What a pleasure, my first stay on an Oneida Reservation… outside of GreenBay Wisconsin. A blended family of 17 years ago… Paul Smith of Oneida tribe and Beverly Scow of a tribe in British Columbia…met in a huge Canadian govt-Mohawk stand off in 1990… when a govt was mowing under a sacred Mohawk burial ground to enlarge a golf course. Gosh, I don’t remember it…apparently it was broadcast world wide but not in the US…total shut out of news. 2 Helicopters went down, one legislator who was trying to bring all to the table was ‘accidentally killed’…several movies were made of it. I have no memory of this!!! Anyway, now Paul is the director of all of Heifer’s work on and with native communities, Bev is associate director of Wise Women Gathering Place… and becoming a ToP Trainer.

I wish you could all see this house. 5 bedrooms… 3 of the older children have other ‘friends’ staying here, who are trying to go to the good high school in Green Bay, not the one on the ‘reservation’. I can’tell where they are sleeping. Two of the smallest children ages 7 and 9 moved out of their room so I could sleep…and SLEEP I did, wow, wonderful. Anyway, every single table or shelf surface in the common areas are packed with stuff/photos about the kids… and as far as I can see, they are all on honor rolls, basketball or lacrosse teams, doing something. I noticed that 3 of them had permission to be picked up this week by a policeman, to be taken holiday shopping. And I noticed from photos that they had a grandchild born with a severe cleft palate in 2003 who lived for 7 months. There are photos of the child being held separately by the whole family.

Let’s see…there are dishes of cat and dog food up on separate shelves…none on the floor…apparently each pet knows where its food is. And all trash containers are off the floor as well…I think that is so the dog that stays indoors during the day will behave. And the kitchen and floors are immaculate. Everything in it’s place. Awesome. Lynne remember how hard it was to keep our light colored kitchen floor looking clean? Aha, the youngest (7) just came by, it’s his job to feed all the animals in the a.m., apparently, taking handfuls of stuff here and there. His name is Kwnahta – everyone has an Oneida name, which after the first ‘mental’ block, come easily. So what he calls himself sounds like ‘quinn’. He just laughed at what other non-natives would do with his whole name, he likes his name.

All house doors are left open during the day…this is an area of about 3000 residents that was built in the 70’s-80’s, after a Casino was built and some funds began to flow. This is NOT a rich tribe…however, the casino money does fund a huge health/social service center, where we are holding our course these two days, and I think some of the high school. The school is designed to be in the shape of an eagle… which apparently you can really see from the air…from the ground driving by you can see the head (the huge round gym), the eyes, the ‘wings’ as pods on each side. By the way, I did find out that the Oneida tribe here IS a part of the New York Oneida (Iroquois) tribes… this group was moved to Wisconsin early. The New York group flows over to Canada… apparently.