Living Here

There are some things I really like about living here.

I love that about every other day I can see and hear cows from my house. (No I didn't take this photo from my house...but its across the street from the school, so its almost the same thing.)

I love the gorgeous sunsets every night that I can see from the kitchen window, and the bright morning sun shining in my east-facing bedroom windows! This was November 10th.

I love the drive into town every week, once for groceries (milk) and once for church . While there are no trees in our little community, there are several picturesque copses along the drive, as well as several creeks that we cross, and numerous small ponds between the rolling hills. I’ve found that with the fall, the grass changes colors too, resulting in swathes of orange, dark yellow, light yellow, brown, and some sprouts of green in the fields that have been plowed.

We caught a glimpse of what summer looks like here when we first arrived: Bright yellow sunflower fields in the distance, cornfields and wheat fields in between. I can’t wait to see what winter will look like; I picture it looking just like all the Christmas cards of the Midwest; any season it is quite peaceful and beautiful.

Every time we go anywhere, we see prairie dogs, antelope, deer, and sometimes coyotes, sky hawks, and even bald eagles!

This is the first place we’ve lived that I can send the kids outside to play without having to go out with them. I’m not worried that they’ll get hit by a car- at least by our house- because there are almost never any vehicles driving around here in the day time. They are free to explore and I can pretty much see them no matter how far they get from the house.

Its nice that Joseph’s work is so close. We can see his classroom window from our house, and he doesn’t have to drive the car to work at all. If I need him for an emergency (like when Jonah smashed his finger) I can easily go get him.

Oh yeah, and our rent is super cheap! I complained about our house when we first moved in, but now that I've heard about and seen problems the other teachers have in their homes, I feel we got one of the better deals, seriously.

For these reasons I would much rather live out here on the reservation than in the town. (Not to mention we couldn't afford for Joseph to commute every day.) Besides, how often do you get to drive through a herd of cattle on your way home?

The town is cool too though, because it has an awesome found-object dinosaur sculpture, commemorating "Sue", the most complete tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found.

I love the people in our very small branch at church. I guess there is a whole page-long list of inactive people, but right now there are only five people who come every week, along with someone’s daughter and her two children who attend occasionally. As there is not really a primary, Elora got to give her first church talk in Sacrament meeting, and she had so much fun! (She spoke on Jonah and the whale, and read half of her talk herself!) Because it’s so small, we quickly became friends with those members who are there, and our kids feel like they are family. We have potlucks about every other week and have been invited to others’ homes several times.

While I love all of these things, there are plenty of negatives that make us think we probably don’t want to stay here for too long. Most of these issues deal with my kids. For instance, they never have anyone to play with. None of the other teachers (who live here) have kids their age. Some of the Native families do, but they are gone all day every day for Headstart. I know my kids could go to it too, but I just don’t feel comfortable sending them there. Not only is it all day, but they take a bus to another reservation town down a dirt road. I know I can teach them better at home, and when they’re home I don’t have to worry about them catching head lice, which is always going around here. Still, sometimes I feel guilty for depriving them of those relationships. Occasionally there are kids on the school playground on weekends when we go to play, so there's that.

I don’t like feeling like a minority, and my kids would be singled out if they went to school here. I know this is an issue that actual minorities have to deal with every day, but why should I put my kids through that if I don’t have to? It’s interesting seeing this issue from the other side. Joseph was telling me how one teacher's kid in the high school here was often called “white boy” even by the white teachers, and he was bullied around from the moment they moved here. Elora has mentioned several times how the other girls she sees are so pretty, and she wishes she had dark skin and black hair.

I feel like every time we step out our door, if there are people around they are staring at us: this happens in town because its soo small and we are the new people that no one knows, and on the Reservation because we don’t look like we belong out here. Even with people in town, It’s hard to find things in common. Almost everyone we know has a job in agriculture (cattle, crops, bee-keeping, etc.) while the people we know on the Reservation have a hard time relating to us because they are divorced, single, have kids from various fathers, are unreligious, etc. It’s good to get to know people that are different than you of course! But its hard when there is no one who shares much in common with you.

I worry that Elora will have a hard time if she goes to school here next year, not just because of the minority issue. I hate to promote stereotypes, but Joseph says its true that most of the kids here are somewhat behind academically. The school classes are taught as if the students are all potential delinquents, and they have big problems with bullying and stealing. Right now, Elora can do all the stuff that kindergartners can do (reading, writing, numbers, etc) and I worry that if she’s ahead of the other kids when she starts school next year, she’ll either be ostracized for being smart, or she’ll “dumb down” to fit in with the other kids. (And no, I’m not planning on homeschooling either, I don’t have the patience or the discipline!)

Our car is always dirty or muddy, because we have to traverse a seven mile dirt road to get to our home. I worry about the frequency of plowing on this road in the winter time! Speaking of winter, last year they had a huge ice storm that broke windows and froze all the pipes so they all burst. The Natives were given vouchers by the government to go stay in hotels in Rapid City for a month while they fixed up everything, but what would the rest of us do if that happened again?

I miss the conveniences of a bigger town. We’ve been to the clinic in town a few times now, and it seems so small and inadequate compared to the large new facilities in the last few places we have lived. The facilities in town seem dingy and outdated, and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable going there for checkups if I were to have a baby here. They don’t have many local doctors and no specialists on staff; you have to wait until they are coming through town once a month on their circuit. This is a little worrisome considering Jonah’s heart murmur that we’re supposed to get checked every year or so. In fact, when we mentioned it to the doctor, they said they might send us to Denver or even SLC to get it checked on if needed. That’s a three day drive from here!?

I thought the hospital we had to go to was four hours away, and I was a little consoled to learn it is only about two hours from here, in North Dakota, but still that’s quite a drive, especially if there was a real emergency.

The grocery store doesn’t carry half of the things we like to eat, and the produce is often of low quality. There are no dentists, eye doctors, craft stores, department stores, redboxes, movie theaters, and only two restaurants in town, which are overpriced. I guess the lack of entertainment is good for the pocketbook at least!

While I like the people at church, as I’ve mentioned, I feel sad that the kids don’t really get to go to primary. Plus, three of the five people are leaving for six months, as they do every year for their business. I don’t know how great church will be with just us and two other people! I guess we should pray for more people to start coming…

Joseph's current contract is only for a year (they don't even ofter tenure here) so we don't even know if staying here will be an option. But if/when we do move, it will definitely be with mixed feelings and I will miss this corner of the world.