Reflections From The Rez

One month into my stay at Re-Member on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I think it’s time to revisit the question: why Pine Ridge? Each day is something special here. Although waking up at 6 am can become a struggle towards the end of each week, the realization that by noon I will have made a difference in someone’s life helps to get me out of bed. Whether it’s skirting a trailer in Oglala with winterization materials to help keep a family just a little bit warmer, or roofing a century-old log home in Pine Ridge for Noah and his family, or any of the countless other projects that I’ve been a part of in the past four weeks… Each day is also stunningly depressing. Not necessarily each day by itself, because the day-to-day work allows one to see the progress they are making, the homes we pull up to that are in rough shape that look just a little bit better when we pull away. It is the amalgamation of day after day after day of “making a difference” that you realize the scope of the poverty and...

What does a typical day at Re-Member look like? The answer is that there isn't a typical day. Saturday is the start of our week, we welcome new volunteers starting at 2 p.m., ending our weekend (which begins on Friday at 9 a.m. when the group from the previous week departs.) We spend most of Saturday moving people in, getting them settled and oriented to the program. Sunday morning is sleep-in day (7 a.m. rather than 6 which is wake-up time the rest of the week.) On Sunday morning, we visit the mass grave at Wounded Knee, which is located about fifteen minutes away from Re-Member. Tom -- the Executive Director -- tells the story of the incidents that have taken place there, and then allows volunteers time to reflect at the cemetary and mass grave site. Sunday afternoon, we build the Re-Member tepee, and typically have a few hours of work projects around the site that help us get ready for the week ahead. We end Sunday night with our first Lakota speaker, Minerva Blacksmith who spea...

"Noah's House" - Wednesday, July 8 At Re-Member - Tuesday, July 7 Badlands, National Park - Sunday, July 5 See all of my photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/corytrue/

Oh hey... so a week went by. Woops. Really busy last week with a number of projects. I worked with three of our four construction crews Monday-Thursday: Jerry, Corbin, Mike and Chris. Over the course of four days, I worked at three different sites, spending two days in Pine Ridge (at the house I have previously written about -- Noah's -- as well as two other homes; one in Porcupine and one in Manderson. I spent my weekend (Friday) up in Rapid City with our Executive Director and another summer staffer, Robin. What we expected to be a pretty quick and routine supply run turned into a thirteen hour trip to the "tenth layer of hell" (we noted this revelation while in the Wal Mart parking lot.) On the bright side, I can now say I have been to Sanford's (pub and grub) -- a regional institution well known to previous SAC visitors. We attempted to come back to the Rez via Red Shirt Table (an awesome overlook of the Badlands,) but the South Dakota highway department had other...

It's amazing how you go from a high, to a low. Yesterday, I was hiking the Badlands. Some of the most stunning natural beauty in my opinion that exists anywhere in the world. With a ten minute walk from the gravel road, you can be surrounded in a natural bowl of earth, carved out into amazing geological formations that tower skyward. The Badlands can be incredibly quiet, and stunningly serene as there are enormous tracts of land that remain untouched by man and machine. And so we sit, when we visit the Badlands, in silence. Asking our volunteers to decompress, disconnect and "plug-in" to the world around them. It's a special place. Today, the reality of the Rez . I worked on a house in the town of Pine Ridge, the service-center of the entire reservation. In Pine Ridge, you find the comparative amenities of the civilized world: a grocery store, community services, and so on. The house that we worked on today, threw any expectation that things in Pine Ridge are better ...

Wolf Creek Sundance Grounds More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/corytrue/

How does one celebrate a birthday on the Rez? Working. (But it's all good.) Allowed myself to sleep in this morning till a generous 6:20 a.m. alarm. Then laid in bed for ten more minutes before heading into breakfast. Spent the morning on the site at Re-Member helping to pour a concrete slab that will house a new walk-in cooler. The afternoon was a mishmash of supervising crews, and, with much excitement and anticipation, making my innaugural trek in the famed dually into Pine Ridge. I was sent into Pine Ridge to Sioux Nation, the only "legitimate" grocery store on the Rez to pick up some supplies for our volunteers' lunches tomorrow. Of course, nothing is that simple on the Rez. Sioux Nation recently suffered from a burst sewage pipe -- creating a bit of a waste situation, in the store. Locals, and the staff here have rebranded the store: "Sewage Nation." As you walk through the aisles, you notice a combination of inflated prices on basic goods, and under-c...