I love working for an organization where I can write a memo in Crayola marker and no one bats an eye.
Click on the pictures below for a larger view and captions Last night was the first time in the past four weeks that I have questioned what I was doing out here and what I had gotten myself into. On top of the same house issues, I am a nomad at the Y too now that Courtney is back from resident camp. She needs her office back so I am floating between Andy's and Medina's since they are both out of town. Carol is also on vacation for about a month (she deserves it, having no vacation in four years). They have left me in charge of the day camp and other Y activities with little or no guidance. The philosophy of the YMCA is to just throw someone into the deep water and they'll learn to swim but that's extremely overwhelming for me as someone with no experience in children's programming let alone someone who has not set foot in a YMCA for 16 years before coming out here. Colleen [waterfront director at the resident camp who stays at my house on the weekends] is leaving tomorrow and the resident camp counselors are leaving on Tuesday. Realizing this last night made me feel like I had no one out here. I told Colleen that I felt like I was drowning and that the last couple of days at the Y have been extremely chaotic, but she assured me that I was doing a great job. She said that the first priority is the kids and if they are safe and having fun then I've been successful at my job. I'm really going to miss her and I hope she can find a way to come out again next summer. She can't envision it any other way but has to work out some financials. I am watching Medina [YMCA book keeper]'s pets this weekend while she is in Virginia. She lives in an old farm house she had moved to Iron Lightning (a community 15 miles northwest of Dupree). Iron Lightning is nicknamed "Little Badlands" as you can see from the photo above. I spent the day out here relaxing and taking some pictures: (Above clockwise) Rosie, Medina's eight year old pitbull/bull mastif; sage that Medina has mowed around in her yard--it is a sacred plant that is burned for incense or used in ceremonies; a sled made from what was on hand; the view across Medina's road aka the Little Badlands. (Below, left to right, top to bottom) prairie, more prairie, sweet clover?, unidentified, salsify, more salsify, unidentified, wild sage.
In honor of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it's Biker Week at the Y. While some of the other camp staff took a trip down this past weekend, I haven't touched the city with a 100 mile pole. Highlights of this week thus far: I made a grown Lakota woman laugh and a little girl called me Auntie today, so I guess I've made it. I'm starting to feel like (a little) less of a foreigner (notice that my face paint beard above is orange). It would have taken a lot longer if everyone here wasn't so nice. On Monday I went out into the communities to do some programing with the Y Initiative. YMCA's from the Twin Cities send out teams of two or three staff every summer for two weeks at a time to do children's programing out in the communities of the Cheyenne River Reservation as service projects. I went with this summer's last team (Phil and Jill) to Swiftbird (on the Missouri River) and White Horse. The communities there are much nicer and richer than Dupree which surprised me. We've been having really weird weather this week and it was freezing. We got poured on which it then goes without saying that my only pair of tennis shoes are ruined with gumbo (sticky mud that basically makes anything it touches throw-out-able). That night I went to Medina [Sioux YMCA's book keeper's] house to get instructions on watching her pets this weekend. She fed me dinner with her kids. It's wonderfully amazing how fast people out here become your family. I played video games with her daughter, Kateri. Medina's closet neighbor (a handful of miles away), Kim, and her daughter, Erin, stopped by randomly and ate with us too. Kim told me to watch what I say because people will try to get in your business out here, but I already knew that. There's not much to do but gossip. Andy [site director] was gone today and left me in charge. He always chooses the busiest days to be gone (or maybe they just get crazy because he's not here; I've noticed that boys listen better to men than to women out here, with the exception of the really sweet ones). It was one of my craziest days yet. We had the most kids yet and we were short staffed three in addition to Andy. In the end we ended up putting in a movie and I made the kids do some deep breathing exercises to calm down (special thanks to my dance teacher, Miss Barbara, for teaching me this technique while working at Fairy Princess Camp). It was one the most beserk days thus far but Carol [executive director of the Y] gave me an awesome compliment today as I was helping her with the dinner dishes (our cook was one of our missing employees today). She told me that for having no experience in children's programing in the past, now in three weeks I'm a pro. She joked that when I first got here I would hardly say anything and now I completely have the hang of it. I laughed and thanked her but told her that's funny because I feel like I'm drowning. I've had no training whatsoever since coming out here but I guess immersal can be the best teacher.
Last night I went to dinner in Isabel (30 min away in a different county) with Andy, John (a 27 year old Y board member) and Julie, their middle aged friend who they met at the YMCA World Council a few weeks ago. My jaw dropped as I walked into the bar and the sea of cowboy hats. Boy, did I feel like a foreigner in my knockoff Birkenstock sandals and t-shirt and shorts. John taught me how to two-step and we danced for a good part of the night to the live country band. I ordered a glass of wine and Nico (John's boyfriend who ended meeting up with us) joked that it was the only wine glass on the reservation. John piped up and joked that it was the only clean wine glass on the rez. I had a good time, except that I'm not feeling well at all lately. I think I have caught the stomach bug that's going around with the kids. I hope I am feeling better by Monday because I'm supposed to be going out into the community to do programming with the Sioux Y Initiative.
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AuthorLife begins at the end of your comfort zone. -Neale Donald Walsch ArchivesCategories |