Day 6

Saturday, December 15, 2018 - Mind Blown!Day 

Day 5

Friday, December 14, 2018 - We went back to the waterfall today to resample site 3. We took the reading 10 meters down steam from the previous site. Katy and Randall stayed back to sort and identify samples. Randall “won” a coin toss. Gabriel, Dawn and I returned to the field. Today’s journey was quick and painless. We just took our time and enjoyed observing the forest. Gabriel returned the sample to the lab by 10:30am. I felt I was pestering the Gnöbe too much so I did not approach them tonight. I fear they will tire of my pesky inquisitions. I instead played cards with my sons. I felt they probably needed an outlet as constant work on subjects that they are likely not familiar with  is likely taxing on them. We enjoyed ourselves for a bit. We then returned to the lab to continue: sorting, identification, and literature review. We worked steady up until 9:00 pm. Locked up the lab as we were the last to leave. Earlier in the day on our way back from field I visited with my Pikuni relative from SKC, Jessica and another student she is working with. It was a nice visit as they enjoyed their lunch. Busy day! Sorting and identifying is tedious and time consuming but Katie is a champ. Randall and Dawn also helped in the sorting process. I encouraged Dawn to brush up on a few articles about the benthic macro invertebrates studied here in the past. She was game and hopefully she now has a good grasp on what she is looking for. Identifying seems to be giving Katie some frustration as many of the samples have subtle differences from the ones she is used back home. I still hope to follow Chenga around a little bit tomorrow. My sons will be examining forest incursion with the team from Diné College tomorrow I am glad people are opening up to them and are willing to share their knowledge.

Day 4

Thursday, December 13, 2018 - We did a couple of short samples in the two creeks closest to the station! They were very interesting sites. By brief visual assessment they will likely be the most biologically diverse. Site 3 at the waterfall was interesting as we only found three individual specimens there. We will likely go back and sample that site again tomorrow. A couple of the groups we ran into said the water trail is completely passable with care so that should make it interesting. After supper we had cultural exchange. The Gnöbe shared some nice social dances with us. They were fun! Katelyn was able to share her family song with us. Kristie from Heritage University shared the swan dance it was a beautiful dance just for the ladies . The song she sang was hard to get out of your head. Overall the night was amazing. I visited with Jessica and Saliciano (Gnöbe) in my cabin for a little bit afterward. We discussed the possible significance of the number four for Aaniiih people. We also discussed some traditions our people shared. Jessica is and excellent interpreter. Both she and Scott seem to have a tendency to edit some of the interpretations which I don’t like. I appreciate Jessica pointing out that they were in fact discussing first menstration when Scott gave a bit of a makeover to what the younger lady had actually said. I feel it is important to say all of what the Gnöbe are saying even if it is repetitive or even off putting. In oral tradition things are repeated for emphasis and understanding. When elders tell stories among our people much is repeated and they have an tendency to diverge from they storyline. They always bring it bring and back full circle and what seemed like deviations were actually important details that act as infrastructure for the overall message.

