Tag Archives: Omaha Reservation

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 11

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 1, 2026- Hana starts her active day with exercises: Stretches, push-ups, cross-body reaches and even a plank or two. She does this on her own, with our expressions of approval and pride following the session’s end. Another thing she likes to do on her own is wiping the play mat with a cloth. This is her way of cleaning her play space.

She has had a good day with her parents, joining them on a food shopping trip, being carried in a sling by her Daddy. Hana takes well to stores and restaurants now. A few months ago, she was more sensitive to crowds and noise. Now, she takes a lot in stride.

My granddaughter notices everything that I bring into the house, wanting to know what’s in the bag or box that I’m carrying. Today, I brought bagels from Saved by the Bagel, after I got a haircut nearby. She looks longingly at such items, but realizes they are still something not suited for a person with only four front teeth. I tell her that her day will come.

HANA’S NOTE- I want to keep my space clean, so I wipe the mat, just like Mommy and Papa do.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1984 We lost a neighbour and a contemporary-Gordon Tong, at only 38, in the heat of the monsoons of August. I made three trips back and forth, from Tuba City to the Native American Baha’i Institute, where the Baha’i friends gathered for Gordon’s services. I had to get Penny, another Anglo friend and three Navajo elders.The funeral and burial were punctuated by the intense rain, almost fortuitously. I have rarely experienced such a dramatic send-off.

The year saw us on the road-and in the air, quite often. We drove up to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, spending ten days offering the Baha’i message to Lakota people, in Wanblee and Pine Ridge town, as well as various ethnic groups in Martin, a town in between Pine Ridge and Rosebud. On our second anniversary, Penny and I visited Wall, a tourist town northwest of Pine Ridge and drove around Badlands National Park. We pitched a tent in Badlands, only to get good and soaked that night. We were too tired to worry and were no worse for the wear, the next day.

We flew to Guyana, in July, spending three weeks in the small South American country, again teaching the Baha’i message to Black,South Asian and Wayana First Nations people. Penny was in her glory, teaching groups of small children and young ladies. I went around with a couple of local men, in each of the villages we stayed. As we passed a “parlour” (bar), near noon one day, a voice yelled out: “Hey, white man”, from inside the parlour. A one finger salute accompanied the “greeting”. My friend wanted to leave the area, but something told me to go inside. A table of four young men was the source of the message. When we approached, their demeanur changed, and they bade us sit. We chatted with the men for nearly an hour-not pushing the Baha’i message directly, but establishing a decidedly more congenial atmosphere than had initially greeted us. Similar experiences followed, in each of the next two villages.

When Penny and I returned to the U.S., we stayed a few days with a family near Houston, then drove north, visiting friends in Oklahoma, then going up to Macy, Nebraska, on the Omaha Reservation, where another sizable Indigenous Baha’i community was having a gathering. We went to one dignitary’s house, and it turned out that he was a cousin of one of my co-workers back in Tuba City.

1984 was not as harrowing as the novel of the same name. The challenges we did face only made us stronger as a couple.

Worlds Within A World, Part II

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 15,2026- From the Saugus world, I got a work ethic, respect for family and tradition, a sense of place. From the Army world, I got self-discipline and awareness that people everywhere are more alike than different. From the College world, I got respect for my female peers and a sense of personal independence. From the Maine world, I got the joy of making it through a few harsh winters, and savouring delightful summers, yet I also came to the realization that not all who work with children have their best interests at heart.

After Maine came the Arizona Central Corridor world (1978-1981)-which brought me first to a private boarding school in Eloy, then to Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. During this time, I made peace with Mathematics, for many years my bugbear, and for two years at the Villa School, my livelihood. I know that, out of my own struggles, there came an affinity with those in my classes who were having a hard time with the concepts. It made me a credible teacher. I came to see troubled teens as worthy of respect. It made me a better human being. I came to see, and know, the majesty of Arizona, and made the acquaintance of the Pacific coast, as far north as Portland and as far south as Guaymas. I went across country, by bus or by thumb, three times.

The Flagstaff years brought the first real sea change in my life-realizing that my globalist self had counterparts in the Baha’i Faith, which I adopted as my own, early in 1981.I met the woman I would marry, waited out her sorting of her life and tossed aside a major obstacle in mine-saying goodbye to alcoholic beverages. I lost a few friends, but made hundreds more-and found myself oriented towards our country’s First Nations.

The firt Navajo-Hopi world (1981-86) put my newly acquired Masters Degree, in Education (Counseling), to full use. Tuba City, on the western edge of Arizona’s Painted Desert, struck me as close to being a Third World place. There were, at the time, a couple of trading posts and several small cafes. While I was there, a grocery store and small mini mall opened up. The small cafes gave way to well-appointed restaurants. I married Penny, we went on Pilgrimage to Israel and the West Bank, getting a fine guided tour of Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Galilee from a retired IDF officer. We spent nine days total in the Holy Land, six of these in Haifa and Akka, There may never be such a consecrated time as this again in my life, but it gave me a foundation to go forward. We would stop in London, for three days, afterward, and I would have the bounty of speaking before people of whom I was in awe. We also would attend a Council Fire of First Nations, in Alberta, teach the Baha’i Faith in Houston, in Guyana and on the Omaha and Pine Ridge Reservations, as well as keeping the home fires burning on the Navajo and Hopi Nations. We buried a good friend in Tuba City and we buried my father, a year after he and Mom had visited us and toured Arizona.

A phone call, in the early morning hours, in January, 1986, was the inception of Korea world (1986-92) That, and the second Navajo-Hopi world (1992-98) will make up Part III..