Piece of the Puzzle-50 years from now

Blog #1

Piece of the Puzzle-50 years from now

I suppose someone is interested in reading my blog to get an understanding of my experience at camp Chaparral by the river.....

 To be honest I had my doubts about coming to this trip just like everyone else. Whether it’s work, family, or simply lack of self-interest, however, some of us were convinced for whatever reason to tag along this trip. I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure what to expect and felt that my time studying in my room was better invested than going to a “camping trip.” Especially because that is 2 weeks or 336 hours of something that we are not used to doing in our modern daily lives. This includes being absent from social media, from our communities, Netflix & YouTube, fast food, daily showers, and of course a nice comfy bed under a well sturdy roof. I was convinced because I care about my community and being a part of People of the Big River was an opportunity to explore that desire to understand and learn on how I can positively start impacting my community, the Yakima Valley community. From my understanding, all of Yakima was a home for the Native Americans until laws were introduced. So I ask myself how has life changed 10, 30, 50 years ago. While on our first day at Camp Chaparral former Central Graduate, Geologist, Don Teakheal explained that the road cuts we traveled to get there were not there 50 years ago, and camp Chaparral was not there either. As he continued he explained that before those paved roads they would travel on cattle trucks because their tribal council was cattlemen. Riding around no paved roads, rocks on the roads, through 12-8 inches of dust they would share this land with fishermen, cattlemen, and hunters. Today we see foresters with modern cars getting off of work heading out to the valley. It amazes me how individuals like Don Teakheal have lived long enough to see changes in his community that have greatly impacted his Native community, Nature itself, the animals who share the land, and the people who have settled in the land thereafter. I can only begin to imagine how I will grow in this community and the changes that I will see. What will I be doing differently to impact it? How will my participation influence the desires of our community and Mother Nature? At the moment the trees we are camping within represent 237 thousand acres of prime timberland. The Yakama nation tribe owns the largest timberland in the United States of all the 555 Indian tribes in America. As Don Teakheal foresees, “These trees represent our future.”  I can’t disagree with him because he’s right. The unfortunate things are that I don’t recall learning about the land and how it’s important to our future generations. I was not taught very much, but I am grateful to have taken this opportunity to do so now. I have been learning to look past what I thought I knew about this land and think about what it is that I want in it 50 years from now. So what is what I want my community to have in 50 years? It could be a new hospital, a community center, new schools....but what difference would this make? No, what I would like my community to have in 50 years is what we are capable to have but do not practice. That is equity, understanding, less health disparity’s, laws that support our LGTBQ+ community and programs that support any adversity that any individual may encounter and laws that protect our water, the environment and animals. In simple words, a community that works together to create an environment of fulfillment and love by putting away our biases and listening to each other. I understand that there are many barriers to this vision but like a puzzle, a piece at a time will get us to complete the full picture. You see I had never understood past the meaning of the trees in this land. If you were to ask me what it was, I’d say something like a tree that grows its roots towards the nearest river. But now I understand that as time passes, every second, every minute every hour, these trees become more valuable. Even though we can plant trees every day, they don’t all grow. Don mentioned that the trees are the bank of this land, “they soak up water inside of these trees and they release the water at the right time, but we have other trees, they soak up water but it goes straight up to the air.” We that live in the Yakima Valley know that a precious drop of water gets more valuable every day. It is because Yakima Valley is a desert. It is because of irrigation that we have water. But it is because of farmers that it is getting polluted, Don calls it “The Greatest War,” that we are entering into. It is up to every generation to offer their input and create an environment where we build that momentum for young people like myself to find solutions to save that water and divide it amongst everybody, the state, the county, etc. I learned that the first court was in 1908 called the Winter stock trade. It is incumbent on us to save that water for the fish, the environment, and to protect our future of Yakima Valley.