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honest and love filled organization so that we can help without you all none of this would happen there is always kindness always willingness to answer questions and everyone goes way above what would be their duty i cannot speak highly enough of the people of one spirit you bless us all i wanted to wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year and may everyone be blessed michelle j posted by mezzobean at 6 36 am 0 comments wednesday september 15 2010 one spirit sponsor visits pine ridge from time to time sponsors receive invitations to visit their families on pine ridge this is always an eye opening experience this weekend regina hay sponsorship program manager for one spirit received the following letter from a sponsor who recently made her first trip the letter was so wonderful that she got the writer s permission to share it with all of you when i told friends that i was heading up to south dakota the first question from each person was why some of my military friends had been stationed in rapid city and hold horrible memories of the winters others simply view it as the boring middle section of the country there was still puzzlement after i explained that i was going to visit the pine ridge indian reservation no one talks about native americans these days and if you know anything about pine ridge it s equal parts forgotten and overlooked i fell in love with pine ridge i grew up in a major city but have always had a soft spot for open spaces and rural countryside living in texas now for the last 10 years i ve been as up close and personal with everything huge and country that s possible but even this didn t prepare me for the overwhelming hugeness of the rez the badlands spill onto the rez or vice versa i wasn t sure driving from one road to the next it s easy to blur the boundaries since the entire landscape has an amazing other worldliness that s difficult to describe i just remember cruising along a two lane road and seeing the entering pine ridge sign materialize on my right the vastness of the reservation was quite sobering isolation seems like a completely logical feeling for anyone who lives on the rez it s another world but for reasons other than the landscape from kyle where we were staying to the nearest gas station in sharp s corner is roughly 8 10 miles without any public transportation the most basic activity be it groceries or church or work can be a logistical struggle for someone without access to a vehicle winters can only be a nightmare on the way to pine ridge town i noticed we were almost out of gas based on our maps it was closer to travel off the rez for gas to gordon ne than to head back to sharp s corner or kyle there are roughly nine townships on the rez and only a few of them have convenience stores or gas stations my friend lived in manderson which was over 40 miles from my hotel when the roads are usually under construction closed or unpaved a morning or afternoon can go by quickly the people on the rez were very open and welcoming our first stop was the wounded knee site and the folks at the makeshift information booths across the street were talkative and friendly answering any questions we had i wasn t quite sure how to compose myself and i m not sure why it wasn t my first time on a rez i d visited the dineh once many years ago and they were just as gracious i imagine the lakota are used to receiving tourists on a daily basis and i wasn t sure how they regard this but i got the feeling that they understood our genuine interest and they were more than proud to share their history with us one lady spoke to me for almost a half hour about the story of lost bird who is buried at wounded knee she had such a soft voice and quiet earnestness and i felt like i could stand there all day listening to her one fellow at a booth told us his story about coming home to the rez after years in colorado city the white man s world was too much for him he told me because it s too hectic too stressful there is little time for silence or quiet contemplation here on the rez the sun is his clock and he knows that when the sun sets it s time to head home to someone on a much needed break from a 9 5 job i couldn t have been happier to hear such a sentiment bette s kitchen is a definite must as far as food not only is she the most accommodating restaurant owner i ve ever met but her fry bread reportedly a recipe coveted by several media outlets was so delicious that we purchased a bulk order to munch on during the long periods in the car the oglala lakota college is another recommended stop the development coordinator took time out of her day to guide us through the heritage center and unexpectedly through the entire campus the veteran memorial behind the school bears the names of all the lakota war veterans in every conflict since wwii the chamber of commerce in kyle also has lots of information about efforts to revive small businesses on the rez with a focus on local artists the poverty on pine ridge was expected but not any easier to deal with i deferred on taking any photos of my friend s home or any other home on the rez when i arrived she welcomed us in but apologized for the mess her humility was moving but i certainly didn t want her to feel self conscious especially when i m wildly disorganized myself we had a bin full of school supplies and toys for the kids and this time i didn t take pictures simply because i forgot to it was too much fun to watch the kids play she s battling some personal struggles these days and it made me rethink the issues of poverty on the rez the spartan living conditions capture the attention of the public but they seem almost secondary compared to the alcoholism and unemployment plaguing the families the wide open spaces of prairie land sunflower fields and breathtaking sunsets give pine ridge a rez with definite challenges a surreal and sublime atmosphere there is certainly enough time to think during the endless hours of driving and you can t help but take stock of the simple things when you re surrounded by sky and earth yes pine ridge has grave issues such as suicide gangs and indigence but it also has a lot of heart and you can see it all around one thought that kept coming to me over the course of the week was an encounter with another texas couple on my first day pine ridge has been they told me their go to spot for the last 20 years it sounded so peculiar to me at the time but as i was making the long drive home on my last day i easily understood what they meant all i could think about was when i could return posted by mezzobean at 7 02 am 0 comments sunday december 20 2009 response from another one spirit friend who s been to pine ridge for those who have never been to the reservation and actually seen the way many people have to live it is hard to imagine that conditions like this exist in 21st century america but they do last year i was asked to take pictures of an isolated dilapidated one room home with no electricity or running water while the owner was in hospital suffering from an infection i cannot post the photographs at this time but taking them was a very difficult thing for me to do it was the most desolate living space that i had ever seen although very likely not the worst in the area in 2007 a man froze to death in his house a couple of miles from where i was staying there was no reporting of this incident and an elderly lakota told me so many people around here die untimely