Gaza, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah... Bellingham

I'm leaving on the 3rd to Israel, and I am inundated with the conflict.

I read the same news stories from Al Jazeera and JPost at least twice a day. I just finished Carter's book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" (brilliant!). I am confronted with the conflict by the Rabbi's sermon at Shabbat services and by the Israeli temple members whom I've been taught by. I've been to two Birthright Orientations in the last month... enough said. I have just finished watching a movie about a love story between an Israeli and an Arab. AND I've even just finished writing my latest short story off a dream I had about a conversation between a Jew and a Palestinian.

I don't know what's happening to me. My only relation to this area of the world is that I am half/wholly (I know, it's confusing) Jewish.

Everything that I was raised to believe, from 12 years of Hebrew School, and from a Jewish (pro-Israeli) family of intellectuals;
I don't anymore.

My "people" and half of my family are strongly on one side, yet my conscious takes me to another.

I feel sick, conflicted, distressed, sad, and frustrated. I am starting to think that the journey I am about to take to the Middle East next week will mark a very new and dramatic beginning to the year 2009 (...or the year 5769..... or the year 1429....)

Is It Destiny or Reason?

"Are human societies destined to commit collective acts of violence?"


Destiny, requires the belief in a greater purpose. Greater purposes require organized plans. Purposes and plans require decision making, and thus we have a connection to the Judeo-Christian interpretation of an all-powerful “God”. Anthropology is a science, and there is no scientific method of proving or disproving the concept of destiny. One can gather all of the examples in the world to prove it, it is impossible to test and quantify any type of results that would support the belief – for who is to say what is intended and what is not. Humans are not destined to commit collective acts of violence. Nor are the destined to be altruistic and kind. Human societies “are that they are” and their violent and altruistic acts alike have reasons and triggers. We are led to the question of what are the explanations of violence. Why do human beings commit such collectively violent atrocities such as genocide, and greed-induced destruction of their natural habitat?
A horrifying example of collective acts of violence is genocide. Genocide involves great amount of people joining together in a common goal of murdering another group of people. I believe that it is one of the many mutant offspring of the establishment of the nation-state. In Thomas Eriksen’s book, Small Places, Large Issues, he states: “A successful nationalism implies, in most cases, an intrinsic connection between an ethnic ideology stressing shared descent”. What Eriksen is insinuates is that the nation-state requires homogeneity of ethnicity and culture in order to uphold the defined identity and shared ideology that it represents. Throughout history, many nation states were drawn across cultural boundaries. This is most clearly seen in the continent of Africa. In the nation of Rwanda, both the Hutus and the Tutsies, two different ethnic tribes, reside. Due two cultural tensions (caused by many other initial triggers from history), the nation could not settle peacefully with it’s homogenized identity, and in 1994, one of the most horrific genocides in human history broke out.
Environmental destruction is another act that involves the cooperation and desires of a large amount of people acting upon a common ideology, desire and supposed “need”. The destruction our earth is, and continues to be, a collective effort, and is product of industrialization and the “progress” of societies. In a case in Borneo, the Borneo Pulp and Paper Company want(s)ed the Sarawak’s land for inherent environmental destruction (through logging and agriculture) for their own economic gain. The Sarawak people are native to the island of Borneo, and have been inhabiting the land for many generations. The act of taking away and destroying land (consequently destroying the animal species and surrounding ecosystems about it) from one group of people, to serve the purpose of a large collective of people, is intrinsically violent.
The cases I’ve present cannot be proven that they were of destiny. They can, however, be shown to have been attributed to distinct and sequential reasons that triggered their occurrences. Human societies have collectively committed violent acts since the dawn of our time. We have also committed beautiful acts of love and selflessness. Whether these acts are of destiny or possibility, it cannot be said.

Jerusalem Post

Recently, there was an article posted by J-post columnist, Schulmey Boteach about the Mumbai terrorist bombings. The article was titled "Love the Victims, Loathe Their Killers", and was about legitimizing hate towards the terrorists (aka muslims) who committed the act. I was so offended by the article, that I posted my thoughts online. This here is the comment chain that spread from it:

37. Intolerance Breeds Intolerance
This is terrible. You are only lowering yourself to the level of a murderer when you resort to hatred. No matter how intolerable the act. This hatred you've expressed is the same energy force that ignited the terror attacks in the first place. Grieve for the loss of life, and grieve for the loss of tolerance, but don't let anger overcome you. It is accusation, lack of forgiveness, and ignorance of compassion that keeps the world in dark places. Perhaps some of you are not understanding the hard lessons and challenges this event brings to us all.
-My comment

41. It is so easy to talk when you don't have a loved-one who perished in the attacks. Talk is cheap. Hyporcite.

45. About the carpet bombing of the nazi war machine
Eventually this degenerated in the wholesale slaughter of German civilians when focus shifted from industrial to civilian targets. Bomber command actually analysed German cities for how well they would burn when hit with incendiary bombs to maximise civilian casualties. THIS is what hate leads to Mr. Boteach.

47. Talk is cheap? This is true... so everyone can afford it. :P To find compassion within yourself is a difficult and active process - not an easy way out. Loathing, anger, and hatred are the easy way out. They are innate and natural emotions. If you find the willingness to turn the passion of your hate into loving kindness or compassion, than you have achieved far more than idle talk could ever bring. I hope that you can understand this. I have suffered loss, and I have experience anger and hate... but I have overcome it. Please, I am no hypocrite.
-my comment

49. yes, indeed, the allies bombed german civilians....while these same civilians enjoyed food and wine, not lifting a finger to help those starving, and dying in the concentration camps. yes, they bombed them, the heil hitler mommies and dadies crowd while jews were burning and going up in chimneys and while same german population KNEW THIS and still enjoyed their food and wine, their music and freedom. how inconvenient for them that we bombed them, no? and do tell, what did the nazi hate give us humans? you sanctimonious bastard and hypocrite. the jews of germany and europe were innocent victims of your so called german war machine and nazism. were the innocent 6 million jews not as human or civilian enough for you? were they not as "civilian" as your so called german cities with its "innocent population" ...just going about their daily business while we burned in your camps and shot for no reason into pits and then burned. were the jews not as innocent civilians as your german folks? if we burned, let german civilians burn as well. hate?bs

51. I understand your feelings rabbi.But you must watch how you talk of the G-d of Abraham,Isaac & Jacob.
rabbi,this is what you said quote "Could God really be so unreasonable, &would such a God be moral if He did? