Housing

As it is most everywhere homes on the Res. are in all different shapes and sizes. The traditional home is an eight sided Hogan. The Navajos have a clan system.  It is also a matriarcal society so the first clan is your mothers clan, second the fathers and so on. Each person has four clans. The clans may not intermarry. Annie's clans are bitterwater, salt, billygoat and coyote.
The mothers clan often live in the same group or compound, up to 10 and more houses. Their social life is within their clan and may not know neighbors that are not of their clans.

This is Elder Lybbert with Victor in front of his Hogan. The hogan was his grandmothers so it is built in the traditional way. There are still some of these in use but more modern ones are now used.

Inside a Hogan there is a wood stove in the center and beds and furniture around the walls.

Most homes or groups of homes have at least one  Hogan as see the the next pictures.

 a

Most Hogans have a dirt floor and no inside bathroom but the Hogan to the right in this picture is fairly large and has tile floors, bathroom and is very clean. An elderly lady, Lilly Tso, lives here and her daughers take care of her. We visited with her but she speaks no English and can't hear very well. It is very common for the elderly to live in the Hogan. The Hogan is also used for Native traditional ceremonies.
You can see Pinon in the background.

Pinon has four housing developements in town. This one is unique since they are Hogan duplexes.

There are two developements like this with about 65 homes in each. They are reservation housing which are assigned to applicants for rent or rent to own.  It seems to be where  many would like to live but they are hard to aquire. If someone in the family is handicapped it is easier. There are several boarded up so I asked why and was told that if someone dies in a house that it is a bad thing so no one can live in it after. They are basic homes built on a cement slab and vinyl tile on the floors. The new and renovated ones are stuccoed.
There is also the teachers housing where the schoolteachers and school employees live which has about 200 homes.The teachers housing is a step up from the Res. housing. They have carpet in some of them.
There are two other housing developements in our area, Forest lake, about 20 min. north and Whipporwill, 20 min. east. There is pavement all the way to Forest lake but Whipporwill has about 4 miles of dirt road after leaving the pavement.

If you watch the T.V. show Extreme Makeover you may remember seeing this home built. It is a couple of miles west of Pinon and belongs to Georgia Yazzie. We visited her this week and she told us the story of how it all came about. Its too long to tell here but it was all because of her son Garret and his desire to enter a grade seven science fair. After winning state and national awards he went to international. Because of his notariety in the science field, his family was nominated by three people to the Extreme Makeover Show. For more on the story google Garret Yazzie http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/junk-yard-genius.html

This is definitely the nicest home in Pinon area. It is two hogans with a room between. Georgie, her youngest daughter live in one and the older daughter and her three children live in the other. Garret is away at college.

We have had the opportunity of meeting a wide variety of people and we have enjoyed getting to know them better. This week we have been able to contact several families who have expressed a desire for us or the young Elders to teach them starting this coming week. We are hoping good things will happen with these families.

Love to you all,

Elder and Sister Lybbert

Tumbleweeds

To get exercise and enjoy the sunshine we have been clearing out the tumbleweed from the yard and burning it. This was the largest one and along with others made a big fire for a short time.

The tumbleweed is called goathead or bullhead or ramshead. It has a thorn that looks like a head with horns. They stick on shoes or clothes and come of in the house. When we step on them with sock or bare feet we call them ouch. The Canadian custom of taking off shoes in the house does not apply here.

Another interesting feature about the roads. Where there is gravel they get washboardy and VERY rough so the way to overcome this is to drive in the ditch. The upside of this is often the ditch is graded but the isn't.

This week we haven't had anything too unusual happen but we did have an interesting incident on Monday night which Elder Lybbert explains next.

Monday night there was a knock on our door and when I opened it there stood a Navajo police officer. He had a young women that he a picked up on the road. She had been hichhiking and it was late and cold and he didn.t know what to do with her. He said we were his only hope.(there are no hotels or accomadations here and the nearest police station is nearly 2 hrs. away.) Her name was Marlene Savage so I could say we had a savage here all night.  I got to cook her breakfast which she seemed to enjoy (pancakes, eggs and little sausages). She felt bad that she couldn't pay us anything so she dug around in her bag and found a little calender that stiks on the frig and gave it to us. We took her down to the main road so she could continue her journey. She said she had been baptized but never attended church for years.

What a blessing the gospel could be in the lives of these people if they could just live by its teachings.

Elder and sister Lybbert

Industries of Pinon

This is Pinon coming in from the west. The school boarding building is on the right, next to the left is our church and the trailer next to it. On the far left is the schools. The schools are the main industry. There are about 420 high  school students and then middle school and elementary. They employ teachers, cafateria staff, bus drivers, mechanics etc. In every school, gate coming into the schools, bashes, service station most everywhere there is security officers.

                                                                Pinon Middle School

                                                                           High School

This where they have pre school and kindergarden. They also board students that live too far away to be bussed or are unable to live with family for some reason. They employ staff to care for them and they have after school activities for the children. I talkrd to a young lady, Tiffany, who lived there most of her school days alond with her siblings. She said she liked living there where there were lots of other kids.

There is a new walk in medical clinic here which has the E.M.S.,dentists and doctors. It is only for the reservation so the benagolies(white) have to go to Ganada or Flagstaff. The doctors and nurses are on contract for a length of time and have housing next to the clinic. The office staff and housekeeping are Navajo so they employ quite a few.
There is also a fleet of vans called safe ride that will take Navajos to medical appiontments in other cities.

The service station in Pinon next to bashes. A busy place most anytime.

The Chapter House

This is like the town hall where the local government office is and where the community meetings are held. Several people are employed here.

There is a coal mine about 45 min. north where some are employed. Several we have talked to worked on the railroad. One branch member is a tribal policeman. The Navajos are traditionly sheep herders and there are still lots of sheep being raised along with a few cattle and many horses although we haven't been able to figure out how they servive on sage brush.

This has been a fairly busy week for us since we made two trips to Chinle. We had an interesting experience yesterday. We were looking for a members house so stopped to ask directions at place that had a couples houses and the usual Hogan. A fellow outside invited us into the Hogan. Inside was an elderly lady sitting on a bed and a young lady cleaning out the ashes in the stove. The elderly lady motioned for me to sit beside her and asked me something in Navajo and touched her head. The grandaughter asked if  Wayne was a Catholic Priest and I a sister but  her grandmother said "gomally" which means Mormon and she wanted a blessing. Apparently at sometime in her grandmothers life she had been familiar with our church and new about preisthood blessings. Wayne gave her a blessing and soon we continued with our day. It was a touching experience. The fellow who invited us in asked to have the young Elders come back to teach him. The people here have a very strong faith and when we visit they always want a prayer and enjoy a scripture even if they are not of our faith.

Shopping on the reservation

This is Bashes. They have a good selection of most of your grocery needs and also the needs of your horses,chickens,sheep. Most of the flour they sell is Bluebird brand which is used for fry bread and sold in cloth bags. They also sell gallon cans of   soup called Menudo, the ingredients being tripe(part of the stomach) and hominy. The main meat they sell is mutton and it looks like the animal was rather old and skinny. The produce is fresh and a very good variety. I can even buy my Macintosh apples most of the time. They do cost me 1.79 a pound. Their prices are high but they have some good sales. Its an hour to another grocery store but it is also Bashes. 

This is Annie. She is a nice elderly lady who stops by occasionally  because she needs a ride to Bashas or to her nieces house a few blocks away. Another purpose for her visit may be that she has something to sell. I have bought a set of cushion covers  for more than I should have paid for them just because she is who she is. This is another way of shopping here, there is often someone wanting to sell you something. We have learned not to carry any cash so then when we are asked to buy something or to lend money we can honestly say we don’t have any cash.

Thr Flea market is held every day, the nicer the weather the more trucks there are selling. Mud doesn't slow it down too much. You can buy clothes, boots, shoes, jewelery, tires, sheep, hay(up to $18 a small bale), rugs, weaving yarn and even more stuff that its best not to mention.

This week has seemed quite busy. We met with the mission pres. in Chinle on Wed. which was good. We have visited several members and have had a few needy ones stop by whom we fed and listened to their story. We have not had a problem using up leftovers. Went to a funeral on Thursday which was interesting. A lady we met there, Rose Johnson-Tsosie has written a book about her sister and her called Finding Helen-A Navijo miracle. Shawna is buying one for us from Amazon.

This week has gone by much faster than the previous ones so thats a sign we are getting settled in and keeping busier. We are teaching an eight year old, getting him ready for baptism. His parents are members but haven't been to church . Hopefully we will find them home today. They live in a Hogan with dirt floor but they do have power so they have a computer and TV.

Love to all, Elder and Sister Lybbert 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The last sunset of 2011

Waynes first attempt at baking bread in his new volcano11

New years Eve

The Elders brought some sparkling apple juice they got as their white elephant gift and we played games till 10pm when it was time for them to be at home and our bedtime. We did wake up at midnight when we heard fireworks going off.