Surprise!

More snow today :)

Very Important

It is crucial that anyone reading watch these two videos:

1. The importance of our National Parks

2. The Story of Stuff

AND my axe is done!!

Look, snow!

Bi-emotional days lately for various reasons. For example, adventure coupled with calm, stormy weather coupled with sun rays or just warm, pink cheeks in the wind. And happiness, coupled with sadness.

Here is just one photo. Go to my larger posting of Wupatki photos for more.

Life is Beautiful: With Rain, The Desert Comes Alive

Little Pronghorn!
Storm coming in Hard at work

As the days get slower...

It finally rained today. Actually, yesterday too. That's October 4th until November 30th without a scant smattering of precipitation. We've received almost 0.3"!

Times are getting slow, which actually means I can get a lot done. Like put a few pictures on my blog. But since I'm at work,* I won't ramble. Suffice it to say that our numbers had been about 120-200 per day, they jumped up above 400 for the two days after Thanksgiving, and now for the past week it has been less than 80 visitors per day. Yesterday we had 52. It's almost 11 am on a Saturday and we've had 2 people so far. Three if I count Denise, the mail lady, who came in to drop off a package.

In honor of the weather, I will post some more photos.
Public art in front of my apartment (artiste: my boss; instigator of being pranked: me)

End of November, Full Moon rise over Wukoki
T. writes the weather on the board, anticipating our first rain in a looong time

Wukoki, by T.

*For the record, this is the first time in almost 3 months that I've taken 10 minutes during work to Blog. My apologies if you think that is wrong of me, and that I am misusing your tax dollars. In reality, I regularly spend time working on work outside of work hours. Why do I feel the need to defend myself? In case anyone from work happens to read this.

Local images

Wukoki

Moi

A Day in My Life

I wake up around 6 am (getting on 6:30 now as the sun rises later and later). I have time to myself in the morning that is spectacular. I may exercise, read in bed, read in my hammock, bathe, do random things around my apartment, or all of the above!

I start work at 8:45 by opening the visitor's center and work until 5:15 or so with a 30 minute break for lunch. Most days are split between fee collection/visitor inquires/bookstore sales in the V.C. and roving around the monument to the various pueblos or other cultural resources that we protect. I am assigned to do the former in either the morning of the afternoon and I get the unassigned half of the day to rove and do other things I might need to do, like plan a talk for a school group, do paperwork, learn more about the sites and read read read. Sometimes, spontaneous things come up and we deal with those and cover for each other as need be.

Every couple weeks, I have a project day or some other training-type day. This has included reinforcing my knowledge and interpretation of the Crack-in-the-Rock backpacking trip by hiking the route back with the entire staff and practicing route finding and landscape reading by hiking a portion of the route with my coleader for next weekend, Linda, and my boss, Mary.

The sun is setting earlier and earlier, and so I tend to go for a brief bike ride or maybe walk or exploration at the end of the day. I will soon start working on projects like my canoe paddle and axe head hanging. These will be good when it is dark at the end of the day.

I make dinner, watch a movie or listen to a PodCast or read some (not enough! I want to read more!), check up on my Rainbow Swiss Chard plants, etc. I go to bed anytime from 9:30 to 11 pm, and wake up early the next morning and do it all over again.

I posted pictures--some repetitive, but I will add more in the future-- at
http://picasaweb.google.com/vicki.wupatki

For the record...

Today, a 5 year old asked his mother if he could ask for
my phone number.

(Apparently I am very successful at making kids Junior
Rangers).

He drew me a picture and it's hanging on my wall :)

Go West, Young Woman, Go West!

At the end of August, I accepted a position as a 1 year SCA (Student Conservation Association) Intern at Wupatki National Monument. One of three monuments run by the National Park Service as the Flagstaff Area National Monuments, Wupatki is the site of many pueblo ruins from the years 1100-1250. At the height of occupation, archaeologists that nearly 3,000 Puebloans lived in this landscape that looks out over the Painted Desert.