Day 3

Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - Today our crew from Aaniiih Nakoda College put in some some serious miles! Our students did amazing work. We were able to sample three sites including one of the exact same sites Dan Kinsey sampled in 2015 with Shay Snider and Truan Yellow Stone. Overall we covered 6.9 miles and scaled 84 stories in primary and secondary forests and some former  pasture land set for restoration. On top of collecting macro invertebrate samples at each site we were able to GPS each of our locations . We also tested Ph, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity and temperature at each test site. Our test sites include a site on the Rio Java River just below a confluence of a tributary I will have to find the name of tomorrow. We then retested the site Dan and his students tested. Our 3rd sample site was just below a 30 Meter waterfall. We will have to collect one more sample in the morning and get busy sorting and identifying our macro invertebrates. This will likely be a slow process as the Katelynn is the adept at identification. I am familiar with the protocols and procedures but I have not identified everyday for the past few semesters like Katy. I plan to make sure Dawn has a good grasp on the process then I would like to have her begin working on more literature review and laying the foundation for their presentation. My sons helped immensely carrying some of our field tools and participated in site collection. They were able to observe the students work their magic and helped accordingly when needed. Their training in cross country, football, and wrestling is apparent. The are up and down the trails with ease while the rest of us become aware of our need to patronize the RedWhip Fitness Center when we get home. The last time I was here I was easily 50lbs lighter and into CrossFit with my cousin Miles. I was able to negotiate the Gamboa (hardest and longest) trail with ease wearing Georgia Boots and Jeans in torrential rain. Today I barely negotiated the water trail but kept up with these folks as best I could. After a brief visit with my old friend Nakikunwere super stoked to have made it to the waterfall as the water trail was closed due to a land slide. Like typical peel heads we went anyway. Our gamble paid off. I met other people at the end of the day who navigated the trail from the top down (the smart way). We went from the bottom up and back the way we came the map were we using was given out at orientation and was slightly vague. We made our way along running into another group along the way. My boys and the students smoked me coming back. One of my sons was showered and raring to go when I finally stumbled through the door.  330 lbs is not an ideal weight to be hauling up 80+ stories and six miles in a tropical rain forest but I made it both in and out, eventually. I was exhausted when I got back. I stripped down to chonies and laid down to get my bearings. Gabriel brought me a Gatorade. Revived, I hustled to wash the Jungle Juice from my person.

Evening was nice and after showered I putted to the dining hall to get my grub on. The students outsmarted me again as earlier in the day they  followed proper directions and ordered sack lunches. Me and the boys rode it out sans grub. We had plenty of water and the students offered to share. We politely declined. Supper was good and super fresh and nutritious. Once everyone finished their grub and the crowd began to wane. I offered Chenga (Gnöbe elder) some coffee he politely refused. I proceeded to the lab as I had an important question to ask. In our way when one of these types of questions are asked we offer tobacco. I asked Chenga if he was allowed to share his creation story with my sons and I. He did. Others joined and listened both attentively and respectfully.. It was a true blessing and honor to hear this man share the beginning of their people with us. We chatted a bit more about the similarities of our peoples. I feebly attempted to offer an abbreviated version of the Aaniiih story leaving out many details sharing the small iota I am able. The whole scenario lasted only a few minutes but I didn’t want to be disrespectful and keep the hosts hostage against their will. If I could I would have asked a million questions about their people, homeland and lifeways. They are beautiful people and their knowledge of their home is vast. I hope to shadow them a little tomorrow. I wish more of our people could partake in these exchanges as they are very much us and we are them. Yet, they are them and we are us because they are here and we are there. Nahathaw ( that is the way it is). Niibiiko (Goodnight)!

Day 2

Tuesday, December 11, 2018  - The experts have arrived today. I am not speaking of the professors or the people holding PhD’s or other advanced degrees, rather the real experts, the Ngöbe. I had the great honor of visiting with them for a few minutes after supper tonight. While I am nobody of any significance among my people I felt truly blessed to share a small piece of what I know about the Aaniiihnen lifeways. There are many men with more knowledge than me who would have made this exchange momentously better and they could explain it with the depth only afforded ones who know. I am eternally grateful for Bridget from Haskell Indian Nations University for translating the stories between our two people. I am happy that I know a minuscule amount of our language so I could share some things in Aaniiih. There were undoubtedly things lost in translation but it was amazing to hear them emphasize some of their key points in their language as well. The connection of their stories was awesome  though separated by thousands of miles the relationship between our peoples was apparent. Their story is very much ours. They talked about the loss of much of their ways to Christian colonization. They talked about the ceremonies they still perform. They discussed their reverence to the cats of this  area (ocelot, jaguar, puma) and how their name Ngöbe was in reference to that familiarity!

We later met the entire CRIRE group and it was a thing of true beauty to hear so many young people speaking their languages in this place of the Ngöbe. The students expressed their humble gratitude to the Ngöbe and the programs  CRIRE, SKC, Heritage University, and OTS. Along with these awesome organizations I have to take a moment to personally thank Dr. Carol Falcon-Chandler for allowing the students and I to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity. After the introductions the students were able to share some small gifts with the Ngöbe. This is likely a day my sons will never forget. 

