People often speak of “southern hospitality”, which, don’t get me wrong, is real, but that is until they experience the warmth and generosity of the Hopi and Navajo people of Arizona.
Reagan '26
Mountain Classroom has been wildly isolated these last few weeks, and it was so nice to see friendly faces as we arrived at the Navajo reservation on April 13th. We quickly began starting on our dinner after our arrival around 6 pm, which was ravioli cooked by Annie and Cortland. As they were battling the windy conditions outside, the rest of the group sought some shelter in the Hogan and set our sleeping stuff up. For context, a Hogan is a sacred shelter dedicated to prayer and ceremonies. We were nice and cozy as we fit all 12 of us in this shelter. No matter how close together we were, we were all just immensely grateful to have a roof over our heads for the night. We soon met two lovely girls who are our age, Lilith and Mika. We chatted for a while and learned a lot about each other’s ways of life. Shortly after we had our nightly chow circle, we dug into our dinner in the hogan, far away from the powerful wind gusts that could literally blow away a person. Post-dinner, we weren’t feeling up to much, so we did our dishes, packed away the kitchen, and all went into the Hogan for the night. We had some great laughs before an early bedtime to prepare us for the next day of driving to the Grand Canyon!
On the morning of April 14th, we had a slower wake up, which was quickly turned around by a nudge from Grandma Lucy to get to breakfast at Sue & Rick’s house. We arrived to a mountain of food and smiling faces. We were all completely starstruck with the options we were given. The rundown of breakfast was fry bread, eggs, bacon, two types of sausage, rice, squash, and other options. We also got to try Navajo wildflower tea, which was delicious. With our plates piled high, we ate and listened to the stories that Sue told us, and got to hear some of her flute-playing, which was delightful.
Now that we were extremely full, we were ready to take on the day and drive to the Grand Canyon! We had a 2 hour drive over, with most of the bus in a food coma from breakfast. We arrived at our campsite, and Ted and I took longer than usual to figure out the trailer (it can be difficult). Once that was finally done with, we pulled out our tent cards and settled in. We went down to the Canyon, which was a brand new beautiful sight. Many of us, including me, have never seen the Grand Canyon before, and we were elated to gaze out at the endless scenes. We spent 20 minutes sketching what we saw, and then had a brief science class where we learned about the history of the canyon (thanks for sharing your knowledge Ted!). It was very interesting to hear, especially the 200 million years of missing rock, which we are all still hung up on. Where could it have gone?
After a photo-op and some more looking around, we left to go make lunch by Bennie, our bus. The smart ones made fry bread sandwiches with the leftover breakfast food, but the rest of us were happy to have one of our favorite lunches: pita wraps. Lila got to chopping the carrots, and was immediately knife-mogged by Sue, who took hold of the knife and chopped faster than Lila could have ever dreamed. We all sat around and chatted with Sue & Rick while eating our lunches. Then, we made a devastating discovery. Bennie had a very blown out tire. We honestly don’t know how we made it to the Canyon in the first place. Emi made the decision to go get it fixed at a nearby shop while we got free time at the campsite. Everyone was happy to have some free time as it’s surprisingly rare. Hailey and I went for a run, as did Ted. We got back and did a group ab workout led by the Nordic Skiers of the group, a little something they call “belly blasters”. Laughing and sore, we waited for the bus to get back to get our next plans, which was dinner at Sue & Rick’s house by the canyon. We had heard rumors that this dinner would be like no other, and we were all so excited. We piled onto the bus and arrived at the house. We took no time to start eating a bountiful dinner of more fry bread (obviously), brisket, teriyaki beef, and vegetables. 10/10. We played around at Sue & Rick’s and chatted with them, and met Mila and Leela, who are ten and eight. After a few hours of fun and talking, we headed back to the campsite. With Freya on navigation, we were all confident, that was until the online map went rogue and took us every which way. It even tried to take us straight through the middle of a house, which is not ideal. We arrived back at the site with a later evening meeting, ready to go to bed and take on tomorrow. Good night MTCLRM!!
April 15th: Good Morning! We have a later breakfast at 8:45, which gave many of us time to go on a morning jog. Side note, the 15th was my 18th birthday! I am officially an adult. Hooray! Anyways, we had a plentiful breakfast of yogurt (my favorite), French toast, and a little something Lila called “Scrambled Pancakes”. Interesting to the eye, but tasted good. We had an English class where we discussed the current book we are reading, and then got on Bennie at 11 am to head to the Canyon yet again! We did more sightseeing and went to the visitor center to buy postcards. We have loved our time at the Grand Canyon and are sad to leave. We saw our last sights and filled all the water scepters before heading to our new destinations.
We stopped at the confluence, which is where the little Colorado River meets the big one, or at least that’s what they say. We wouldn’t know because it was completely dried up! It has been pretty warm recently. We had some fun there, and some of us bought some jewelry from a local Navajo vendor before lunch. For lunch, we had caprese sandwiches, which are a crowd favorite. We set up and ate in our favorite spot, the ground of a parking lot. Something about going on Mountain Classroom is you definitely get used to puzzled stares from people passing by –understandable because we do sit in parking lots for meals. After a delicious parking lot lunch, we headed over to a new place! We drove over to a hotel parking lot, courtesy of Verrin, Proctor Alum Olivia’s dad. The hotel is called Moenkopi, and is owned by Hopi nation. We got to chill in the lobby for a few minutes and then got a lovely tour of some of the history of the hotel, and got context behind many of the decorations in the lobby. Thanks for a great tour Mike! We then went outside and packed our bags, because for the next two nights we will be staying in the cornfields! We packed all our stuff in our Thorston’s truck and then got to ride in the back of Verrin’s truck all the way over to the cornfields. We set up tents and got to learn a lot about the history of farming in Hopi nation. We were graciously given dinner by Verrin’s aunt and Noreen, who cooked us an amazing meal of Fry bread, corn bread, blue corn muffins, and a beef & vegetable soup. We celebrated my birthday with some cupcakes and way too many renditions of the happy birthday song (Thank you Elliot). After some stargazing, we had an early night of sleep and headed off to bed!