From these photos--which I hesitate to post because I have not yet attempted to get "great photos" that really capture what I get to see with my own eyes--you can see a small piece of the landscape. My apartment window looks out on the Painted Desert as the sun illuminates it in the evening (above). There are a couple cottonwood trees, which I am convinced are keeping me from missing New England too much. Below you can see the row of employee apartments in the background behind my side mirror, and the desert landscape during the day is seen in the mirror.


Since my position is 40 miles outside of Flagstaff and 35 miles from a grocery store, I am "required" to have a car. With my trusty sidekick the Camry (for the time being named Silas) and my friend Carmen from Dartmouth, we all set out on a wonderfully successful Road Trip from New Hampshire to Lake Tahoe area, CA. We drove much, laughed a lot, sweated without AC but maximized our fuel efficiency, stayed with great friends, saw a license plate that said GARLIC, camped in random forests, accomplished South Dakota, contemplated tire pressure often, planted a rainbow flag in Wyoming--unintentionally but quite happily, created shenanigans, avoided Nevada but not enough, and exploded fruit.

Below are highlight photos including myself, Carmen, and Silas.

Epilogue: Day 7 - June 23, 2007

New Orleans

Day 6: June 22, 2007 - The Last Day

"Fortunately, the sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning."
-My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Perhaps the most useful aspect of going on a Katrina Relief service trip for only one week is the overwhelming desire to go back. We all recognized the need to be flexible and that everything would not be perfect. Some days, you may not be able to do exactly the type of work you want to do (ie. construction, digging, de-molding, playing with kids, helping mentor local kids), or you might get rained out. But overall we are now all messengers of how much effort is still needed. In much of Biloxi, I estimate that 1/3 of the parcels of land only have a concrete foundation left on them. Most of the rubble was swept out to sea or has been carried away. What the town needs most now and for the next 20 years --East Biloxi in particular--is community-building. Construction-building will continue to plug along, but building confidence in children and hope in adults comes with time and love.

When I walked in to Fatima ("English-camp" for Spanish-speaking kids) today, about an hour late, the whole group was watching a video. Little Carlos whipped his head around, jumped off his chair to come greet me, shot his arms up in the air, and wanted a hug and to be picked up and held. This is in complete contrast to his behavior yesterday when he became so frustrated with me and Kim '06 telling him not to hit the other kids and not to steal their puzzle pieces that he told each of us more that once "Puto madre!" In other words, he informed me that my mother is a whore. After all the kids left we talked to Ana (Spanish Prof.) and Ynez (the awesome woman/teacher running the whole show) about what the heck to do about this. Ana told us to bring Carlos to her whenever he said bad things or hit the other kids, and she would reprimand him in Spanish (which he will understand more clearly and take more seriously, because he knows she will only speak to him in Spanish if it is a really big deal). Carlos squirmed every time we tried to hold him still on Thursday. And on Friday, I held the boy on my hip for at least 3 minutes.

This was not the only progress in the community that culminated at the end of this week. In the afternoon, I went and visited the Community Garden at John Henry Beck Park. Formerly a drug-haven, the park now has a Project Playground/Hands On/KABOOM! Playground, a great field, courts, a small structure that will soon be a police substation (and the only police station on this poorer, lower elevation side of the city). AND it has a Community Garden! About 15 plots are owned and gardened by individuals and local groups and we finished putting down mulch to round out this gorgeous space. I spent a few hours with Karissa and Erin, talking about how they got their project going and what various stumbling blocks they hit. I also got to meet a couple of the plot-owners, and I started to feel like I could actually incorporate myself into a community like this.

The Katrina Memorial


A memorial plaque for Sandra Thornton, beloved friend of Hands On whose house was rebuilt by many Hands On volunteers and AmeriCorps staff. She passed away this year, and shortly after, this poem was found among her belongings.



