From Adam

We grew attached to many of the students at the school. When I wasn't tutoring I drew many pictures for the students there, a few students even drew some back. This picture was made for me by a third grader named Amy. 
   

From Andy W.

I had a different experience at the boarding school than the others in our group. While many of them were working with younger children who stayed with them the whole day, I was working with the older grades (6-8), who had 6 periods and rotated between classes. I was working with Mr. Q, a music teacher from the Hopi nation. Right off the bat I noticed a huge difference in the music curriculum in Tuba City and in Arlington. In Arlington we were analyzing folk songs and learning about Beethoven and other classical masterminds while in Tuba City the students were learning how to play guitar. I thought that this was great because they were having fun and actually learning how to play a useful musical instrument. Learning to play an instrument is great because you can use it to connect to other people from serenading a group to jamming with fellow musicians who may not even speak your language. Mr. Q told the class that you can communicate using the language of music. I really enjoyed my time in the class because I got to demonstrate what a saxophone sounded like. I was able to improvise for them and show them what they could accomplish if they pursued music. Mr. Q had high energy and handled his classes well. He taught each of them slightly differently based on their difficulties,  and was able to incorporate me into his lessons which was a blast. It was a win-win situation because i got to play my sax, and they got exposed to Jazz, a form of music that they probably hadn't heard much of.

From Erik W

Our week with the Navajo people was an incredible experience for me, one of the highlights of my life so far.

There was this one kid I will always remember at the Tuba City Boarding School. His name was Justin, and he had been somewhat put down by the teacher. He hadn’t been putting much effort into the class, it seemed, because he would always get the answer wrong. I sat down with him, and explained, as best as I could, the concepts which she had neglected to get him to understand - interpreting the data, (fun fun fun), but the thing which got to him was that I was spending the time on him. That day, and after, he resumed his work with a slight bit more vigor, eventually volunteering to answer questions in our class’s jeopardy game.

There was a wonderful man we met named James Bilagody (a Navajo storyteller who came to tell us many things about the Navajo). He said that he was a migrant worker as a child. He saw some of the misery and oppression that society could offer. But sometimes, a group of kids like us would come and talk to him, and he said that this, the kindness and humanity shown him by these kids, greatly changed his life. I hope we have had this kind of effect on the kids we worked with.

James Bilagody’s stories made me think of the beautiful world around us, and it seemed to me that there were some stories about the Navajo people in the land itself.

The harsh, almost alien landscape, made every turn in the road a new sight. But it’s not just the odd beauty of looking out into the eternal openness that moved me; it is the things that seem to spring out of nothing, It’s the blot of cloud on the canvas sky that gives it life. The saguaros grew from strong, tree-like trunks, sprouting tumorous growths at odd angles. The tumbleweeds bit desperately at everything they came in contact with, using their nasty little thorns that got stuck everywhere. The sagebrush throughout the area was clearly undernourished. And everything weaker was killed by the freezing snows that came in like a horde from the mountains.

Yet the sage and the saguaro survive. Somehow, they find the strength to pull through both the freezing cold and intense heat , dust and clay, and lack of water. Just think what they could do with a little less hostile environment and a little more water.

As I thought about this, it seemed that the Navajo are, in a way, like the sagebrush– hardy and tough and surviving and beautiful, but struggling to thrive with quite a bit of adversity. Sagebrush can reach with its roots to enough water to survive, but struggles hard in order to grow. Weeds, invasive species, heat and cold choke out the sagebrush’s efforts to reach water and sunlight, keeping it from growing bigger. Like the sagebrush, the Navajo have learned to pull through even the toughest of times. They endured a near extinction, took back their land, became the largest tribe in our country, and are developing into the modern age. But they, like the sagebrush, are struggling with adversities that include poverty, diabetes and alcoholism, and loss of their young people to easier living off the reservation…

During our time with the Navajo people at Tuba City, we had the opportunity to see their incredible strength and learn about their endurance and love for their land and culture.

If the Navajo are like the sagebrush, I hope that we were perhaps like a thin reed, added to the end of the Navajo roots, pulling up a bit more nourishment for them, like water for the sagebrush. By doing so, the reed also becomes nourished.

