Youth + Camp + Culture

Today our lives are like a scrabble game. We are divvied out our individual pieces with which we will play the game. The game board is universal (the land). Our job is to create our own words and our own concepts. That was what we did recently when we responded to the request of a local grandmother to organize a a project to benefit our tribal youth.

She presented the social turmoil that so many young people are made to navigate through on a daily basis. Our grandmother said she believes our youth need spiritual guidance. She said that in order for them to appreciate what our ceremonies mean versus merely dressing in regalia and going through the motions they need to have spiritual guidance. They are good kids, she said, doing good in school, but without spiritual guidance, the peer pressure to “join in” the social turmoil was resulting in kids going astray.

The request was a huge responsibility. With best intentions this month the first version of the Karuk Youth Camp was realized. For those who have organized sprawling events involving youth, the complexities and problems are overwhelming in the beginning. It was our job to resolve problems–and we had lots of cool problems to deal with. The main problem is always communication–or lack thereof. It is especially difficult when key people are only periodically online due to lack of access, no internet, a job for 3 being executed by 1. We persevered.

After arriving to the camp location the day before to set up the kitchen we were warned that the “bears” were friskier than usual this year. We set up a plan to put all of the food into one of the pickups with a covered bed. We then discovered that two of the tents had broken poles! The list of unforeseen problems made our set up quite fun. Especially since our late arrival meant that we finished our set up after dark. Sure enough the local dogs had a bear, or something treed down by the river for about an hour or so in the middle of the night. Their barks and bawls echoed along the river canyon.

Next day when the kids started arriving we had them set up their own tents and then help those that came into camp after them. All went well. We were ready for the camp to offically start and we were more or less on time! It looked like all of the pre-planning was going to pay off.

The kids fell within the 10 to 15 year old range with a few being younger than expected. Our youth leaders were oriented to provide the leadership and direction for the younger and less culturally experienced kids in the camp. A series of activities were scheduled to provide a cultural understanding of what a ceremony means to our people. They were also taught songs used during the ceremony known as IHUK. A language component was scheduled, as were hikes and a short stint at forest management (our tanoak acorn grove was in need of clearing). They also made dance wands and headbands.

Looking back on the weekend there were a few rough spots here and there. The kids were great. We had a great group of adults, food was exceptional and plentiful. Most important, the bears were nowhere to be seen. We came home after introducing a group of kids to our ceremonial way, demonstrating the need for  cooperation and with hope showing that our cultural future requires belief and dedication by our people. We had fun and worked hard. In the end ‘a good time was had by all’.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.