Lakota AID Registered Charity No: 1097444 Volume 1 Issue 5

Mitakye Oyasin, I hope the continuing good weather finds everyone in good spirits! The sun and blue skies always make me feel good; it is the best tonic for me that can be found. I am a true sun worshipper, sunflowers being my favourite flower, and South Dakota had plenty of both of these believe me! A small sunflower about the size of a carnation, grows wild by the road sides out there, looking like little smiling faces greeting you as you drive through the hot, dusty and barren lands of the Pine Ridge Reservation. To survive in this land took a great deal of skill and ingenuity that the Lakota people instinctively possess. A mere mortal like myself would not last a week out here in these harsh conditions! If the heat and the drought of the summers did not finish you off, the intense cold and snow of the winters certainly would!! Simply learning which foods would sustain you throughout the year, butchering and drying buffalo meat, and using all the others parts of 'Tatanka' also as beneficial commodities were all part of the skills the Lakota possessed. Now the people have to buy Buffalo meat from a meat company in Rapid City for their ceremonies to make 'Wasna', a sacred food made up of dried and pounded Buffalo meat mixed with dried Choke Cherries, picked from the bushes on the land. I say the people buy the Buffalo meat, that is if they can afford it of course!! It is a big price these days, the Buffalo meat industry cashing in on the fact that the Buffalo are still small in numbers compared to the days back in the 1800's when the herds numbered millions and were deliberately slaughtered by the Whiteman to near extinction, in a cruel vendetta to starve the Indians into submission. There is a breeding herd of around 30,000 animals now, but still very small compared to the olden days. My friend Janice from Connecticut and I visited a small Buffalo ranch near Pine Ridge this trip. You can actually have a tour of the herd and hand feed them, but we arrived when the guy doing the tours was especially busy, but he let us take pictures of the herd in the nearby fields bless him! You could tell that the Buffalo were well used to having people around, as several of them came ambling up to the fence obviously expecting us to offer them some nice juicy grass. Alas we did not get to feed them, but being so close to these truly amazing beasts was enough for us! There was only a large chain-link fence between us and them, awesome!!! This trip I manage to get quite a few more useful contacts I badly need. I met a lady over the Internet that hauls up donated trailers (mobile homes) from Colorado. The trailers have to be removed from site because of their age, and the trailer parks will donate them to charities. You just have to pay the haulage fee, which this lady has formed her own charity to do just this. The website is www.pathwaystospirit.org Carmeen, the lady that has founded Pathways, hunts around and finds the better trailers, she says that 1 in 30 is a decent trailer, the others being decidedly 'questionable', so it may take quite a while to find a good trailer. She found one on my behalf, sponsored by Lakota Aid, for a lovely Elder called Rita Afraid of Bear. Rita, 78, has been living in an old trailer for the past 15 years, that has no running water, no inside bathroom, damp and mould everywhere, the skirting around the trailer is falling off, and when it rains, the water comes pouring in through the roof!! I visited her the day after a tremendous thunderstorm, and she was busy trying to dry out her bedding plus the bed, as she has woken up in the night with water dripping all over her from above, the water having run through the electric light fitting also!!! Can you imagine living like that, not only do you get soaked every time it rains, but you run the risk of being electrocuted also!! Unbelievable!!! Carmeen and I tried to co-ordinate the arrival of the newer and better-conditioned trailer for Rita whilst I was still on the Rez, but it did not work out that way. We were both very disappointed about this, but Great Spirit always moves in very mysterious ways, and nothing ever goes how you would like it too. The trailer arrived on Monday the 21st Sept 2003, and I have been keeping contact by phone as to how things have been progressing. I have been busy contacting a firm that puts in septic tanks, plus an electrician and the telephone company to get Rita all hooked up to the mains supplies, and for her to have running water and indoor toilet and bathroom AT LAST!!! The Westco Propane Company will also have to come out and reconnect her tank to the new trailer. The tribal office deals with septic tanks usually, but you have to go on a waiting list, the tribe only being allocated a certain amount of septic tanks per year, which would have meant that Rita could have to wait a long time before her name was top of the list. Because of this, I am sorting this all out for her, which of course takes money!! It is costing about £3000 for the septic tank and installation etc, about £1000 to reconnect her electric and telephone lines to the new trailer, and about £500 to reconnect the propane tank. If any one would like to donate to Rita's new trailer and installations etc, and know that she will spend this winter in the warmth of a newer and more modern trailer, plus have indoor toilet and bathroom facilities, please send any cheques made out to LAKOTA AID. Photographs of the arrival of the new trailer are hopefully going to be taken and forwarded to me as soon as they can, and I will post them on this site. I would loved to have been there and taken them myself. I would also loved to have captured the expression of Rita's face as she saw her new home, but I have to be satisfied with the way things are unfortunately. Very frustrating I can tell you!!! Hopefully as more funds come in, I want to be able to provide some more of these donated trailers to several other families that are living in battered old death traps, via Carmeen, so fingers crossed that this will happen folks. It would be so wonderful to know that we all have been able to provide a few home comforts for very needy families, comforts that we all take so much for granted. I got some shots of the propane company winching off a new propane tank for and Elder called Rex Long Visitor Holy Dance. Randy Thurman from Westco that I deal with is a great guy, always willing to do anything that I ask him to bless him. I cannot thank him enough for the good and very swift jobs he gets done for the people   Thanks Randy, 'Good Job' as you say in the U.S.A!!! I had the privilege of meeting Christine Red Cloud on this trip also. Her husband Bernard Red Cloud passed away only a few weeks ago, another victim of diabetes related complications. Bernard was a grandson of Chief Red Cloud, and Christine is now on the Propane list. Thank you once again to all the lovely people that have sent money, fund raised and passed on this site. Keep up the good work, and the jobs needed doing for the Lakota People is an ongoing and endless task, so keep spreading the word please. More news and piccys to follow, so keep watching this space !! Pilamayaye Brenda Aplin P.S Nearly forgot to say that I have a small list of Elders and families that would like to belong to the 'Adopt an Elder or family' scheme. If any one is interested in communicating with a family etc, and maybe helping that family out in some small way on a personal level, ie: write to them, send a few U.S.A dollars, send a useful gift etc, e-mail me at lewjas@aol.com for details of families and Elders. This scheme will make the people realize even more that there are kind hearted people in England that really do care and want to help out anyway they can. Thanks a lot everyone, take care now. Toksha (speak to you later)     [Home] [Why the Lakota need your Help] [Newsletter] [Ambulance Project]