deaths that no one pays any attention any more betty is right that none of us will be able to bring a permanent solution to the overall situation but we can help provide food and warmth and the knowledge that somebody cares the youth programs we support are also very important the young people hold the future in their hands and they must have something to hope for if this epidemic of suicide is to end without hope it is very difficult to have life we are making a difference both now and for the future anne posted by mezzobean at 5 57 am 0 comments labels housing pine ridge reservation tuesday december 15 2009 thoughts from a one spirit area services coordinator hello one spirit friends i have not posted since i took over the position of area service coordinator for oglala and pine ridge this past summer as you might imagine it has been a busy time getting to know both the residents of those areas on my lists and the many wonderful people who sponsor them the time also included a trip by my husband and me to the reservation in october we have been there several times before but usually to visit friends we certainly did that again but we also used this visit to meet some of the families i had spoken to over the several months before the trip in 5 days we put 950 miles on the rental car while driving from place to place on the reservation for those of you who have not been there our high mileage was caused by the great distances separating the settled areas for example the distance from our room at the lakota prairie ranch resort in kyle to pine ridge was about 35 miles during our time on the reservation we saw many things that were very difficult to see while our philosophical discussions on this board are interesting my focus is on the immediate needs of those in jeopardy especially the children and elders i don t believe that i or anyone else from the outside will be able to solve the whys and hows of permanent improvement on pine ridge reservation but together we can keep the children warm and fed until those with more resources step in to more permanently solve the problems we all know there is deep grinding poverty on the reservation and if we are in this group and on this board we care very much about that but i would have to say that this visit hit me harder than have my prior visits perhaps that is because we saw a wider variety of homes and people this time we learned there are varying degrees of poverty some houses and trailers were small and spare but well kept we visited the apartment of a woman who is confined to a wheelchair and i wondered how she could possibly maneuver the chair in that space it was so small we visited a trailer that i thought would blow over in the next good gust of wind and there is plenty of wind in south dakota we brought food with us on our visits we were given small gifts in return we were treated warmly and welcomed wherever we went i had hoped to take photos of the places i went and people i met but i could not not because anyone objected but because my heart would not allow me to expose the pain and poverty of the people to the world it seemed intrusive and felt like an invasion of their privacy however our friends allowed us to take photos of the house they are living in rented for about 500 per month i had prior photos of what it looked like when they moved in it has improved slightly this is their story they had a family of 5 2 adults 3 teen girls living with one of the grandmothers in a small house with at least 7 others persons they wanted needed a place of their own however on pine ridge you can be on the housing list for 10 years and still not get a place of your own there is a dire shortage of adequate housing so when a cousin lost the tenants in a house he had he offered it to them at the price noted above the little blue house has 2 bedrooms a bathroom and a larger room that includes both living room and kitchen in the smaller bedroom there is a queen sized mattress on the floor because there is no room for a bed in the room with the mattress pushed up into one corner of the room there is only about 6 8 inches of space between the two open sides and the opposites walls barely room to walk around the mattress let alone place any other furniture no closet in the larger bedroom there is the queen sized bed with perhaps a couple of feet of space free in that space there are boxes filled with the family s clothing and belongings windows are covered with blankets less for decoration than to keep out the cold the bathroom door has been boarded up and sealed with duct tape to prevent drafts it isn t needed since there is no running water in the house at all no indoor toilet just the outhouse the kitchen has a couple of cupboards and a sink that again has no running water for almost a year until they finally obtained a water storage tank from the tribe they had to cart all the water for their use from a family member s home in empty milk jugs there was no stove or refrigerator for a year until we managed to find them a second hand fridge the electricity in the home is most certainly not up to code and fuses blow if too many things are plugged in at once the back door of the house is boarded up with plywood because the door was falling apart so they have only one entrance exit we were able to replace the front door which was also falling apart on our recent visit their only heat source consists of 2 small electric space heaters including one of the ones one spirit was supplying last winter there had been a wood stove in the house when they moved in but it was so damaged by the prior tenants that it was unusable and had to be removed what moves me most is that these were not the worst conditions we encountered i hear stories all the time about how people are trying to live and to raise their children the president of the oglala sioux tribe recently declared a state of emergency on the pine ridge reservation because of the overwhelming numbers of suicides and suicide attempts in the 11 months between oct 2008 and aug 2009 the tribal public safety dept responded to 96 suicide attempts or completions in november 2009 alone ems responded to 17 suicide related calls that s more than one every other day many are teens who see no hope living in these conditions as i said before none of us can solve all these problems but we can help supply the basic needs of food clothing and shelter to those who are in need of those things everywhere we went people thanked us for helping and told us how important even the seemingly little things like soap shampoo toilet paper shoes and cleaning supplies are i will try to post more often in 2010 my new year s resolution i hope that the things i share will help you realize how important your small gifts and your caring are to those who receive them betty b posted by mezzobean at 5 15 pm 0 comments labels housing pine ridge reservation wednesday november 25 2009 one spirit booth at america s hometown thanksgiving celebration plymouth ma photo of ed broken feather chandler jeri baker this past weekend one spirit volunteer and advocate ed broken feather chandler once again set up to vend on behalf of one spirit in plymouth massachusetts billed as america s hometown thanksgiving celebration the event draws overs 100 000 people for a parade the air force tops in blue band crafts and food and more this year one spirit s director jeri baker and assistant director diane capalario were able to attend 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