A New Light

Sunday 8/27/06
Day two:  saw the trailer in new light; figuratively and literally. Disgusting. Looks like I moved into an old abandoned frat house. Couldn’t find any cleaner - but roach Kill was ubiquitous. Not a good sign.

The shower stall filled with water as I showered. There was actually food in the kitchen sink. I don’t think the bathroom sink has ever been cleaned since its installment (maybe in the 70s). Medstudents are worse than 18-year-old boys. It didn’t help that I had no coffee. No tea. So I went to Gallup and bought some necessities: dish towel, cleaning stuff, light bulbs (all at the dollar store), and came home and did the handy man thing for a bit. Fixed dangling light fixtures with found screws, cleaning surfaces three-four times with dirt still evident on my paper towel. But in all I think I made some headway and the place is already feeling more livable.


The drive to Gallup was gorgeous. Passed some Native American chapter houses, passed a lot of jewelry and trade shops.  Still rarely see anyone white. Most everyone here is Native American. Not that I expected otherwise, but it’s just so awesome to see such thriving communities. I pass signs that say, “You are entering land”. Can you imagine if you saw signs proclaiming entry into your people’s land? Very cool. I can only imagine how it might feel to have that kind of connection with your community (although the LGBT community IS pretty tight). On the way back I stopped at a trading post to get some milk. Men were lined up outside and were being directed in one by one. I have no idea why. I was hesitant to ask what they were all waiting for so I just bought my 2% milk and head out (they didn’t have skim).

So I’ve been reading aside from the adventures. The phone here doesn’t work so it seems, for now. I’m reliant on my cell phone. Thank god I get service (and its not roaming!)

What I’ve eaten in the last two days (this is kinda sad and more for my benefit to convince myself to eat better):
Day 1: breakfast: fruit and muffin; lunch; Blimpie sub, Doritos and very large diet Pepsi; diner: fry bread, water, cotton candy.
Fay 2: breakfast: frosted miniwheats with rice milk (the only boxed milk stuff they had at the store in Albuquerque – find it gross - will buy real milk); lunch: McDonalds (debated going to a couple cute cafes in Gallup but didn’t feel like sitting down to eat alone. Still feel too much like a fish out of water). It was gross and I only ate half of it anyway. Snack: slim jim (from trading post) and more cotton candy. Dinner: the rest of my McDonalds, plum, peach, finished the cotton candy and ate a bunch of oreos – all this wasn’t at once, but scattered from about 4 Pm to 8 PM. I will make more an effort to eat better soon. The trading post walking distance from here has lots of canned goods so I don’t need to worry about running out of food.

I went for a long walk today. At first I was frustrated with my walk. Every road I went down seemed to end so quickly and I had to back track and try another route. Eventually I found the only roads that I could walk more than a block or two were the big paved roads with heavier traffic and no sidewalks. So I gave in and walked in a dirt trail along a barbed wire fence around a marshy area, with the red and black rocks and mountains on the other side. Cars whizzed passed and I felt very exposed, the very white girl in her khaki shorts and tank top. A bit out of place. Reminded me of Africa. At least no one was running around and pointing at me shouting “la blanche! la blanche!” I noticed that all the teens I've seen so far seem to wear black. A random observation but I’ve seen about two dozen teenage boys since I’ve been here and every one of them was in black (mostly concert t-shirts). Lots of skatoboarding. Walked by a homemade sakte park. Note: apparently half of the 9,000 residents on this HUGER reservation are under 25 years old. I think they have at least two high schools.

On my walk I was looking out for the ancient pueblos that seem to be so famous here. Nothing to be found (yet). Just government constructed identical homes scattered rather haphazardly across patches of red sand and knots of grass. I got a better look at the yellow wild flowers I’ve seen in such abundance on all my drives. They look like a cross between a sunflower and a daisy. Bigger than the daisies I know with a black, craggy, sunflower-like center. I walked down “Main Street” which was near to Highway 53. I saw a few dogs but knowing that they don’t have indoor pets here I wasn’t as compelled to pet any of them. At the start of my walk dog approached me barking. I kneeled to appeal to him and his hackles rose so I stood and left, not wanting a dog bite to add to my Zuni experience. As I was walking down Main I felt something wet on my hand. A little black and brown dog, a likely Rotweiller mix but with all the burliness bred out of it, was sniffing my hand. It smiled widely at me and I stopped and talked to it. It came around to face me and sat down expectantly, wagging his tail, and nuzzled my hand. I pet it for a while and after some time, both of us satisfied, we each went on our way. He, under a shady tree, me, to find my way back to my trailer. The dog seemed to invigorate me (and the slushee I bought for .84 at the trading post) and made my walk home very pleasant despite the heat. I also noticed that everyone driving waved at me. Something I found incredibly warm and uplifting. I was feeling a bit lost and grumpy earlier in the day and the walk really cured me.

I cam home and read for a long while – hours. Now the sun is setting, really lighting up the tops of the mountain range bright red. Mars is supposed to be out tonight. This is the perfect place to see it. The stars are so numerous and the Milkyway evident. Mars should be gorgeous – especially with such a clear night.

Tomorrow’s my first day. I’m a bit nervous but not too much so as I know I will learn a lot and am prepared to be humbled.