Thanksgiving Trip 2004
No Comments →The snow began to fall just before we reached Santa Catarina. At first it was a dusting, but ten minutes later, we pulled the vans over so that the kids could play in the inch-deep snow. The wonder at the snow was tempered by the knowledge that the tribes we were on our way to visit lived in these conditions with no heat other than meager wood fires.
During the week of Thanksgiving a group of Comunidad board members and their families visited all ten tribal locations, distributing coats, blankets and clothes and meeting with the tribal elders to prioritize their needs for the coming year. The donated clothing and blankets were part of Comunidad’s Escuela-a-Escuela program, in which ten Bay Area schools each sponsor a tribal community, starting each year with a coat/blanket drive, then spending the rest of the year in educational and cultural exchanges.
The trip began Friday, November 19th, as a group of Comunidad volunteers met at Blossom Hill to empty Room 22, which over the past week had been filled with bags gathered from all the participating schools. Three carloads, one cargo carrier and a U-Haul carrier could not contain all the donated goods, with two pickup trucks carrying the overflow to Comunidad’s storage facility for use on future trips.
The groups took off on Saturday and met up with Javier Cesena, director of CUNA (the Institute for Indigenous Culture), who was our guide for the next three days. We then proceeded to San Miguel, to the spectacular hilltop house of Mike Wilken, the founder of CUNA, where we separated the donated materials into ten piles for the ten tribal communities that we would be visiting in the next few days.
On Monday our two teams concentrated on the southern tribes. Team A (Dave Cope and his daughter, Maddy; Pam Pearson and her daughters Maya and Rachel; Diane Manning, Eddie Kessler and their daughter Emily) headed to Santa Catarina and La Huerta, where they distributed their bags and met with tribal leaders. The Comunidad kids played with their indigenous counterparts and distributed the bags while their parents met with the tribal leaders, did updates on the tribal lists and planned for the coming year. The Huerta community was particularly impressive, with the entire school staying around to meet with us and present their list of priorities. The kitchen staff also presented a list of needs to help feed the schoolchildren-in all, a very impressive set of meetings.
Team B, consisting of Tom Hogan and Mike Wilken, headed further south, to the remote tribal communities of San Isidoro and Kiliwa. These tribes are different from the communities we’ve worked with so far, having left their tribal lands for economic reasons and struggling to maintain their identities in an assimilating environment. Tom and Mike met with Asuncion, the leader of San Isidoro, then with Elias, leader of Kiliwa. The difference in their needs were striking: San Isidoro, which is more assimilated, focused its list of needs on scholarships for their students. Elias, an activist leader for the Kiliwa tribe, whose language and culture is in danger of extinction in the next twenty years, focused on how to make a return to the Kiliwa tribal lands possible-a potable water system, a small clinic, and long-term planning for a school.
The day concluded with some pleasant business-the delivery of the third donated Comunidad van. Sonia Marques, head teacher for the Cucapah community, drove over to Valle de la Trinidad and received the keys and paperwork for the new van, which will be used as a school bus for the Cucapah schoolchildren.
The next day the two teams headed north. Diane and Pam visited the northern remote tribes of Neji and Pena Blanca, where they met with tribal representatives Josefine and Gladys (from Pena Blanca) and Norma (Neji). They discussed the needs of a geographically scattered populace that still needs the same educational, health and cultural support as their centralized counterparts.
The larger group visited San Antonio Necua and San Jose de la Zorra, distributing the clothing and blankets and meeting with the tribal leaders. In Necua the focus was on infrastructure and a new water system, as well as the opportunity to add computers to their educational culture with the advent of electricity. In Zorra we met with the new Maestra, who articulated the needs of the different levels of students, up to the six Preparatorio students who show up at a trailer every morning, despite the absence of a teacher, to get video downlinks from Mexico City.
The trip concluded Wednesdays morning with a visit to the offices of ISSESALUD, the government health department, where CUNA officials, Tom and Pam met with Director Macias to discuss the plans for extending the clinic at Santa Catarina. The director expressed his concerns about a building for so small and remote a population, but gave his blessings for a multi-purpose building next to the clinic. The group then adjourned to CUNA, where Tom met with Dolores, the representative for the Jamao tribe, to discuss how Comunidad can support scholarships for Jamao children.
This was the first time that Comunidad was able to meet with all ten tribes that we support. As could be expected, the differences of locale and centrality are overridden by the similarities-a concern for clean water, better living conditions and scholarships to enable their children to move past the Primario levels. The trip also expanded our already-strong working relationship with CUNA, with Javier helping Diane coordinate all elements of the trip and Mike accompanying Tom to the remote locations to make introductions and educate him about the needs of the disappearing tribes.
The trip wrapped up a strong first year for Comunidad. Based on everything we learned from these assessment trips, as well as from our regular Salud trips and first health fair, we will finalize our 2005 calendar and budget to fulfill our primary charter: to be driven by the needs of our clients.