Good Evening:)

Hello everyone!!!
I just wanted to apologize to everyone about not doing my part and posting my postings for the past weeks which lead you to not be able to complete your assignments. I am really sorry about this. So I thought that I would take this time to inform you about the things which I was involved in. I come from the Hopi tribe, which I think I have mentioned before, I grew up with my grandmother and she was the matriarch not only for our immediate family but for my clan family as well. Being that I grew up with her and she has taught me all the things which she knew and which would allow me to fill her shoes in a sense. So it is my responsibility to take care of our family and be there when all the ceremonies are taking place. This Powamuy Kachina ceremony is the marking of a new cycle of the year for us as a people. In a sense we cleanse ourselves of all the bad which we have done or that has happened to us in the past year and starting off new. So this is an important time of the year for us. We do not use a modern calendar we go by the moon cycles and other aspects of the stars and things of that nature. So we are never certain about when things are going to happen so it is at times hard to prepare for these things. I come from the second oldest village on the Hopi Reservation and we still to this day do not have running water, or electricity, let alone the internet. So in order to prepare for these times which we spend upon the mesas we have to haul water and wood and coal for heating and cooking purposes. Let alone all the baking and preparation which goes along with preparing for these kinds of ceremonies. I wanted to share where I have been the past couple weeks and hopefully you will understand that I have many obligations in my life and I am trying my best to be a part of all of it. If you have any questions or want to know more feel free to email me :) Attached you will find a picture of my village of Walpi.

Foregrounding Place

Highway 87 is a long stretch of road just before you enter onto the Hopi reservation. That last little hill which you climb, where the old child center was located, I give a huge sigh because it is there that I feel I am finally home. In the distance you can see the mesa’s that make up the Hopi villages. That little hill always seems like it takes so long to reach it before it gives way to the site which we have waited five hours in the car to see. Once you are over that hill there is still a vast amount of distance that needs to be covered before you reach your final destination. You still have to climb the mesa to get where you are trying to reach.  

A Trip Never Taken

       Sitting in a coffee shop examining all that is happening around me. Loving the smell of variety of coffee which people are drinking, the various conservations they are having. Taking it all in the most amazing place to be if you love looking at Architectural buildings. Ornate buildings, tapestries, furniture, everywhere you look. Things seem to fit together like it was predestined to be this way when they were creating these amazing buildings in the past. It would take someone years to completely appreciate the city and all that it has to offer.

Peer Review

First of all just wanted to apologize because I know that I did not have all the prompts completed last week and I know that she will not accept them so I just have to get what I'm given :)
Brandon Mills: While reading your article my stomach actually cringed. We all seem to not think about the things which we put into our systems let alone how it is effecting our environment. Because I am guilty of that as well whatever is fast and convenient and one the way home is what we have. Although we do tend to stay away from Taco Bell like you my tummy does not agree with the food. "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" I really enjoyed reading this post you did take the advice from the readings and changed up your style of writing which I found very convincing.
Katie Arrivas: "The Mysterious Burnt Piano" was quite funny and very entertaining. It reminded me of the things we use to do as teenagers. Living on the reservation drinking was of course was illegal but that never stopped us running down the road in the boonies with our keg with nothing to guide us but the star lit skies. In your writing for prompt 8 you tend to go back and forth between past and present tense.
Kimberly Thomas: Great post for prompt 8 made me think of all those childhood friends that I have lost its amazing how many there are.

Proposed changes to tribal constitution.

