Water for the Navajo Nation

At the little square home in Tennessee where I grew up, our water was pumped to our house from a little, mineral-rich spring that ran at the bottom of the yard beneath some spindly trees and overgrown grass.

The pump required electricity, so if we were unable to pay the electricity bill or a storm came and knocked out power or flooded the pump, we were without running water in our home for days or, on rare occasions, for weeks. At such times we hauled water in five gallon buckets from the lovely creek that ran beneath a culvert halfway down our lane. This water was used to wash clothes and flush toilets. A little way up that creek, on a different path, a more pristine spring gurgled straight out of a ridge, cold and pure-tasting. We used rinsed milk jugs to collect water for drinking, cooking and washing dishes from this precious water source.

Though we didn't mind the topped-off milk jugs, we kids used to hate hauling the five gallon buckets of creek water back up the lane to the house, balancing it between two of us as we shared the handle that bit into our palms as we stumbled along. It was such a chore, especially in the heat and humidity of summer.

Often, instead of hauling water for bathing, we simply bathed in the creek on hot days, taking our soap into the water, not thinking about the microbes we were lathering into our hair and scrubbing onto our skin. It was like swimming....with a purpose...and a more beautiful bathing area could not have been desired.

Looking back now, our family was very lucky to have such a beautiful, sustaining creek just a few minutes walk down the lane from our home.

I thought about this childhood experience yesterday as I watched CBS Sunday Morning, an indispensable Sunday tradition I inherited from my dad. The feature story was about how many people of the Navajo Nation have never in all their lives had running water in their homes. Their water is delivered by a Navajo woman named Darlene Arviso who drives dozens of miles each day in a huge tanker to pour precious water into the plastic storage barrels of homes. 

In the story it points out that most of us use around 100 gallons each day, but individuals of the Navajo Nation get by on a fraction of that - sometimes a mere 7 gallons.

Truly, it's a travesty and an embarrassment that we here in the Phoenix desert flood our grass yards with water, maintain our pristine pools with hundreds of gallons annually and take long, relaxing showers with water sources that were allocated for our needs long ago when the Native American tribes had no say in the rights to water that their people had been using and respecting long before we discovered them. It's astounding that there are people in our own country who would not even have access to drinking water if it weren't for the efforts of a few, dedicated individuals. Even so these people struggle to eek every last drop from their delivered water as long as they can, and what must they give up to do that? Clean clothes? Baths? Refreshing sips throughout a hot, dusty day?

I am a big believer in solidarity, meaning that if we know there are people who go without basic nutritious food daily, we should make an effort to remember them when we crave ice cream and feel like running to the store for such a trivial desire. We should remember them when we want to stuff our faces although we're not really hungry. In just such a way, I believe in remembering the Navajo Nation and so many other tribes and communities on this planet who struggle to have clean sources of water every day, and in thinking of them I choose not to grow a grass yard in the desert summer; I choose not to run the water in the shower as I'm lathering my hair and body with soap; I choose not to just dump "extra" unused water down the drain when I could use it for my plants

Being a citizen of this world means remembering our fellow citizens. I try - though I often fail - to continue to grow in solidarity with others who do not have access to what my family has, and remembering what my family has, I thank God that I have it and try to NEVER take it for granted.

But there is more that we can do, you and I, than merely reflect on the hardships of others. George McGraw, as it mentioned in the CBS story, runs a nonprofit called DigDeep which is endeavoring to dig a very deep well for the people of the Navajo Nation. In contributing to the Navajo Water Project, we can and will support the dignity and right to life of our American neighbors.

Little House Virtues, and On the Banks of Watson Lake

 

 

Every so often I am reminded of what I knew daily as a child, and I feel sorry for my kids, poor little city kids. I regret that they don't experience the freedom of growing up in the country. True, they don't know what they're missing, but I do: the alluring sights, smells and sounds of abundant nature just outside your door; the ever-changing adventure of creek, field and forest; and the whole brave world of trouble country kids can get into that seems far more wild and wholesome than what can be found in the city.

 

I miss the country badly at times...

 

Can you tell I'm reading the Little House series again to my daughter Ana? In its chapters she senses she's missing out on something grand, a strange freedom, and we mull this over together; my daughter is a natural-born country girl, like me.

