My Experience in Pine Ridge, South Dakota

When I began to learn about the programs my school offers when I was applying, I remember being fascinated by the idea of LEAP week. I mean, what school offers an entire week to either travel somewhere or be doing something new at home? This was the coolest thing ever to middle-school me, who went to a public school where field trips were barely ever offered. A couple of months into the school year, it was time to submit our decisions about what experience we wanted to take a part of. We had to list our top five choices out of a big digital book, and I decided on my top four being the two Arizona trips, and two Florida trips. I had one more space to fill, so I took one last flip through the catalog and saw a trip to South Dakota. I figured that was pretty cool even though I knew nothing about it, and submitted. A few months later we got our choices back, and I eagerly opened my student portal to the LEAP week page, and there it was: South Dakota. I opened the catalog again and flipped to the page about the South Dakota trip so I could read up on what I would be experiencing, and quickly realized this would be no vacation I was about to embark on. Leading up to the trip I was so nervous. I would be spending a week in negative degree temperatures, chopping wood, and visiting a Native American reservation in an area with no cell phone service in the midwest. I knew very little about Native Americans, and I was very nervous to be visiting the 7th poorest county in the United States, when I come from such a suburban area with little deep poverty. The morning of the trip which I had been eagerly waiting so long for, I arrived at the school ready to head to the airport. I started talking with the other students in my trip who I did not know well, and began to feel more comfortable about traveling half-way across the country without my family for the first time. As we spoke together, we all realized that all of us felt a few common emotions about the trip we were about to embark on: excited, but we had no expectations and we were all ready for an adventure. The teachers on the trip repeatedly checked in to make sure everyone was doing okay and all of our needs were accounted for. I would say that one of the best parts of the trip was meeting and becoming closer to people who I had no idea even existed at school! The friends I made on this trip now share a common experience with me, and this will be a memory we will hold forever. The first shock that came to me this trip I would say is the weather. When we were told about last year’s trip here, we were told it would be absolutely freezing and we would be cold at all times. Stepping out of the airport, the 75 degree sun hit our group, and while waiting for the bus to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, we got to play some games and have a nice lunch together. It was about an hour-and-a-half drive across the prairies of South Dakota. I was shocked to see how many cows were out across the huge fields! The breathtaking hills in the fields were nothing like I had seen before. Living on the east coast all of my life with very developed land, I was shocked how far out I could see across the prairies without one building in sight. I had no idea what I expected the midwest to look like, but it certainly was not this. The most mind-blowing part of this trip for me was the first time we crossed the border into the Pine Ridge reservation. I was told to be ready to see extreme poverty, but I did not know what that would look like. Driving through the dirt roads of the reservation, the bus was silent. There were motor-homes upon trailers, and each one had trash in front of it, or broken down cars. Children playing in the streets with big smiles and stray dogs, and people with huge sodas would sit on their lawns in plastic chairs and watch. Nobody had flashy clothing on, and no home was any more than a trailer. Arriving at Re-Member (the volunteer organization) we lugged our suitcases off the bus and got situated in our bunkhouses. We were all tired and jetlagged, yet the organization surprised us with a warm welcome by teaching us “hand games”- a Lakota game involving sticks. The two native teenage girls who came in to teach us the games were welcoming and kind, but I saw one of them with very beaten down shoes on and my heart sank. At the end, they thanked us for volunteering to help and asked for donations for gas money. Each morning we were expected to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. We had to eat breakfast and get ready for the day’s work. The leader of Re-Member would give us a rundown on the daily schedule and weather, and would read us some Lakota-Oglala Sioux wisdom of the elders. Soon after, we all got dressed and hopped on a bus for that day’s activity. The first day on the reservation, we visited the site and graveyard of the Wounded Knee massacre where we got our first sense of what history the Lakota have gone through, and how much they really are oppressed. We had the chance to purchase hand-made jewelry and dream catchers from the local people on the reservation, and talk to them to learn about their community. After this we visited the Badlands National Park and took a hike there, then ended the day with a stop at a convenience store on the reservation and a visit to Re-Member’s second location. We arrived back at the bunkhouse, and that night is when we discovered my favorite place to go during the trip: the hill. It was a little bit of a hike, but the view at the top was amazing and you could see the prairies rolling on for miles and miles. The sunsets there were amazing, and the air was fresh. I loved spending hours here during free time, and taking in the silence and beauty all around me. Every night we had a reflection time. Our group from Marianapolis would sit and journal our thoughts about that day, and do trivia about interesting facts we learned. Some nights, we spent our reflection time on top of the hill. The stars up here were one of the most beautiful things I will see throughout my life- they were clear, and you could just see millions of stars above your head. I would lay up here some nights and just reflect by myself before I went to bed. Throughout the days spent on the reservation, I learned about how to be more humble and to appreciate everything. The morning after our first day, I got chosen to go on a van with my group to a neighboring town called Martin, where there was a lady who owned a lot of land and a greenhouse. We spent the day gardening and learning about how people were attempting to bring more agriculture to the reservation to promote healthy eating. Planting seeds and digging holes for the day gave me a look on how a farmer may spend their days to provide food to people. At dusk, when we would return to the bunkhouse each night, a different Lakota person would come to Re-Member and speak to us about different Lakota ways so we could understand their customs even better. We had long talks about mental health, creation stories, history, and other things as we intently listened to these lectures by the people. Each night when the speaker was finished, I would be thinking for a while about how what they said I could apply to my daily life at home. Waking up the next morning, we received some news. The tribal president of the Lakota nation issued a state of emergency on the reservation stating that nobody is to enter the reservation or come in contact with the Lakota people due to increasing worry about the CO-VID19 pandemic. Due to the deep poverty on the reservation, they did not have the supplies to fight this virus, and if even one person on the reservation became infected, many of the elders would die, and generations of people could pass away in the community. After hearing this news, the next two days were spent chopping wood and building bunk beds at Re-Member, changing the previous plan of going into the community and delivering firewood. This was not too big of a burden, as we had a lot of fun and learned a lot about carpentry and wood chopping. The last day on the reservation, we took a trip to Mount Rushmore! We took a drive on the bus into the national forest, and had a picnic. Mount Rushmore was very interesting to see, but the history behind it was terrible. The Crazy Horse monument was still being built but also interesting to see, and I did not know it existed before the trip. On the way out through the forest, we spotted a few herds of wild buffalo and stopped to take pictures. This day was one of my favorites. Returning home, there were so many lessons I had learned and so much deep thinking. I am so grateful for this humbling experience to learn about native american reservations, and I hope to give back to the organization sometime throughout my high school career. It was such an amazing feeling to know that I was helping people to stay warm by chopping wood for them, but I am so thankful to have received the lessons I learned from them. This will truly be an experience I will remember forever, and I am glad to have gone on this trip with LEAP week.