Tribal government is an area in which I was taught that we never concern ourselves with concerns such as these because we have our own way in which tribal concerns are addressed and the form in which the federal government is trying to get us to become a part of will effect the ways in which the Hopi people have governed themselves for years. If the Hopi people consider themselves traditional why are they trying to adopt the governance of those that have tried to control their people? Which lead to the Pueblo Revolt. It is something that is hard for me to understand because I have not actually sat or had a family member apart of the tribal council which makes these kinds of decisions. Our traditional form of government is a leader who in a sense makes the decisions for the clan family and is the way that my family still does things today. My uncle does not have total control over everything there are family meetings involved and we make these decisions as a group and things progress from there. This proposition which the government has put forth on the Hopi people does in fact undermine tribal sovereignty. I thought the whole purpose of sovereignty was so that we are able to govern ourselves without anyone trying to tell us otherwise. We have our constitution set up the way that we want it to and it has worked for over 50 years what makes the federal government think that it needs to change? Who are they to tell us that the way we live our lives and govern ourselves is not the way of the world? What makes them think that the way they live their lives and govern their people is better than how we live? If this was correct we wouldn’t have the global warming issues and all the problems we have in the world today and there would not be congress women getting shot while out meeting the people. Maybe they need to rethink the way in which they run the country and not tell us how to run ours.

Peer Review Week 3

Brandon-
While reading your childhood kitchen story I became aware that I want a cheese crisp now!!!! But I on the other hand am never able to get it just the way that they do in the restaurants so i always have to make mine the easy way throwing it in the microwave never getting that crisp taste on the tortilla which to me is what makes the cheese crisp so enjoyable. I was also able to associate with your burnt finger you would think that someone that has been cooking for twenty years would know better than to reach into the oven without a mitt or to be careful when taking something out but every once and awhile i get those little burns that seem to hurt a lot longer than a more serious burn.  Your autobiography of Joe Kennedy was a great use of description as well as dialogue to create this story.
Katie-
Your prompt Grandpa was very descriptive and I was able to picture your family sitting there enjoying one another company and it is amazing how fast life passes us by and the things which we wish we are able to do yet there never seems to be enough time in the day. Your kitchen prompt on the other hand left me a little puzzled. You speak about your house then towards the end you mention the condo after reading a couple times i realized that this was a memory of you in you condo home when you were younger with you kitten. It just did not flow and I had to re-read a couple of times before I was able to realize.
Kimberly-
Once again your prompts are interesting and keep my attention which I admire in your writing skills. Yummy cookies. Everyone writing about different foods in their kitchen prompts is really making me hungry :)
Micky-
Great detail on your family prompt and all the detail that was going on in the soccer game was like being there.
-Missing other 2 prompts-

Autobiography

            Being born with a rare heart condition was something which my family would have never considered possible. They have never even heard of an Epstein’s Anomaly before let alone had the knowledge of what something like this entails and the pain and suffering it was going to cause my family. The first day of my birth everything was fine there was no indication that there was any problem with any part of my body. Through the night my mom began to notice that I was not eating and having a problem latching on to her she let the nurses know and they came in and took me into the nursery where a cardiologist listened to my heart hearing a murmur she then orders a echo cardiogram . After the results my world turned into a painful ongoing world of doctors and hospitals. Within the hour of the results of the echo cardiogram I was on a helicopter on my way to St. Joe’s Medical center where I was going to spend the next five months of my life.

Once I got to St. Joe’s I was then taken to NICU where I was then introduced to many of the nurses and doctors that were going to be a huge part of my life for the next couple of months. It was a very overwhelming experience for a one day old child to have to experience alone because they would not allow my mother or father to be transported with me on the helicopter. My mother checked herself out of the hospital and walked into the NICU with my father not long after my arrival to the hospital but they were not allowed to stay for very long because of the confinement and all the other incubator’s there.

Over the next couple months all we were able to do was wait because it was inevitable that the only thing that was going to help me was to have an operation which would repair my valves and allow my heart to function properly. While in the hospital though there seemed to be a never ending cycle of complications. Finally the doctors and my parents decided that they would go forward with the operation. In November I finally went through the six hour surgery. There was always the possibility that I would not survive the operation because I was so tiny and all the complications that I faced. I pulled through just fine and was on my way to recovery. In December they felt that I was well enough to go home and join my family. I was able to spend Christmas with my family but I was also having other complications and my body just could not handle all that the world had to offer.