This is where we live

Last weekend, we went to Mount Rushmore. It is only about 20 minutes away from Rapid City, which is where we will be going for major shopping trips maybe once a month; at least that's what everyone else here does. I had been to the Monument before, but Joseph and the kids hadn't and they were pretty excited. When Josh first saw the carved Presidents, he laughed right out loud and said they were "silly". He hadn't believed us when we told us we were going to go see some faces carved in the side of a mountain!





This is the part of South Dakota that most people think of when they ruminate about this state: the lovely Black Hills where this national monument resides.


At least, I assume this is the part everyone thinks of, since people kept talking about how beautiful South Dakota is when we said we were moving here.


The Black Hills are indeed beautiful, covered with pine trees, moderate climate, etc. And we enjoyed our hike around Mount Rushmore (well, Elora and I did, Joseph had to take Josh back to the Visitor's Center to use the facilities, not to mention that the path didn't support strollers after about half-way, where all the stairs began.) Anyway, I say we enjoyed our hike because this was the first we had been surrounded by green and trees in the last month!



Don't get me wrong, I believe the rest of the state to be beautiful too, its just a different kind of beauty. And there are literally NO trees where we live. Oh wait, there might be a handful planted in front of the school, but we can't see them from our house. As you may know, we live in a community of about 25-30 houses behind the school that Joseph teaches at, on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation. The "town" where our mailing address says we live, is actually just a gas station and small store at a junction of two rural highways!

There are two sections to the community where we live. In this first section, there are only Native American families. They have to apply to the Tribal Council to get one of these nice houses, and it may take up to a year or more to be approved.



This second area is where many of the school employees live, both Native American and White. If you look at the larger copy of this picture, you may see that most of the homes need some outward repair, and may not be the highest quality... I wasn't happy with our place when we first moved in, but upon looking around I realized I didn't have much to complain about, and we actually have one of the better places to live!


Many of these homes and trailers are shared by single teachers who only come during the week then drive home on the weekends. Those teachers who do appear to have children are generally single parents, and their kids either attend the school or are shipped off to another town for all day Headstart during the day.

While the Native American section of the community has more families with small children, we never see them outside except in the evenings. In fact, it is rare for us to see any people at all during the day, except the occasional maintenance man. Sometimes it feels like we live in a ghost town!

Not that we're ever bored. There is plenty to do. For instance, Elora found this big pile of dirt the other day:



Then of course there is always all this grass to explore.




We see a lot of grasshoppers, crickets, and butterflies on our way to the mailboxes each day (our big excitement of the afternoon).


And hey, once Jonah found a stick!




Not to mention the dogs and cats that are all over the place. But at least the cats catch mice (which I'm pretty sure all the houses are infested with!) Unfortunately, while Josh likes the dogs from a distance, he is a little scared of them up close, ever since a very excited dog knocked him down twice a few weeks ago. Poor Josh.



Okay, I guess there is also the school playground. We went there once the week before school started. I thought it was a little ghetto, but the kids liked it. Unfortunately, now that school is in session we can't really go over there during the day, and in the later afternoon Jonah naps. This is the kindergarten area:


And this is the bigger kid playground. Look, you can see one of the trees at the school behind us! How exciting.




The nearby (40 minutes) town of Faith is where we get things like milk maybe once a week, and go to church on Sundays. Did you know it is the "T-Rex Capital of the World"? I guess the most complete T-Rex dinosaur, dubbed "Sue" was found near here, so there are a lot of dinosaur related things around this small town of 450 people. There is also a cute little park that my kids keep asking to go to, but we discovered after our first two weeks here that we can't afford to go driving to town all the time! Our rent is very cheap, but we more than make up for it in all the gas we have to buy.



Oh yeah, and there are occasionally Pow wows. We missed the big one over Labor Day weekend because of crummy weather, but we attended a smaller one the weekend before, in a nearby town called Cherry Creek. Joseph had told a boy in his class that he’d come, and the boy told him to show up between 1 and 2 to see him dance. We got there around 1:30 but nothing much was going on. The announcer kept saying they had so much time before they started, but the times he was giving kept panning out ever longer. They finally got started around 3:15! (The boy from class never came.)


It was very unorganized and not that exciting, but Elora really liked it. She loved all of the costumes and wanted to dance too.



Unexpectedly, an older lady came over and gave Elora a dress with bells to wear so she could dance too, which was pretty cool.


She was pretty excited and ran around a bit, but she was sad that I wouldn’t let her run out into the middle of the circle with everyone else.

Later, people seemed more and more annoyed at our kids. I decided that maybe it stemmed from the moment Josh shrieked at some little girl for picking up his water bottle. We had immediately told him to calm down, but the parents got their kids away from us, and people seemed to be avoiding us and turning their shoulder to us the rest of the day. Maybe it was my imagination.

Around the time we were ready to leave, about 5:00, Josh and Elora went and stood by a little boy and girl, the same girl Josh had yelled at. The kids had toys, and I was watching my two kids to see if they did anything, but they were just standing there. The other mom gave me a look, but I didn’t know what she wanted, then she leaned down to Josh and Elora and said, “ You need to go back over by your parents now.” That’s when I told Joseph it was time to go! I still don’t know what the deal was, but I was feeling a little singled out at that point. There were maybe four other white people there by the time we left.

Still, we saw some beautiful vistas on the way to the pow wow. While the grasslands look flat from a distance, they are really quite hilly:

And did you know there are vast fields of sunflowers in South Dakota? Along with many accompanying bee farmers.


Yup. This is where we live.