The 2007 Faculty, Staff, and Alumni Service Trip to Biloxi, MS (First Annual!)
L to R: (Front) Vicki '06/Outdoor Programs, Rosemary (Psychiatry), Jesse '06/Tucker Fndn; (Middle) Janice (Sign Language Interpreter), Ana (Spanish Prof.), Kim '06/Tucker Fndn, Mary (Planning, Design, & Construction), Stan '66/Alumni Relations; (Back) John (Projects/Work Processing), Rob Kim DMS-MPH '05, Stuart Lord (Dean of Tucker Fndn), Freddie '04/Tucker Fndn, Todd '06, Adi (Human Resources)

Day 5: June 21, 2007 - The World in Three Parts

PART I:

Imagine if the world were based on the meeting of real needs rather than profit.
-Jesse '06



PART II:

Our effort to make tonight's monthly Community Dinner waste-free was quite successful. I'm sure a few people that really love 3 square meals on cardboard paper plates, styrofoam bowls, and plastic cups, and plastic utensils--all of which they throw away afterwards--and missed that this evening, but for the most part, the Hands On folks and the Community Members were appreciative of our efforts to prevent the immediate trashing of 120 sets of "disposable" (wasteful and costly) eating materials. To do this, I went out to the Thrift Store and other massive chain cheap stores (NOT the horribly unethical wal-store) and purchased plates and cups. We then put out a bin of hot soapy water to collect the pastic utensils, which can definitely be used again and again, until they break. In fact, you're probably ingesting many fewer chemicals and bleaches when you used a plastic utentsil that has been washed.
Permanent plates
Permanent cups
Permanent mugs
Reusing the plastic utensils
Recycling any drink bottles
Collecting food waste in a garbage bin (non-meat food waste collected for the compost bin by the Hands On garden)

WHY have a waste-free dinner??
-Fewer landfills, more playgrounds!
-Saves trees & other natural resources
-Composting makes healthy soil for gardens
-Saves you $$$!
-Conservation is cool
-It takes lots of oil to create plastic (+ puts lots of chemicals into the air) and it doesn't decompose :(
-It's a step towards mindful comsumption :)

I have to say it. I was genuinely PISSED OFF and frustrated at the wasteful consumption that goes on at this place. And it felt magical to make this happen.



PART III:

I think it's really important to be in close relationships with all kinds of people. -Jesse '06

Day 4: June 20, 2007 - The Importance of Love and Compassion

Another reason to decrease the amount of car gasoline and other fuels/oils that you use: 25 % of America's oil comes from off-shore Louisiana oil rigs (of which they get no taxes--it goes entirely to the federal goverment--and therefore are the 2nd-poorest state in the US, Mississippi being poorest).


Glenn, a seven-year-old at Art Camp, in the feature of my thoughts today. I spent seven hours, rotating through five hour-long crafts activities with the Blue Group. I only felt really needed in a couple of the classes, but in the other 3 I surely made use of my presence. I basically took to one-on-one mentoring Glenn, talking with him, asking him what he thought, trying to convey the concepts that he just didn't understand, or give him a task that he could understand.

The most shocking moment was when Glenn's father arrived to pick him up--late. With all do respect to the family, the child froze (with a smile on his face, but didn't seem to know to move his legs). A split second earlier, this seemingly nerdy, quiet, somewhat spacey child has been loose and moving around and tossing the frisbee with me (he has a great throw for a 7 year old!). I can't help but think of the book Dibs In Search of Self by Virginia M. Axline. This book is about a child who is diagnosed as probably autistic, but as the author-psychologist works with the child and grows his confidence, she determines that, frankly, the parents do not act as if they love their child. I hope someone loves Glenn.

At dinner, which we have every night at Hands On Base with most everyone living there, short-termers, medium-termers, and long-termers alike. At the end of announcements, we recognize folks that are leaving. Tonight, a young man named George was departing. He has been here for 8 months, and without question he has impacted many souls. I feel--honored?-- that I was able to witness the careful words and articulated emotions conveying love, compassion, thanks, and awe to this young architect/builder. There are so many wonderful people in this big, bad world, and I appreciate the opportunity to have even a little bit of their time (even though I never knew George, and I only got to hear stories about him).

Day 3: June 19, 2007 - Exploring Biloxi

Today was a hodgepodge day, as I was "The Ira." Named after a former Hands-On-er, "Ira" drives around, shuttling people who stay on base to do morning cleanup, picking up folks early, taking anyone to the airport, etc. I had one major strategy in signing up for this duty--to see Biloxi. A side benefit was direct one-on-one conversations with people I had not met yet that are leaving tomorrow and have been here for 2 months (particularly Derek from Alabama who is from a family of New Orleans residents).