April 16: Good morning MTCLRM! We woke up on the earlier side and had a good oatmeal breakfast! We felt ready to take on the day. Today was going to be a harder day than others, as we began the process of irrigating the cornfields. This essentially means a controlled flood in the cells of the field. After breakfast and getting ready, we began work at 9. Our goal for the morning was to dig three moats across the entire field. We divvied up tasks between all of us, with some digging, some pickaxing, some using the garden hoe, and some weeding. We got right to work and moved as efficiently as possible! Elliot took charge of the pickaxing for quite a while, which is impressive because the pickaxe is very heavy. We took turns with jobs and worked as hard as our bodies would let us before taking a quick snack break. We noticed we all already had blisters and cuts all over our hands, but spirits were impressively high, and we were antsy to get back out there to dig more. After we finished our first row, we were already two hours in, when Georgie came up with a better strategy that had us finished with our third row by lunchtime.
For lunch, we were given sandwiches made again by Verrin’s aunt. We were happy to have a pre-made lunch and get to hang out for a while! We hung out in the sun for a while, occasionally getting mouthfuls of dust when a wind gust came in. We did some more work in the later afternoon to get the pipes and hoses laid out where they need to be, and had some more free time where we went to look at ancient pottery shards. It was so cool to see these pieces just lying around that were hundreds of years old! We gathered for dinner, which was yet again a generous gift from Noreen, Thorston’s wife. There was delicious yeast bread, piki (very thin rolled blue corn sheets), and a stew with hominy and pork neck. We are all so grateful for the food we were given. It was so nice not to have to cook every meal! Not to mention it was all delicious!
We hung out for a while after dinner before returning to do some irrigation work in the fields. We filled the tank with gas and water to prepare it to get the water from the river for the fields. After a while of working, Verrin had to leave and come back to get a missing piece, and we decided to take a nap at 9:00 pm because we knew we had a long night ahead. At 10, we were woken up because Verrin had returned, and we all got back to work. We decided on the shifts we will take through the night: Annie, Freya, Cortland, and Ted from midnight to 2 am; then Christina, Will, Georgie, and Lila from 2 am to 4 am; and finally Reagan, Hailey, and Elliot from 4 am to 6 am. After we delegated these tasks, those of us who were not on went to get a few hours of sleep. I can’t speak much about what happened in the shifts before mine because I was asleep. What I do know is that at midnight, we set off a bunch of fireworks which was really fun. Goodnight (for three hours)!
April 17: Good Morning! My shift was awoken at 4 am, and we learned the process had gone much more slowly than we had expected. There were a few bumps in the road that had to be corrected, and by the time we got up the hose was about ready to be moved to row two. Christina, being the angel she is, stayed up for my shift to get some more hands on deck (she did not go to sleep once during the night, aside from a 40-minute Power Nap). We moved the hoses and set everything up correctly. It took an hour, but we successfully moved the hose to row two. By this time, the sun was already rising, and the day was beginning. Cortland and Elliot had the grand idea of waking everyone up by setting off even more fireworks, which I can imagine was an abrupt alarm clock.
We had yogurt for breakfast, and moved very slowly as we were all half-awake. Although we got minimal sleep, we all had a lot of fun and learned a lot from our experiences. After taking down camp, we were ready to head back to the parking lot of the hotel to reorganize our stuff. We were all so happy to see Bennie the bus again, and also use a sink, as we had many layers of dust all over ourselves. We cleaned ourselves up a bit, said thank you and goodbye to Verrin, and headed to Walmart as we had to grocery shop for our solos. We took an astounding 4 hours grocery shopping and eating a lunch of Pita and vegetables, but it really only felt like 20 minutes. Just a glimpse into how sleep deprived we had become.
Upon leaving Walmart, we learned that our new campsite for the night, near Lake Powell, had showers!! How exciting! We love it when that happens. Annie and I ran to get the first showers because we had a big dinner of burrito bowls to cook. We had an early dinner that night because we really all wanted to get to sleep. Dinner took around an hour and a half, and I have to say props to the chef (me + Annie) because it was quite good. We love burrito bowls! As the day was coming to an end, we had an early evening meeting to discuss our upcoming solos and how they work. There is a mix of excitement and nervousness within the group, but I think that the solos will be an incredibly valuable experience for everybody. Upon that chat, we all hurried right to bed and had a long night of sleep.
As my blog comes to an end, I want to truly thank and appreciate all the new people we got to meet this week. We certainly aren’t in Andover, NH anymore, and it was so nice to learn more about a new way of life that we are all unfamiliar with. The members of the Navajo and Hopi Nations treated us with such hospitality and kindness that it is hard to put into words how grateful we are. I am so glad I got to have this eye-opening experience and see some new things!
Also, to all my family and friends, I miss you all so much, but know I am having a great time, and I can’t wait to see you when I’m back!
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