[larger versions of the photo, along with additional photos, may be seen by clicking on each photo. This will take you to my flickr account]
Often, I undertake adventures that seem like they will be a terrific learning experience and a wonderful time. Again, often, these adventures are wonderful for me, but they are seldom wonderful in the way I expected. Somehow, I travel and volunteer and work with others expecting to see new places and change the world. As is cliche, I find that I change many times more than the small changes I've made. It is my sincere hope that these internal changes have further encouraged me to work toward change and improvement for others.
In college, one of my first great adventures was volunteering to work on the Navajo Nation in Lukachukai, Arizona, during our one-month winter term.
I anticipated change, but the change did not come in anticipated ways.
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Lilla Watson
The above quote was oft-repeated by the trip organizer, and it was important to remember. The first part of the quote was simple to understand. I learned quickly that outside help was not necessarily desired, and my duty was to work with the people, rather than for the people.
In physical ways, I did work for the people. One of our jobs on the Navajo Nation was splitting wood for the elders. Many of the older generation still lives in wood-heated housing. The older folk can typically no longer lift an axe, and their children are either not present or not inspired. Here's part of the essay I wrote upon returning back to school:
At one home we went to, there was a huge pile of knotted wood that needed to be split into small pieces. A few minutes after we started in to the pile, a wizened old man came out of his house with a huge sledgehammer and a wedge. He began to split a piece of wood. He couldn’t have been younger than 80 and he wasn’t fast, but he determinedly went at the piece of wood until he had it split. That was enough work for him, and he stayed outside pointing out cracks in the wood and showing us how to stack it for a little while before heading back inside. However, his determination to help us, to not accept charity, and to prove that he was still capable of working amazed me. At his age, his children should be taking care of him and making sure that he never had to do anything he didn’t want to. Instead, he had complete strangers splitting his wood for him. His determination to aid us fascinated me; he didn’t need to be out there helping us out. Similarly, the lack of help from his family fascinated me as well, but in a completely opposite sense. Inside the house, his burly son was watching TV. When we first pulled up, he came to the door, and we were sure we had the wrong house. Knowing that his son was there, I felt our work somehow took away from my perception of the culture. The son could have come out and helped, just as his father did, but he was content to let us work while he watched TV. The disparity between the generational concepts of responsibility (the father feeling compelled to help us and prove himself and the son content to let us do the work) really made me feel as if their culture really is decaying. On the reservation, we didn’t have the models from the anthropological studies previously done; rather, we had a transition from their values to ours. This, I feel, is sad, but I don’t know how they will be able to avoid further decay as the generations progress.
We worked with the old man, and we learned as much from him as we gave him in split wood. We learned in other ways too; we learned about the spiritual nature of the culture. We participated in a sweat ceremony, viewed traditional dances, and appreciated the amazing surroundings. We listened to stories of the alcohol culture, the degradation of tradition, and the loss of youth to life outside the reservation. We also learned string games, bits of Navajo, and how the younger generation is learning to embrace their culture.
I still struggle with the interpretation of "liberation" from the quote; how is my freedom tied to the freedom of others? I've given this a lot of thought, and I am still unsure. In a personal way, I think my freedom and liberation lies in developing independence and strength through continued exploration. I've always been driven to know and learn more. Perhaps this is what the quote author meant; we are to share and learn from each other, and, in doing so, unloose the ties that bind our hearts against the outside. To bring up my favorite hymn, perhaps we need to bind our hearts together through strong understanding rather than remain insular.
In my time on the Navajo Nation, I had many struggles. I spent a good portion of the trip sick from several ailments (among them, car sickness, altitude sickness, the flu, and the grip of lactose intolerance in a vegetarian community that cooked with lots of cheese). I struggled to understand not only the Navajo culture but also the culture of my fellow students; in many ways, as a college freshman, I was naiive to the world that the elder students lived.
Through it all, I learned from those around me, and I contributed what I could. I leave you now with one last portion from my final essay regarding a lesson I learned from the trip:
I always want to try and create beauty around me. On the reservation, there was a distinct contrast between the surroundings and the housing. The mountains and all the land throughout the area bespoke of a natural rugged beauty. While walking through the canyons, I was often struck by the beautiful area in which the Anasazi had chosen to make their home. By contrast, the Navajos lived in small dwellings in settlements that seemed to squat nastily upon the land. The housing there never impressed me. The only structures that had an aesthetic that matched its surroundings were the hogans that occasionally dotted settlements. For the most part, housing was institutionally done; like today’s suburbs, the houses all matched and screamed “functionality over beauty!” Once again, this saddened me, as I saw the new housing as a symbol of despair; the people were losing their culture, their place to live, and their way of life.
the majority of these photos were taken by others on my trip. If you click through to my flickr account, each photo is tagged with the name of the photographer. The ones here were taken by Wintry Whitt, Jenn Terry, Beth Ross, and myself