Day 3.
Ioway Reservation
At lunch, we meet with some of the Ioway elders and youth. One of the elders only speaks to his grandson in their native tongue. He is conveying their language and culture to him at this young age, so that his people will live on. I speak with this Ioway elder. He speaks of his travels to Guatemala. He speaks of the genocide of the indigenous people of Guatemala and the oppression and killing of people of indigenous blood in the current era, which his people endured long ago. He speaks of a visit to a military complex years ago, when he saw Spanish speaking people being trained. It wasn’t until he went to Guatemala, that he realized they were being trained by the U.S. to be Death Squads. We must stop the death and oppression of our government, both in our own country and abroad.
As we drive around the reservation, we see lots of fields sown in corn. Even though the land is of the Ioway, it is leased out to others to grow corn. In an area where the land could feed the people, it is instead leased out to commodity growers. What’s more, no one is sure who is leasing the land. We visit the Pow Wow area. Two of the younger Ioway sing some of their songs to us. It is a beautiful display of their people.
We come to a look out to see the devastation of the floods. We see that the floods have literally put thousands of acres of farm land under water. What are these farmers to do? How it that parts of our country is being flooded with an excess of water, while others like me in Arizona haven’t had rain in a year? Our world is experiencing extremes on both ends. How is it that people can’t see that Mother Earth is furious with us? Why can’t they see that our current world and way of living is destroying Mother Earth. It appears that we’ll all ride the roller coaster to hell before we open our eyes to see.
Ioway Reservation
At lunch, we meet with some of the Ioway elders and youth. One of the elders only speaks to his grandson in their native tongue. He is conveying their language and culture to him at this young age, so that his people will live on. I speak with this Ioway elder. He speaks of his travels to Guatemala. He speaks of the genocide of the indigenous people of Guatemala and the oppression and killing of people of indigenous blood in the current era, which his people endured long ago. He speaks of a visit to a military complex years ago, when he saw Spanish speaking people being trained. It wasn’t until he went to Guatemala, that he realized they were being trained by the U.S. to be Death Squads. We must stop the death and oppression of our government, both in our own country and abroad.
As we drive around the reservation, we see lots of fields sown in corn. Even though the land is of the Ioway, it is leased out to others to grow corn. In an area where the land could feed the people, it is instead leased out to commodity growers. What’s more, no one is sure who is leasing the land. We visit the Pow Wow area. Two of the younger Ioway sing some of their songs to us. It is a beautiful display of their people.
We come to a look out to see the devastation of the floods. We see that the floods have literally put thousands of acres of farm land under water. What are these farmers to do? How it that parts of our country is being flooded with an excess of water, while others like me in Arizona haven’t had rain in a year? Our world is experiencing extremes on both ends. How is it that people can’t see that Mother Earth is furious with us? Why can’t they see that our current world and way of living is destroying Mother Earth. It appears that we’ll all ride the roller coaster to hell before we open our eyes to see.
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