Reservation Observations

Well, it has been really dusty on the rez around Chinle. Really dusty!!! Having spent much of my life in the Valley of the Sun, I thought I was well acquainted with dust storms. Nope. I have learned some new things lately:

• If the wind is around 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph, all the cows lie down, the horses stand the same direction: facing into the wind, and the sheep have their behinds facing into the wind. So odd to see the wild roaming horses all lined up facing the same direction as though saluting those driving by...
• If the wind is only around 25 mph, with gusts up to 45 mph, the cows all stand with their behinds facing the wind and all the same direction, while the horses and sheep are all in different positions, grazing, etc.
• It doesn't work to try to see the students who have asthma after or during dust storms, for their Occupational Therapy treatment sessions, because they are usually sent home due to asthma attacks, where there are usually no breathing machines and just as much or more dust as at school. So, when there is dust blowing for weeks at a time, don't worry if you can't see them, just explain it on your reports. (And no agonizing because they don't consistently have the care your grandchildren routinely get for regular asthma, turning it into a disabling condition, adding to the diagnosis that qualified them for Occupational Therapy in the first place. How does one learn not to agonize?)
• Grit in your hair makes it thicker. Conditioner in your hair, no matter how well rinsed out, makes the grit stick to each hair strand more resolutely.
• When a wild roaming horse is giving birth, another horse stands guard to keep away the wild roaming dogs. Oh, this post is about dust storms. This was just during a mild dusty windy day, so I don't know if it qualifies to be here. Oh well. I was walking between schools that day, so I was careful to stay on my side of the street, so the guarding horse wouldn't think I was also a threat. Really wanted to just stay there and watch the birth. Turns out they were still there when I came by a couple hours later. This I observed fairly close up, but have seen at a distance many times a horse or two standing guard near one laying down. They seem quite alert then, much different than when some are grazing.
• Where the rocky terrain is more reddish, the dust is red. Where the terrain is more beige, the dust is beige. This should be a no-brainer, but it is a good way to tell you are close to town and the speed limit will suddenly go from 65 to 45 and as a white person you are bound to be ticketed if you are caught off guard. The terrain changes from red to beige between my little apt. and Chinle, and visibility can be VERY low at times, just for a few seconds, then seems better again.
• If the visibility is low, it is best to not be going 65 anyway, as I already had figured out, but 2 vehicles and a cow might not have. If two vehicles and a cow collide in a dust storm, both the truck and the sedan have to be towed away, and people are in two ambulances. The cow has a bad limp but still is able to keep up with the luckier cows. Tow trucks are in short supply on the rez...they are often regular cars with towing apparatus sort of wired in place. They don't go very fast.
• When the above accident has happened, you might not see the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles until you are only about 4 or 5 car-lengths away. And even scarier, will the vehicles behind you see your lights in time not to hit your car, too? This can happen around lunchtime, on your drive between schools as you try to eat your lunch on the way to save time. Sort of makes a person too tense to eat...
• Dust storms don't just happen in the afternoon/evening after thunderclouds building up for hours. Kind of miss that humidity, when it has been DRY sooooooooooo long.
• There is truly no way to totally get all of the dust out of the carpet when the storms have been that ferocious, especially by the doors and windows.
• Scariest of all, three or four days after the scariest 2-day dust storm you have ever been in, your son and his family several states away have areas of their town and state inundated by many many tornadoes, and you wonder if they still have a house till they finally get an opportunity to let you know.
• It is OK to be exhausted after driving home alone in dust storms 2 weeks in a row. "Don't feel guilty for not having any energy, just rest, anybody would be tired," is my new mantra...... I am trying to believe it.
• My respect for the people doing their utmost best in to have a peaceful, purposeful life, while helping others, in such conditions, often in great poverty, just increases and increases. And my respect for those who return after acquiring an education and establishing themselves in a career, in order to help their people, well that increases by leaps and bounds. I am thankful for having this work, this job in these tough times, and thankful that the examples of most of the natives have been so Christlike. And I am thankful to have a cleaner home with trees and more green than beige in the landscape to escape to. I took some of my daffodils to a teacher who had hurt her back and was at work anyway, enduring the pain without her medicine so the children could be there. (In that particular preschool program, they have no subs. If the teacher is ill, no one can come and the aides and bus drivers are out of a day's pay.) She and the children and the two adult aides had never seen a real daffodil. They all thanked me reverently and asked permission to touch them, and were amazed I wasn't going to take them back. I told them I have more at home in Show Low, in my yard. They were amazed, and thankful. I couldn't hold back tears as I realize how much I take for granted that the beauties of spring will always come, because where I live they will grow if you add water, year after year. Next week I will bring lilacs. I want them to get to touch and smell those, too. These dear people who live in a barren wasteland, but care so much for all of Heaven's creations here on earth ---I think Heaven might hold me mightily accountable if I don't share this glorious bumper crop of lilacs.....or at least I would feel mighty ungrateful.