We have taken draughts of knowledge about their culture, experience, and friendship, and we are better for it. We hope we added a bit of enrichment to the lives of the individuals we encountered as well.

Profile of Mrs. Stevens

From Elias & Annie

The moment Mrs. Stevens started teaching our whole youth group how to do “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” in Navajo, I was both baffled by her immediate confidence in us and wowed by her obvious pride in her culture and love of teaching. I think all of the still-adapting youth and adults from First Parish felt her energy and wondered: What would it be like to be present in her class? Annie and I would later find ourselves to be the fortunate souls to be aides in her class. Before we left that Tuesday morning – a day without teaching because the school had closed due to a burst pipe – Mrs. Stevens emphasized her idea of our purpose, our usefulness as agents of community service and cultural exchange. She told us that we needed to “be ambassadors.” This was a title I knowingly attempted to carry and a role I tried to fulfill throughout the week.

Mrs. Stevens is quite a character. To be completely honest, Elias and I were pretty skeptical of her on our first day. As soon as we showed up, she left us in a computer lab to help the kids make family trees in the Navajo language while she finished entering grades that were due at 12:00 pm that day. She seemed flustered and a bit disorganized, but she always had a huge smile on her face and never let us forget, even for a moment, how much it meant to her that we had come.

She hardly ever managed to pronounce my name right – or Annie’s preferred pronunciation for that matter— on her first try, but I think it lightened the mood between us all the more. Her second and third efforts (usually successful) were only symbolic of how intent she was on getting to know me a little bit as she showed off her two tall, white teacher’s aides to the class. At first that’s all we were: another pair of white volunteers who stay around the perimeter of the classroom, nameless to most of the Navajo eighth graders. That was until she called on us to present ourselves to one of her morning classes; the routine quickly proved itself an important lecture for her and certainly for us.

On the second and third day Mrs. Stevens asked Elias and I to spend time at the beginning of each of her seven classes to introduce ourselves in the Navajo way, stating our full names, our parents names, where they come from, what we do for fun, and what our goals are for the future. She then asked us to open up to a question and answer session with the kids so that we could help the kids understand what life is like outside of the reservation. We found this to be an extremely enjoyable experience and had great time telling the kids about Boston and the subways and buildings and all the restaurants. One of the funnest things to try to explain was bubble tea.

As for the eighth graders of the numerous classes, the responses to our presentations were extremely varied. For some of the students, many with stoic faces, our blabbering about a seemingly foreign culture was either to abstract to imagine or merely entertainment that didn’t particularly trigger an expressed emotional reaction. [this was also one of the difficulties of teaching older kids; only few students let us break the surface of their background, their home/Reservation experience] On the other hand, we had one two particular classes – one the infamously rowdy 7th Hour class – that absolutely loved that we were sharing ideas from the real world, referencing ubiquitous American cultural icons like fast food restaurants as well as rock and hip-hop music. Annie, Lizzy (a featured guest), and I spent the whole 45 minute period painting a picture of almost every aspect of our life. Mrs. Stevens had even requested that I introduce myself in English, German, and Spanish, after discovered By the end they had both run out of questions – except for “what is your love life like?”; a question we abstained from answering – and we had run out of material to explain.

One of the most rewarding things for me was answering the question "what did you notice as the biggest difference when you got to Tuba City?" To answer this question Elias and I went into elaborate descriptions of the awe that we felt when being able to turn around in all directions and not see one building on the horizon. We thought it was the most amazingly beautiful thing in the world and the kids just laughed because that is all they have ever known. We then told them about how excited we were about the nights sky and how in Boston we can only see a handful of stars at most. Elias then pointed out that we even have this place called a planetarium, where people actually pay to sit in seats and look up at a fake sky because ours is so pathetic. The kids found that hilarious. As we spoke about our first impressions of Tuba City, Mrs. Stevens just smiled from ear to ear with almost a look of amazement in her eyes as she said to her students, "See what you take for granted guys!"

