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Day 3

07/13/17

On day three, we all had the amazing opportunity to experience “The Blanket Game” lead by the elders from VIU (Vancouver Island University) located in Nanaimo. This game was about the Indigenous people from Canada, their land and how it was taken from them by the government. For me, this was very emotional and I could tell all the people around me were experiencing a variety of emotions from anger to pure sadness. Being a part of Tla’amin Nation and doing this exercise hit me hard. Hearing all the horrible abuse and discrimination that happened in my home, my community was life-changing. Not knowing about my ancestry until later in my life has lead my lack of knowledge about what happened to the indigenous people of my Nation. I have heard bits and pieces of peoples stories about residential schools, but I have never experienced feeling the emotions firsthand what this must have been like for my people.

After the exercise, we gathered in a circle and talked not only about the exercise, but also about past experiences of things such as abuse and discrimination. This hit me hard. I was overwhelmed by the emotions that I felt during this sharing activity. Ranging from anxiety and sorrow, to anger and bitterness. I felt guilty for not knowing about how my people were treated sooner and about how other people still face similar issues to this day. Although residential schools are no longer a “thing”, there are still many of the values that residential school held in this school system today. Bullying and discrimination based on ethnic background and skin color is still present along with other types of racism. I am shocked that the whole group was so open with their past and trusting. It just proves that everyone has a past that you do not know about. I felt that the exercise helped us grow closer as a group by trusting each other.

Day 4

07/14/17

Today, my roommate (and friend) Violet and I started off our day by going for a run at 6:00am. We ran a mile around the track feeling out of breath yet rejuvenated. It got our day off to a fresh, new start and woke us up.

One event that stuck out for me today was Aztec dancing. I enjoyed every moment of this activity and would love to learn some of my own Nations cultural dances. Coyo took the time to put on his traditional regalia and help show us how to dance. These cultural dances made me appreciate all of us together. Although we are all from different cultural backgrounds (and for me continents), the unity that we formed was amazing. Dancing in a circle with everyone and hearing the beat of the drums through my own ears rather than through a computer screen made me appreciate being able to take part in this program; meeting new people.

-Sylena

During my four days I have been at the Native program I have learned: creative writing with Shelva and started brainstorming and researching colleges, Vicente and Coyo shared Aztec Dance, we colored and beaded with Julia, the blanket exercise, soapstones,  and clapper Sticks. With the creative writing and brain storming for colleges, it was really interesting for me because I really got the experience of searching for the colleges I want to got to, and it me think of how college time is coming soon and how much more serious I need to be. When doing the blanket exercise I felt like this made everyone in the program closer because it was such a touching subject that really spoke to all of us on different levels. As for me I was grateful that we went into the subject of Natives losing their lands and getting put into boarding schools, because it opened all of our eyes to what happened and what is still happening. My favorite experience so far has been the Aztec Dancing that we did today, because it was so beautiful to learn other peoples traditions and the way they give thanks to the creature. I also liked it because I haven’t really got the experience of learning native dances like in my own tribe so to learn these dances was wonderful and it made me want to be more into my culture.

Yesterday was day 3 and it was a very powerful day. We started off by making soap stone necklaces with auntie Julia. It was very time consuming ( I just finished my bear during my free time today ). Actually we had 2 classes before we started the activity with auntie. Our first class was with Shelva working on creative writing and researching colleges that best suite me. During the creative writing I pushed myself to be as creative as I can and seen my after product of if i put my creativity to something how good my story would sound. The second half of the class we were on the college bound website. We had the choice of putting in certain qualities we want in a college. It added a couple more colleges to my options. Than we ended the day with the blanket exercise. This was my first time experiencing something so powerful. The instructors first layed out a few blankets to represent the land native people had in Canada. Through out the time my peers were reading cards given to us at the begging. Each card said had something written on it that greatly impacted our people. Which caused for the instructors to cut down the blanket space. At the end of the exercise there were about less than 75 percent of the blanket space left for us to stand on. It made me tear up to have a physical presentation of what happened to our people and our land. I explained during our discussion time that all of us here at this program and many more are part of the 7 generation. Which our ancestors said that this generation would be the ones to do great things. That we were going to lead our people and bring back our cultures, traditions and language. I hope that all of us live up to this expectation and make our ancestors and future people proud. Today day 4 was a very fun day as well. Today we had the great opportunity to work with one of our great elders Vicente. He taught us Aztec dances it was really cool to learn another indigenous dance other than pow wow dances. I also participated in making bracelets and coloring with auntie Julia. It was a very calming and relaxing part of my day.

 

 

So far I feel very comfortable with my peers.I am really glad we were able to talk in a group about very intense topics. Everybody in the group is very mature and took everything really well. I feel in a safe place when I speak, just as everybody else. After the activity with Elder Gary, I took some time to reflect. Everything that happened in the past is really traumatic and I can now see the effects of those events. We talked about personally issues or events that had happened in this activity and that really helped the group toped up to each other. The atmosphere was intense, mostly everyone was crying. When I talked I was nervous, but something about the room made me speak up and talk. Maybe it was the positive energy within my group.

Before all that, we had indigenous games in the morning. It was really fun to spar with each other. Even though I lost most of my games, it was still really fun and interesting. Many people last, but I really liked how everyone took the L in a nice way. I think we do a really job at following instructions and meeting our goals. We ave gone over discipline and unity. So far, we have achieved those goals. We practice discipline within the practice of indigenous games and I can see unit outside of the indigenous games.

