that weekend, some of the women went away to see family members, and Jenna was left all alone in the shelter. She told me the next week that she was very lonely, and even wanted to call her ex-boyfriend to come get her. Her bruises and scars were still healing even then. And not only that, but Denise had called and tried to convince her to go back.
"Do you think she just wants you to because she did?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Well, I'm glad you didn't."
Later that week, Jenna and I were cleaning up from some event or other, and I mentioned something about going home. She looked stressed and said,"When are you going home?"
"On August 30th."
"Oh no, all my good friends are leaving me!"
I felt horrible watching her face as she said this. She's been trying to guilt me into staying, but I promised her that we'll keep in touch.
Another woman in the shelter right now has two kids, and I'll call her Connie. She's really funny; she and Jenna started telling me stories about how they once got into a big fight in Pine Ridge (the town which they're both from) about a year ago. And I don't mean the kind of passive-aggressive fight we're used to, I mean the hitting and hair-pulling that's really common around here. When some friends finally pulled them apart and asked why they were fighting, they both said, "I dunno!" It turned out to be a misunderstanding. Later, they ended up working together at the local grocery store, and are now friends.
I think that's enough stories about these women for now. I'll fill you in about them later.
Mitakuye Oyas'in
-Jenny

Pidamayayapi

Hello all!
There are so many things I want to tell you about, that I decided I can't do it all in one email. So you may get a few from me over the next few days. First, I want to say thank you to all of you who have sent items for the church and/or encouragement for me. You know who you are ;)
One thing I want to make sure I tell you about is last Sunday's game day. It went really well. We had about 8-10 kids, and they all had a great time. There were several very rambunctious boys, so that made things sort of hectic for me.
The funny thing is, I didn't think I did a very good job with those kids. There just weren't really enough games or people to keep them all occupied at once. But I asked them what they thought when I took them home, and they all said they really had a good time. It's just the kind of play time and/or adult attention that a lot of them never get. Also, I sent them home with bags of crayons, prizes, etc. and that was a big hit.
Like last time, I didn't do any teaching. I just wanted to raise awareness about the church.
I have plans to do one more of these on the 26th.
Also last Sunday, I brought some subs that I had bought at Wal-Mart for the church crowd. This was a huge success. If possible, I'd like to do a family picnic, maybe even advertised, on the 26th along with the game day.
Ok, so that's just the information about what's coming up. I have some stories to share with you about both Cangleska and the church, and I'll put those in another email.
Mitakuye Oyas'in
-Jenny

