3/16 Amos's Blog

Re-Member collects donations and distributes them to organizations and individuals around the reservation. Maggie, a freshman at Colgate University, started a non-profit organization focused on collecting donations for the Lakota. Today, a group of us were able to take a tour of the eastern side of the reservation, visiting a care home for Indian-American veterans and a handful of schools including K-12 and Head Start schools. Along the way we observed and experienced the vast expanse upon which the Lakota live. We surveyed, through mud splattered windows, the housing clusters with their water and large propane tanks. What Will Peters shared last night about the poor access to water made me think about the importance of water as the fundamental factor for development. I thought more about history of man and water as the common denominator for many flourishing cultures. As beautiful as the landscape was, with its scattered pines and distant snow topped ridges, I realized that this land, absent of water, was no land for a people to flourish. To say “this is wrong” would only echo others who have come to Pine Ridge. Admiring the Lakota as a people, who have persevered such adversity, I wonder, “What can be done?” Passing some of the housing fitted with low-cost solar panels and hearing about the efforts others have made to help empower the Lakota, I’m left with hope that there is a chance, possibilities. So, what can we do? To affect change in the people, to influence development of economies, to force our leaders to honor treaties…No. Perhaps our biggest contribution is to “know.”