My favorite part of these two day was making my necklace. I have always wanted an indigenous necklace with a meaning, but they are all too expensive. Now that I made one for free, I can say it has a lot of meaning considering that I made it and how. I made a healing bear necklace, which represents me in a way because I like to help others and help them with their healing. First I got a rock with the drawing of the healing bear. There was no more tools to scrape the rock so I got a really small one. It took a while to carve part of the bear, but luckily my friend Tekpatl let me barrow with big tool for scraping and I made some decant scraping. Then when I got the outline of the bear, I needed to do the gap between the legs. I had to be really carful so I took my time. After I was done, I starting scrapping sand paper on my bear to make it smooth. I later began to use it on the sharp edges so I can give it some curves. Finally, elder Julia put oil on my bear to make it shiny and smoother. That was my process.

 

Today was my fourth day of camp. In the morning, we did Aztec dances under the rising sun. The heat was very intense, but I believe it only amplified the experience, like the creator out of respect sent that blazing effulgence to make us truly perform these dances of the people of the sun. At midday we listened to an elder speak of the power of women and the importance of men to respect them. These teaching really removed from my western mindset and returned me too that of my people, pre-contact, a mindset I often stray from. I again encountered this elder from before at the dinner table, he was alone and the tables of people whom I would usually sit by were full, so I sat across from him. We discussed many topics, such as the preservation and necessity of culture, the Aztec creation story and ceremonies, and also the importance of listening to other people and differing views or beliefs; now this last piece of wisdom from him finally revealed to me the reason as to how he became so knowledgeable and sagacious; he took the truths from everything else and applied them to himself.

-Zaryn Prussia

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… ANYWAY, these past two days have been magical obviously because well it’s camp. My favorite time has to be when a lot of us go to the hammock and Cuauhtli plays his oldies and some homies and I just vibe to it. I got to learn a lot about a lot of the peeps here in the program this year and made stronger bonds quicker than I did last year which is super surprising to me considering that last year was one of the strongest bonds I’ve made with people ever in my life. This year is a tie with last. So good job @ whoever picked these students. Y’all did good. The mentors this year are pretty aight, haha. I really missed talking to Belly about everything. So now that I get to see him almost every day is just awesome because he’s the homie. I also really like chilling on the balcony area at night before we have to go to sleep. We just talk and laugh and chill and make stupid jokes. It really makes me wish that this program was longer so I could spend more time with everyone and hear their stories that they have to share. This year really made me notice that no matter who the person is, meaning if they’re always happy and being nice or they’re sad and depressed, they’ve gone through some shit. Everyone faces a battle and we have to learn to show respect to anyone and everyone to allow the the security of having someone in their life who cares about them as a spiritual being stemming from one place having a human experience and as an individual. I love talking to Huitzilin and Kat about everything. I also love talking to Jarrod and Tlaloc about stupid stuff. These next 11 days will be dope. Trust.

-Aolani

Yesterday was such an eye opening and blessed day. We were all lucky enough to witness and be a part of a new way of learning our history. It mostly consisted of Canadian history, with First Nations indigenous people that lived and live throughout Canada. To briefly explain, there were blankets laid out all over the ground but none were ever overlapped. Each blanket represented a territory of different indigenous people located in Canada. We were given scripts and different pieces of paper, to read and hold on to while we all stood on different pieces of land. The story line started from the beginning, before the white settlers came. It moved through the trust and cooperation between First Nations people and the Europeans. Next was treaties, which tragically started the beginning of a story that wouldn’t be truthfully told in the future to come. After that, was the forced movement of indigenous people onto reservations. On smaller plots of land than they had before the colonization. Then disease swept the country and killed of many Native people, this was one of the reasons we had colored paper. White paper represented the ancestors that were lost to disease and sickness. Sadly it wasn’t the end, white people weren’t satisfied enough with this, they wanted our people to be extinct but because it was too expensive to go to war with NDNs, they put us in boarding schools (residential schools) instead. Sexual abuse, Physical abuse, and mental abuse was prevalent in these government created schools. They were created to change us into “civilized humans” or be as close to white as possible. Another reason was to assimilate us into the Catholic or Christian religion because no other religion was allowed to exist. These schools continued until 1996, that was the year the last NDN boarding school shut down. The effects linger, and continue to effect indigenous people throughout Canada and the United States.

I am going to leave it there, because it is a hard subject to talk about. Although I do believe that all Native American youth need to be exposed to our true history, whether its with the blanket exercise or with some other form of information.

I believe that this blanket exercise needs to be taught and role played by every tribe or reservation in Turtle Island. With a similar style but more knowledge on every history in America and Canada.

Hy’shqe

Panamea

Thank you,

Katherine Jefferson (Kat)

by: Tyvon

All the summer programs that I have attended I would have to say this is my favorite because it teaches a lot about responsibility, teamwork, friendship, and hard work. This program is very unique because of its location, and people which I’ve never experienced before. For everyday I stay here my connection with all the members, mentors, staff, and the elders of this program grows stronger. When I first arrived the people were very welcoming and full of excited energy like they’ve pride and effort into this and I can tell that the people, that work here and help us, love their jobs and they leave such a positive impact. Whenever we do any kind of work it is to continue building all four aspects, that I have mentioned earlier, like for example the elders and mentors put so much work into this program in order to make it such a positive place. This program has done so much in such little time to educate all of us so very much and that is why this is my most favorite summer program.