She certainly did her best to integrate us into her class lesson, after our first presentation proved a hit – even if it was she was most clearly fascinated by the cultural and societal comparisons we made. She cherished the three days spent Annie and I spent in her classroom, and on Friday presented us each with a beautiful necklace with a turquoise stone – a completely unexpected gift. [Annie has a buffalo stone and I have a fish stone] To be embraced with such compassion and gratitude while at the school was truly humbling. One of the strongest take-away’s I have is Mrs. Stevens’ approach to motivating and inspiring her students. From what I saw and heard, she pressed the students to understand the full weight of the background and history of Native American peoples, often describing how “we were oppressed and forced to move…the Navajo Code-Talkers redeemed our sense of pride.” Coming from a bi-cultural family and heritage myself, I was able to connect to her important lessons about the preservation of Navajo culture in the new generation.

Mrs. Stevens seems to hold within her the true spirit of Tuba City Boarding School. She teaches the Navajo culture class which includes learning the Navajo language, learning Navajo history, and encouraging the students to explore and celebrate their heritage. She herself had attended the boarding school years ago and she has committed her life to helping keep Navajo culture alive through educating the younger generations.

From Patrick

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon looks 10 times as big as it seems in photos, and it is 10 times as big as it looks. After >45 minutes of walking downhill at a steady pace of 2.5 mph, we were barely more than half way to the snow line, which was less than a quarter of the way down the canyon. The walk down to the bottom and back up to the top of the canyon does take most of a day. There were cliffs large enough so a small rock falling from the top would kill you if it hit. There were places where you could see the wreckage of old rockslides. When you are walking down you think you have covered a lot of distance until you look up, and realize just how small the distance you have covered really is.

From Kay

In the Tuba City Boarding School, there is a sign near the middle grade bathroom that has a picture of the Vulcan Salute, and the caption ‘Wash your hands, it’s only logical’. A girl in my class came in one day with a glittering necklace that spelled ‘I ♥ Justin Bieber’.

With the familiar pop culture around me it was easy to beat off feelings of homesickness, until I stepped outside. For miles, not a single tree. Not even a tall scrub. As a New Englander, that’s what shocked me the most. I expressed this shock to one of my peers, who patiently suggested that was maybe because we were nearly on the other side of the country.

If you drove you would see a scrub or two, a couple of tumble weed, a lot of mountains, and an occasional cactus that looked straight out of some ‘South of the Border’ T-shirt. We spent a lot of time driving to many a far away state park, and even to places only a few steps away. That was another thing-- we rarely walked, and nobody else seemed to either. I was used to being stopped by a J walker every couple feet, but not in Tuba City.

Instead, at a certain time of the school day, my whole class went outside and ran around the schoolyard. The ‘sick’ kids got to walk. Once we came back to our starting point, the whole class was heaving, including me. Their teacher, Mrs. Henderson, had made me their leader after seriously misjudging me as ‘the running type’. But she did make a few good calls, such as making me tutor her students in some of their fifth grade vocabulary words. Given some study prompters, I actually managed to coax some discussion out of them, although only a few really got into it. The same thing happened with Georgia O’Keeffe. Their answers to the questions I peppered throughout the story were usually short and filled with awkward silences, but they always reached a good point.

Once and a while, I’d get a few seconds to look around the room. There were a few posters telling them to ‘THINK!!’. A long number chart hung above the whiteboard, stamped at the end with the classic worm in the apple that has unnerved many a generation of students.

Even with no J walking, even with no trees, even with the far reaching effects of Justin Bieber, I felt comfortable here...almost at home

From Grace

Thoughts

It took a while for the thought of going to Arizona to sink in. Maybe it was the
snow that came when we came, and came again when we left. I thought looking out the
window of the plane would help, but I was too distracted by the landscape to even think.
I told myself again and again in my head, “I’m in Arizona. In the desert. In Tuba City,”
but I don’t think it ever worked. Even though the service trip was the farthest from home
I have ever been, the separation wasn’t jarring, so I was still really comfortable in my
environment. I’m sure that being with the youth community softened the blow of being
so far away from Arlington. To be honest, I was really nervous to go, even though I
heard that these trips were life-changing, and that you’ll bond with so many people. I had
no doubt that it would be life-changing, but I wasn’t so sure how I would deal with
homesickness. In the end, I was surprised by how wrong I was. Even through all the
unplanned hotel stays, I really did have the time of my life.