 

Right now we are reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, and more than the crazy, beautiful tales of a truly rural life told in the simple but eerily elegant prose of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I am enjoying all the nuggets of wisdom woven yet again into her tales of prairie life. Here are a few excerpts I have admired this time:

 

"Well," he said at last. "I hardly know what to do, Laura. You see, I trusted you. It is hard to know what to do with a person you can't trust. But do you know what people have to do to anyone they can't trust?

 

"Wh-at?" Laura quavered.

 

"They have to watch him," said Pa.

 

And, as true for adults as it is for children, this from Ma Ingalls:

 

"Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go on and on, and sooner or later something dreadful happens."

 

And this beautifully sums up the spirit of Christmas:

 

And then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

 

Whenever anyone was unselfish that was Santa Claus.

 

Every child should read these tales, I think, to discover a world so different but so vibrant without technological trappings.

 

 

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My man has been a city guy all his life, so what do I do to drag him into nature?

Every little bit I make a request to drive into the country on a long weekend or for a holiday...my birthday, say. I give him fair warning of my desire for fresh air, and, usually, he accommodates.

 

This last time we went to Watson Lake near Prescott, Arizona. It has strange granite dells crowded on it shores.

  

 

We stopped at a playground on the way that had a play fire truck with the names of the 19 firefighters who lost their lives in the Yarnell Hill fire on June 30th, 2013. I thought that was a beautiful idea for a memorial - many of those men were dads - though my little ones didn't understand what it meant or who it commemorated.

 

Then we parked above the lake and hiked down to take our lunch on a big rock in the blustery wind. We saw some people propelling down a precipice nearby, and I remarked, "I'm not the adventure sport sort, but that's one thing I would do gladly: rock climbing."

 

Shoot! I was bound to eat those words.

 

My kids were rock climbing, alright. They were descending to the water to stare in wonder at all the tadpoles, tiny fish and crawdads. It's times like these when they show their city greenness. Yet we all gawked at the beautiful and iridescent blue dragonflies of various sizes that whizzed through the air above our heads and danced over the water at our feet. My son Berto tried to catch a fish in his palms and would have done it, too, if he had gotten past the slippery skin against his fingers. My daughter Ana gently scooped up tadpoles, and then set them free. All my children leapt across boulders and crossed narrow log bridges on their exploration.

And I, that lady who claimed she would scale rocks for pleasure - big rocks, and uphill all the way! - paused in trepidation at a two-foot gap between some slanted granite behemoths. The water flowing between was three inches deep at least. My husband and long-legged oldest children, Berto and Ana, jumped across effortlessly, but every time I tensed for the leap, I lost my nerve. I could just see my knees and fingertips scraping down the scaly surface of the rock before I sprained my ankle in the perilous, crawdad-infested shallows at the bottom.

 

Berto said, "Look, Mom. It's easy. You just jump."

 

Just jump. Now!" said Matthew again and again, but he waited in vain, because I was a yellow-bellied chicken.

 

When I finally spread my legs and sprang, prepared to die in my dare-devil ways, you'd assume the fear was conquered, but I couldn't go back.

 

"It's easier back," said Matthew. "The rock slants down this way."

 

No difference. The mental hurdles stalled me. If I could ever control my unbridled imagination, I would be darn near a superhero.

 

Matthew gave up on me, and it took pressure off. A few minutes later, I jumped back.

 

But to save face, I've decided that every time I tell that story I'm going to increase the length between those boulders and the depth of the water by several feet. Pretty soon I will have jumped 20 feet between the cliffs of insanity over a churning abyss.

 

On our way back up to the parking lot, following white dots painted on rock to mark the way for wayward hikers, we saw a toad. I can't remember when I last saw an amphibian; I kid you not. He was a tiny little guy and the color of the dells, a perfect fit in his environment.

Later, we drove to a dock and took a walk up a path. Though we saw masses of wildflowers and crowds of butterflies, we lost the sense of being in the country as the parking lot filled with canoe-laden pickup trucks, and the meandering path wound below a highway. But we did get to see some geese. I thought the gaggle was going to gang up on us and steal our remaining food. They followed us so closely.

