>>>> Intro <<<<

Ever since I got back from my first summer on the reservation people I meet everywhere want to know about what it was like, how did I like it, am I going back and a plethora of other questions. Most people want a simple, short, concise answer while others want to know everything. I have enough stories that could fill thousands of pages of a book but even among those millions of words the experiences I had and the memories I carry with me never could be done the justice they deserve. However, I will do my best.

Often people wonder how did I, a white, suburban, Midwestern Ohio boy end up spending my summer volunteering on a Native American reservation. The answer is as simple as it is complex: I needed to get out of where I was in my life that summer. I was sick of being in Cincinnati, I was sick of people stereotyping me into who they thought I was.
I needed to be me and that required getting away from Cincinnati for an extended period of time. I applied for one experience, got rejected and starting looking for another opportunity: when I found the Main's website.

Wie baut man ein Tipi auf?

I applied and got accepted without knowing as many details as I knew about why I needed out. I knew that I was going to be working with kids at a youth center. I knew it was going to be hard work. I knew it was going to be long hours. I knew I was moving to a small town in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota. I knew that it was a Reservation but I still didn’t know what that really meant. I knew I was going but I didn’t know what to expect from the trip. Even with my hesitations I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy it but I had no idea how much 3 months in one small town in the middle of South Dakota was going to lure me in for the rest of my life.

I didn't come home after 3 months a brand new person with radical views or proclaiming all white people were the devil. What I did come home was captivated by the children I had met and the individuals I met in the community. The children at the center were so welcoming and so cute that you didn’t have to try and fall in love with them they just got into your heart without you knowing it. To this day everyday I wake up thinking about them, wondering where they are, and wishing I was there to see them now. I have two huge picture frames in my room with 40 pictures of "my" kids in them that I awake to every morning. It isn't just a place I visited to me anymore it is more like a second home for me.

While I’d rather focus on the good of the reservation I would be doing a disservice to the people there if I just ignored the more painful sights I saw. The reservation isn't a place full of wealthy, college educated, successful people it's an entirely different world that I have never experienced before. The summer I was there I didn't see much of the true colors of the reservation because all I saw where the children in a very limited environment. Only when I came back during Christmas did I truly start to see the condition the reservation and the people that lived there were in. Even among the poverty, alcoholism, child abuse, lack of education and the apathy that spreads like a disease I find a place and a group of people that are amazing and unknown to many. It's a place that most people only read about in books. A place people do not know exists in the United States. A group of people most people think are only real in the past. A way of life that is wrestling with its own existence. People trying to express their tradition in a world that would rather ignore them.

I was so captivated with this place that I brought 11 other students from my university with me for a week long trip to share what I had learned and fell in love with. That third trip will not be my last nor will my next. I have friends there now and I'll be going back as often as I can.

Fortsetzung folgt...