Earlier in the day the students and I worked on a plan of attack for our first field day tomorrow. I was also able to visit my old friend the strangler fig. Before I left in 2016 I said utnahaban (I will see you again) knowing I would likely never see it again yet there we were visiting like old friends. My sons and numerous other indigenous students from throughout the country got to meet the old warrior. It starts out a small seed placed atop a fig tree and grows to an immense size. It stands victorious in the place of its vanquished foe. The only remnant of the (decades/centuries!?) long battle is the hollow core where only the original fig tree’s clear silhouette remains. The warrior is fighting another battle now as a young strangler fig is perched atop his apex and issuing some of the same moves my old friend deployed in his victory a generation or more ago. If I had to bet I would put all of my Costa Rican Colońes on the old man as he is unlikely to buckle beneath such an inexperienced opponent. He will more likely don his young challenger like a feather bonnet a right this elder has earned through his years of service as a lone sentry at a trail junction. Time will tell. I too, will not soon forget this day! Met friends old and new and I am now psyching up for the real work to begin in monyana! Niibiiko(goodnight)!

Day 1

Monday, December 10, 2018 - This morning two students, my two sons and I began our journey to Las Cruces Biological Station near San Vito Costa Rica. We joined several indigenous college students (Approx 30) and their mentors from throughout the United States. The two students from Aaniiih Nakoda College attending 2018 CRIRE are environmental science majors on track to graduate in May 2019 with associates of science degrees. It is a true blessing to be allowed to return to this beautiful land. It is unfathomable that there are five people from the Fort Belknap Indian Community traipsing around the rain forest conducting research on streams in what could only be described as a holy place! Once you escape from the station and get deeper into the primary forest you can feel the true energy and the age of this place. Aaniiih Nakoda College has had four previous students come to Costa Rica to conduct research. Two attended with CRIRE with Dan Kinsey (Environmental Science Faculty at ANC) in 2015. The following summer 2016  we had a student who was paired with a mentor for the University of California- Berkley the student studied a certain type of Anole and examined if the dewlap size was a proportionate indicator of mating aggression in that species.The following summer 2017 another environmental science student paired with a professor from Purdue University examining fish habitat at various elevations. At CRIRE this year our group will examine benthic macro invertebrates as bio indicators of stream health. This is a reproduction of research these same students conduct in the Little Rocky Mountains in Montana. The Little Rockies are greatly impacted by a failed cyanide heap leach mine that operated in the 1990’s. Mining has taken place in the area since the mid 1800’s when westward expansion was climaxing due to the insatiable thirst for more gold and land and the completion of a few intercontinental railways. The Tribes that inhabited the North corridor of Montana and the Southern region of Canada circa Alberta found themselves in the midst of a hostile takeover. Illegal immigration is such a hot button topic in 2018 but these tribes have been witnessing the effects of rapists, drug dealers, murderers, and what one could suppose are a few good people for nearly two centuries now. All the while back by federal policies, legislation, and the Army. The Little Rocky Mountains known to the Aaniiih and Nakoda people as the Little Fur Caps and the Island Mountains respectively has been a historic refuge for prayer, habitation, hunting and other essentials since time immemorial but the encroachment driven by illegal exploitation of their natural resources have left lasting effects on both the land and the peoples of the area. We have Aaniiih and Nakoda people working in paradise honing and refining their skills to mitigate those effects and monitor their homeland. The cultural exchanges CRIRE offers with the Ngöbe people will allow them to see that there are indigenous people throughout the world striving for the same things; protecting the homelands and the people that belong to it! Muchos Gracias SKC, NSF, OTS, and all of the facilitators of CRIRE. Geniiiheiaan (Thank You) for allowing us to share and expand our knowledge with all of these awesome students and faculty! If I were to call this place anything in my language it would be Nii ii iinenhiidan (The land of good people)!