But they just tried to intimidate us with their glassy stares and noisy honks.

It was a simple, short afternoon in the country, not nearly as solitary or unpredictable as the Minnesota prairie, but it was memorable and fed our appetite for more wild adventures. Who knows? I might even...someday, if the kids are lucky...convince my man to take us camping.

Now, wouldn't that be a hoot.

Just don't ask me to jump any big rocks on the way to the campsite.

Watch Your Kids ALWAYS Around Water: A Lesson Learned

It's that time of year again. Arizona ranks behind only Florida in the highest number of child drownings each year in the US.

I live in Phoenix, and it is very difficult to find a home without a pool. My husband and I know this, because we set out to find a pool-less home when we moved to this dusty town, and one time as we were considering moving to a larger home (ha!), that is what we looked for again: no pool. It was a serious challenge.

Why did we not want that luxury? Because they are hugely expensive to maintain and serious water hogs. Also, there are a multitude of public pools here. But the most vital reason was because I was absolutely terrified that I would one day get distracted, and one of my children would manage to get to the pool unsupervised.

I was terrified. I still am. I've read the stories, Just today I read an article from Sunday's newspaper about a non-profit, water-safety-awareness group started by a mom whose son drowned in the family pool. She didn't think it could happen to her, even though she had read the stories, too. Now she does everything she can to let parents and children know that it CAN  happen, but it positively CAN  be prevented.

Even though our family took the precaution of having just a simple backyard, knowing my easily distracted nature, it can still happen. It almost did happen to us at a pool party.

We went to an end-of-season party for my son's football team. The party was being held at the home of one of the families. They had a pool with no fence or gate. I was nervous right away. I always am, because my kids, although having taken swim lessons with the city, do not have the opportunity to practice swimming at home. Our youngest two do not technically know how to swim yet. They have learned only basic water safety while overcoming their fear of water.

I knew what I would do. I would go in my bathing suit even if I was the only parent to do so. I would sit by the pool the whole time, my youngest within arm's reach. I would follow those kids everywhere, and if one of them ventured out of sight for even an instant, I would look toward the pool first.

But I made an error. My husband and I decided to bring an inflatable dragon pool toy, one which we very rarely used, to the party for the kids.

This is a good time to point out how dangerous inflatables are for kids who do not swim on their own.

Of course, we forgot it in the car, but then I remembered, mentioned it to my husband, and then the kids started to beg for it. Matthew, circumspect man, said that they didn't need it, that I shouldn't get it because they had been having fun without it. But my whole dumb idea was to say, well...why did we bring it then?

I wish I had listened to my husband, because, apparently, the reason we brought it was so that I could, through my own foolish pig-headedness, be taught a valuable and frightening lesson.

I made the kids get out of the pool and follow me to the car. Then we went back to the backyard, and someone blew up the toy for us. Danny Sammy stayed on the pool steps. I shoved in the large inflatable dragon, and Ana or I helped her little sister Ella onto it. Right when it reached the middle of the pool, the damn thing capsized, and my little daughter splashed into the pool beside her swimming big sister.

I stood up. Ana grabbed her little sister and tried to force her up back onto the bobbing dragon. I don't remember doing anything useful in those terrible, slow moments except for yelling at Ana to grab Ella.

Good heavens, can you imagine? Why didn't I just jump in?

My beautiful, extraordinary and slender daughter Ana kept her younger sister afloat and attempted to swim her to the pool edge. Finally, my heart slapped my brain awake; I kicked off my shoes and jumped in to save my precious daughter....or should I say daughters?

I didn't realize that the water was deepest there in the middle; I couldn't touch the bottom. It caught me completely off guard as I grabbed Ella and tried to keep our heads up out of the water. I finally shoved her over and onto the lip of the pool and pulled my own self out.

And all I could say was thank you, thank you to my Ana girl over and over and apologize to Ella as my soaked cover-up and hat dripped about me.

***********************

I have my penance to pay, because when Ella remembers that terrifying incident, she doesn't recall Mama jumping in to save her at the last moment so much as she remembers her big sister keeping her afloat for what seemed to all of us like an eternity.

It broke my heart one time when I reminded her that I had in fact pushed her out at last, and she said, "No, uh-uh - Ana saved me."