Lulyahan Oti

Ok, this title is the name of the shelter in Kyle: lulyahan, or dudyahan, means transforming (comes from the verb "to dye" and implies dying a plume or feather red) and oti is a lodge, place of dwelling. Also, I think I forgot to tell you this, but cangleska, or canhdeska, means hoop, and implies the cangleska wakan (sacred hoop or medicine wheel), a symbol for teaching traditional lifeways.
With my fun facts out of the way, I think I'd better tell you to brace yourself: this will probably be a long one! I've been putting off writing for awhile, and I decided I'd better do it now before this gets any longer. Besides, I've given up on sleeping tonight; that's what the bus rides are for, right?
One of the things I've been noticing at Cangleska is the problems aren't just about being battered: being battered seems to magnify all other difficulties. Raising three kids on no money suddenly becomes raising three kids on no money by yourself under a protection order while putting yourself through a healing program. Caring for a bipolar daughter suddenly becomes trying to get your bipolar daughter to take the meds that make her sick while living in a strange house in a strange town, rubbing the sore spots where the bruises are and aching for someone to listen to you. That kind of thing.
I really love watching and playing with the kids. In general, they are very responsive to my insistence that they share, never hit, pick up after themselves, etc. I teach a few Lakota words to some of them. I see some of the same ones often, so I can get to know them. Some of them have taken awhile to get over their shyness; others latch on immediately. It's rather heart-rending when Haley and Marshall, a little girl and a toddler, who don't know where their mother is because she had to flee the abusive situation, start calling me 'Mom'.
Since I've been working on rummage too, I help fetch clothes for kids who come in with their moms. Often they've had to run with nothing but what they're wearing--maybe just a diaper and a shirt. Haley ran up to me today wearing her new dress; I pulled a new set of clothes on a half-naked Marshall, and because he kept losing the flip-flops he picked out yesterday, a new pair of tennis shoes. His grandma told me he'd never had any before.
One day last week I went to the Rapid City shelter, and got a sense of how things are different off the rez. The women in that shelter are more varied--some rez women, some native urban women, some wasicu women. For the women from the rez, coming to an urban shelter can be complicated. Racism increases dramatically, and legal problems flare up. Sometimes they have an old ticket or fine that was incurred while they were off the rez, but since they live on the rez, it may never have been enforced. So a woman might have a parking ticket from two years ago that she never paid the fine on, and the police now have a warrant for her arrest. Now that she's off the rez, they can use that warrant. So native women walking down the street by the shelter get stopped by police and have their ID's checked. Apparently, cops coming to the shelter to help a battered woman sometimes ask for her ID before doing anything else. Women might go to jail the same night they are battered; if they have kids, the kids go to Social Services, get put in foster homes, and it might take months to get custody. All for a parking ticket.
Last Sunday was the first game day. Now, you might say that if I only ended up with four kids, it couldn't be much of a success. But I'm not sure that a big turnout was what I was looking for.
It was hot and dry again on Sunday, over 100 degrees, I'm sure. I tried to get to the Catholic church by 9:00 to check out their service, but was running late, and missed the whole thing. No Indian time there! Anyway, I introduced myself to some of the people having lunch and told them I'd try to get there another day.
Some of the people whom Mom and I went out to lunch last year were at Sun Star, including Christie's sister Sheryl. The kid's materials you all contributed were a hit, as were Donna D.'s cloth bags (most of them were gone by the end of the day). Then afterward we went to the housing developments to pick up kids. I felt like a criminal encouraging three little boys who don't know me to get in my car! Then one of them wanted to get his sister, so we went to his house, and he came back out with his mom. I felt sure that was the end of that, but all she wanted to know was where they were going and whether I would drop them off! The fact that a mom was comfortable letting her kids go off with this strange wasicu girl is a mark of what kind of a community Kyle is.
By the time I got back, the families who had been there earlier in the morning decided to leave because of the heat. I knocked on Aldo's door, but there was no answer--they may be hiding from Tunkasila, I'm not sure. So I hung out with these four kids for several hours--lemonade, soccer, uno, jenga, coloring--and the fact that there were only four meant nothing to me compared with seeing that they were happy to be there. I did no preaching; it seemed enough to impress on them that church could be a good, fun place. They were, incidentally, some of the most well-behaved and conscientious kids I'd ever met. I took them home about the middle of the afternoon, each with one of Donna's bags carrying a clipboard, some coloring pages or crayons, and a couple pieces of candy. With the older girl, I sent a note to their mom, telling her about the event, where to look for flyers for future events, and about the church.
So what was good for me was that I understand how to approach it, what works, and how to get the word out. There will certainly be more this summer--probably in the next couple of weeks. But more than that, it seemed to somehow help bring an obscure vision into a little sharper focus.
Freda's memorial, the thing that has kept the Apple family so busy for the past month, is this Saturday. I can't be there, though I wish I could, but it seems to be falling into place well. Tunkasila seems more cheerful when I talked to him today that I'd heard him for awhile.
I had a rather new experience today. In Norma's office, I was reading an article I was researching for her. I read a passage aloud to her: an anthropologist from the 60's was going on about repressed anxiety and witchcraft among Ojibwe people. She made a face. So then we were talking about such prejudices and misconceptions: about missionaries, about the Dawes Act, about Richard Pratt, about people who still teach that Lakota people are polytheistic and how they were persecuted for their supposed "idols and gods." Then she said she never understood how it was wrong to pray to the four directions, just because they are beings who aren't God, but it was ok to pray to Jesus.
"Well..." I said.
"I mean, I don't mean anything against you..."
"No, no, it's just that that's a little different because Jesus is God..."
I was about to point out that many Christians do, however, pray to saints, but then she said, looking confused, "There's two?"
I had figured Norma knew enough about Christianity to know what the Trinity is, but it seemed not. And this was knew to me. Not that I hadn't had the opportunity to discuss mysteries of Christianity with non-Christians before, but that it had always been in leisurely intellectual discussion. This was not that kind of conversation: Norma was still working, and we had been flying through subjects pretty quickly. She did not want a speech or lecture, and I did not want to give her one. How then, was I supposed to describe the mystery of the Trinity is a sentence or two without making Christianity sound totally insane? I believe what came out was something to this effect:
"No, it's that we believe God is a multi-personed being, something more complex than us. So there's three persons--the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit."
"See, and we can't have three," she said. "Just one." I smiled and listened to her talk, and agreed heartily when she made the point about praying to saints, and then my ride (Kathy) came. I told Kathy in the car that I was worried I had given Norma the impression that Christians believed in three gods and so made the situation worse. She laughed and said she was sure Norma knew, that she was just testing me. But I do wonder if Kathy was just trying to make me feel better.
(FYI--Lakotas, Dakotas, and Nakotas are monotheistic, and God is called Wakantanka: wakan=holy and tanka=big.)
I think that's about all my stories for now. For Jason's challenge--I think I may have used the word 'Christian' once while talking with Norma today...using a word like 'disciple' instead seemed as though it might have made things more confusing...but that's about all recently.
Oh! I saw some lovely pictures from Pakistan today, and realized I have yet to take any pictures on the rez! You must all think I'm horrible...but little do you know I get along with cameras about as well as I get along with sewing machines! Maybe I'll make Mom take pictures for me next weekend.
Well, as it's 2:30 in the morning and I have to get up tomorrow, I'm not going to proofread this. Hope I haven't rambled too much! You have all been very supportive, and I know you are praying for me, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Pidamayayapi ye!
Mitakuye Oyas'in-
Jenny