I am a geographer at heart, with a crisp visual memory and a strong sense of direction. I drove between Hands On Headquarters, west of the Air Force Base, and East Bilxoi (east of the AFB) about 10 times today. I tried to take a different route every time, see the neighborhoods, get a sense of my way around, and by the end of the day I knew the streets--major and smaller--reasonably well and felt much more comfortable here.

As a result of this, there are a handful of pictures, many from one foundation that looks at the beach from highway 90.


A few other incidents that highlighted my day included hearing Carlos, a whiny and agressive 2-3 year old, count back to me in English when I played toss 1-on-1 with him today. He was happy, not bothering the other kids, not crying just to get attention. We mentors do not want to only reprimand the kids in Spanish, because we want them to consider Spanish and English to both be important, wonderful languages. Usually, Carlos just points to something and mumbles "Ehh." Today I tried "tell me in Spanish." He responded, "agua." I said "would you like water? If you do, then ask me, 'water please'?" He mumbled words that sounded strongly like water and please and so then I went and got him water. Today it became clear that this yound lad, who barely speaks to us, can quite capably say all the numbers, 1 through 10.




Kim and I reflected on really making this about the children, as opposed to ourselves. Unfortunately we were concerned that some of the Dartmouth undergrads--who have been here for 10 days and are likely quite tired--are having a hard time still making this about other people and not slipping into making this about themselves. I fully know that I am not here on the premise of altriusm--I think anyone is kidding themselves if they think that is the only purpose. I am also here to get to know the other volunteers (during OFF times, as we did today with a undergrad-fac/staff/alum ice cream trip/mixer this evening) and to get the wonderful feeling of helping someone else and a community in need. Not to mention the amazing feeling of a local man walking along the line of all 30 of us in the ice cream shop with his kids saying, "thank you very much, thank you for coming here, we really appreciate all of you guys's work, thanks again, thank you so much for helping us," as he walked past groups of us on his way out of the store. That is not altruism, that is self-satisfaction and warming of the heart and soul.

Day 2: Monday, June 18, 2007

I cannot explain the feeling of being emptied of all thoughts that occurred tonight after watching Act III of "When the Levee Breaks." It was not a ton of emotions, it was not necessarily pain. There was some guilt. Some shock. Some frustration. Some fear? But I really did appreciate the ability to sit there in the dark room in silence for a number of minutes before the 6 of us started sharing our thoughts.

"Hope is not a plan."

This was written on many buildings in the documentary. This is very much my personal opinion, but this applies to so many actions of the US government right now. I'm ashamed of our president and administration, as well as those proposing to pull troops out: as a citizen who stays moderately up to date on currents events (somewhere in between nothing and everything), I have no idea what an actual PLAN or STRATEGY might be. When are we going to bring these troops back to help our own people??? Money should not have been the controlling factor--we should have jumped to respond, not worry about cost, because THIS is what our national decificit should be from.

Over the course of the next 5-10- more years, there's going to be a significant need for relief efforts in the form of mental health and transitioning schools from shitty to above satisfactory quality.

Ana, from the Spanish Dept., told us all an expressive story this evening at our group reflection time. Today she tutored a boy named Jerry (age 8 maybe?), not for very long, as she was helping with cleanup at the Hands On site. Jerry is at English camp at the Catholic Church across the street where I also worked (but with younger children) today. Without any prompt, partway through the tutoring, Jerry switched to Spanish. Instead of saying, No, speak English, as we had been told was a rule to enforce usually, she listened. Jerry told her about how his dad was saved, and what was on his mind, and his story--a state of emotional and mental depth that he probably could not express in Engligh.
I hope someone can continue to be here for these children in all these different ways. Teaching them that Spanish and English are both wonderful languages, and that they must know BOTH of them (and that Vietnemese, the language of the vast majority of Biloxi immigrants, is also wonderful, and also necessitates learning English concurrently). And listening to them, too.

Carlitos the Trouble-Maker

Hands On Gulf Coast space.




















Rebuilding.