Keeping Busy After School (language)

Cece Chavez stood on a table at the Pine Point Boys and Girls Club pointing at some pictures and identifying them.  

The 3-year-old, however, had a hard time pronouncing “omakaakii,” “waawaashkeshi” and “manidoons.”  The Ojibwe translation for frog, deer and bug were written right on the photos to remind Cece and her fellow Boys and Girls Club members of their native tongue.  Story at: http://www.dl-online.com/event/article/id/56359/

Healing The Land (community)

ANAKANAIA » The open wounds are visible several miles from the island -- strips of red earth cut by explosives, grazing animals, wind and rain, bleeding an estimated 2 millions tons of soil a year into the ocean.

Two decades after the military stopped target bombing and sheep and goats were removed, major erosion still afflicts Kahoolawe, even with some success in planting native grasses and shrubs. Live bombs and shells litter sections of the island despite the largest military ordnance removal in the United States.

But advocates for restoration of this island -- equal in size to Oahu's metropolitan area from Waikiki to Moanalua -- remain hopeful as a new generation of volunteers work to heal the land and restore fractured cultural customs. Full Story @: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20101021_Healing_the_land.html 

My Pain (musings)

"This is my life.  I do not have any control over the pain and brutality of living the life of a dispossessed person.  I cannot control when that pain and brutality is going to enter into my life.  I have settled with having to deal with racism, pure and simple.  But, I was not ready to have my pain appropriated.  I am pretty possessive about my pain.  It is my pain.  I worked hard for it.  Some days it is all I have.  Some days it is the only thing I can feel.  Do not try to take that away from me too." --Patricia Monture, First Nations--Canada