Mašté- the sun is shining

What good looking siblings I have.

Scout got to experience life off the Rez for the first time!

It’s weird to think that it’s been almost three months since camp ended. Amanda jokes all the time about how we told her that “things would slow down once the summer was over”… Rightttt. I guess we were wrong. I went on my backpacking trip and returned and then off to the mitten for a hot second to celebrate my dad and Jenn’s wedding. 

During the time back in Michigan, I spent a couple days in Marquette where I stayed in my old apartment with Elise (my prior roommate), went back to the Y I had worked at before moving out here and of course spent time with family. Each place I went to, people were happy to see me and asked if I was moving back. Numerous times people told me I could move back and it’d be as though I never left… Move back into my old apartment, take back my old job, go to the beach with the dogs, hangout with my siblings when I wanted to in person, and see my family more often. I hadn't been back home since I moved out here in January and I think it was wonderful going back, but just pushed me into this weird funk even more.

Even though it was only for a day, it was nice to be with my mom.

After I returned I started the switch to Community Program Director for the school year. I think what had me down was the fact that I was doing office work and wasn't running any of my own programming. Tuesdays and Wednesdays Amanda and I go out to two different Tribal (Grant funded) schools on the Reservation. At one school, we spend about 45 minutes with two grades at a time in the gym and play camp games that focus on teamwork and leadership. We do this with grades 3^rd-8^th, but have also been spending some time with the 2^nd and 9^th-10 graders. At the other school, we have been spending time with the older students in their math classes. All schools on the reservation have a difficult time filling teaching positions, but out of the schools on the reservation, I feel our second school is having an extremely difficult time keeping/filling positions.

Chacos, Nalgene bottles... you  must be a Camp Director!

Currently, they do not have a 5^th grade teacher, science teacher, math teacher, PE teacher and welding teacher. The counselor is teaching math. While we are in the classroom for math, we have had 7^th, 8^th, 11^th and 12^th graders. All grades work on the same handouts which focus on division, multiplication, and fractions. It’s really difficult to see the school struggle with filling these positions. I feel they struggle the most because they are in the most remote area on the reservation. We will continue to help some of the kids with math, but I would like to focus on getting these kids into the gym and run programming that we do at the other school with these kids as well. I think that since going out to the communities and running programs again is helping me get out of this weird funk. Also, the first day we went out to one of the schools, I had numerous kids run up to me and they were all of my camp kids from that area. It’s amazing how much a smile on someone else’s face that is directed towards you, can change your own mood. As selfish as it sounds, knowing that I was a part in making these kids happy and seeing that months later, makes me feel amazing. Talk about a quick reward!

We had a Board of Trustees meeting down in Rapid City the beginning of October and it was a great time to speak about the different ups and downs of my first summer at camp and also about where the Y is heading and all of the mountains (figuratively) we have to climb. It’s always nice to be around others who believe in something as much as you do. Plus we got to dress nice and take group pictures of our dream team. J

Dream Team

The Y threw a pretty amazing Halloween party where I spent a full day baking and then became The Tooth Fairy. The party was great and it was nice to see a lot of families show up with their kids. I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as the parents showing up because we don’t see the parents for the most part. The next day, we had a 5k walk/run and a rummage sale where I helped kneed out the fry bread dough. I also ran.

Tooth Fairy turned Bumble Bee.

Since the beginning of October I have been thinking about my time out here and wondering when my time to leave will come. There have been some things come up that makes it a bit more difficult to work camp in the summer. After this summer I will have been living out here for a year and 8 months. I love my job and I love the kids and because of those two last things, it makes it difficult to leave. I’m not sure where I’ll go next either and trying to prepare for a move without the knowledge of what I’ll do or where I’ll go is scary. So, for now, I’m going to push that to the back and focus on these other tough issues. Amanda and I went down to Rapid to celebrate her birthday one weekend, but spend most of the day and night in the hotel because she was sick. During the ride to and from we talked a lot about different things we have experienced out here and how it affects us. Anyways, I posted this link on my facebook http://www.scarymommy.com/the-child-i-didnt-adopt/. The story is pretty much about a social worker who works with a child for many years and is in charge of placing him in foster homes throughout pretty much his whole childhood and about how friends always joked that she should just adopt him. Then at age 18, he was shot at a party of something stupid. The lady that wrote the piece goes on to say “they break you know. These kids we leave behind. Eventually the break”. When I read this piece, I found myself sobbing. It’s one of the downfalls of working with youth who live below the poverty lines or in hard situations. There are numerous kids that I have worked with in numerous communities that I have had that thought run through my mind. “If there was ever a time so and so needed a home, I would take them in”. 

Recently, a couple of our kids have been taken from their home because there was abuse happening. Like I had stated earlier in the spring, it’s so difficult working with these kids, seeing them every day, watching them grow physically, mentally and emotionally and watching them go home and be out of our care. When something happens to them, we don’t know where they go or how they are doing and it kills me. I live to help these kids grow here at the Y and for some of them, they spend more time here than they do at their own house. Then, they are gone and you know what, they do break. Sometimes the kids that we try so hard to take care of and show them that they can accomplish anything they want, show them what respect means, play with them, make them smile and more importantly let them know they are loved, sometimes they break and there is nothing I can do about it. I think that is the hardest part of my job. It doesn't matter where I’m at, but knowing that as much as I care about the kids I work with, I can’t protect them all.

Going off of that big blurb of emotional thoughts, I told one of the kids I loved them the other day. Not in a weird creepy way, but just in passing. He was dancing in my office and was being hilarious and I said “Oh I love you. You’re so great”. He kind of looked at me funny and then I started to wonder how many of these kids get told they’re loved? Should I be telling these kids they are loved or am I ultimately hurting them more by doing that when I know I won’t be here forever and then they will have to deal with that? I think it’s important for all kids to hear they are loved, but is that something that I should be saying?

Happy 2nd birthday to this crazy Atlas Dog!

With all of these emotional things taking place in my mind, I figured it’d be good to get back to my gym routine now that I’m not climbing mountains or road tripping anywhere and I think that the mixture of working in the schools and working out on a regular basis is helping me find my confidence again. I don’t know where it went or why it left, but it’s back and I am feeling alright. I've never gone without my confidence being pretty high so I think that is what was confusing. Life is good even with all these tough things that I am around because with the tough things, come the great things such as dance parties in my small office, playing tag for three hours, learning long division all over again from a 7^th grader, seeing the smiles on the teen girls faces when they talk to me, or something simple such as Atlas chasing his tail for five minutes straight. 

Mašté means the sun is shining in Lakota and even through the darkness, the sun is shinning out here on the prairie.