"Ana did save you," I agreed. "And I'm so grateful to Ana for keeping you afloat. I wish I had just jumped in right away instead of hesitating. Why did I hesitate? But I did finally jump in and push you out, remember?"

"No, Ana saved me," she reiterated, shaking her head and crossing her arms.

Berto, irritated, lectured Ella. Ana looked around at us with her sorrowful, soulful, saint-like face and gently tried to get Ella to see what Mama had done, too. But what can I say? I deserve no recognition. It was all my fault in the first place.

And I can only thank God with my whole heart that Ella was not seriously harmed by my foolishness and slowness. She will always remember her big sissy holding her up in that deep, unforgiving water, and I will always remember the lesson I learned.

So, please: whether you live in Milwaukee, San Diego, Tampa or Phoenix, please, please watch your kids around water at all times. Enroll them in swim lessons. And don't ever use inflatables for children who don't know how to swim.


The scary tale of how a very dear family friend almost drowned as a preschooler is found in The Hand-Dug Pool And The Day I Drowned. 

For the story of how my big sister Annie saved me from drowning in our flooded creek, click HERE.

Dream Blog: No Bridge at the Old Ruin? What a Bunch Of Croc(odile)!

A new road had been built by-passing the old fort or Native American ruin (I couldn't decipher which it was at first). Unfortunately, somehow I ended up taking the old disused road that ran right along the old place. Part of that road was blocked by a piece of overhang that had once shadowed the front of the ruin and which was now standing perpendicular to the lie of the dirt road. This was simple to get by, and I went swiftly around it.

I didn't stop to examine the place or go in, and I don't know why. I am always drawn like a magnet to anything that reeks of age and abandoned civilization. Here, I only noticed as I drove past that the building materials had crusted into a darkish grey color, almost black, and that the building was essentially a rectangle.

After or just slightly before passing the fort - for so it must have been, being composed of discolored wood - I decided to carry my car in the palm of my hand to make the going easier. I trusted my two legs more on the uncertain terrain.

The scenery opened up, and the landscape was like so many desert environs I've seen. I walked through the sandy soil until I reached an impressive canyon quite abruptly. I gazed across it; I did not look down. Nevertheless, I knew a river lived and moved there at the bottom of its astounding depth; I could hear it.

There was no bridge.

There must have been at one time for the dirt track resumed on the opposite side of the canyon. Stupid old road. Why had I gotten lost? And the sight of this old place was decidedly lonely and eerie.

I spun around and quickly retreated. Not the way I had come but along the back of the fort, and suddenly I was accosted by water. So much water. It was shedding off of huge boulders to my side and rushing through a gorge that lay in front of me. I'd have to get across this water that had sprung up all around the ruin. The way home would not, could not, be the way I'd come. Still, the gorge was not too steep-sided. I could jump from boulder to boulder down through it and to the other side. I tensed my body for the leap, and then I spotted something below in the churning pool. It was gliding through, its long body a pale soothing green in color. My desperation increased at the sight of it, though; that crocodile was going to make the going more treacherous - deadly perhaps.

A few seconds inward debate helped me to conclude that this strange creature in an alien environment would indeed try to eat me if I splashed through that pool. Who knew how hungry it was, and that water had to be very cold. I felt that this fact would make it more aggressive somehow.

I went along a narrow ledge of rock behind the fort and jumped across the gorge to some higher boulders. My mind fast-forwarded this part, so I could get swiftly by that thing that I feared. And then I walked and walked. I came to a Catholic Church that was just concluding mass. People were streaming out the doors of the small church. I wondered at this a second and then turned to find the ranger's station for the ruin I had just journeyed through.

I went directly up to the woman there and said without preamble, "There's a crocodile in the waters by that old fort."

"A crocodile?" she repeated lamely. "I don't think so."

"Oh, yes, there is," I told her. "You better get rid of it before somebody gets hurt."

"Okay, well I guess..."

"Maybe it was somebody's exotic pet, and they let it loose there," I concluded for her.

Finally she seemed to accept that I spoke truth.

"Okay," she said, tossing her tightly braided hair back over her shoulder. "I'll tell someone and we'll get it out of there."

I nodded, satisfied....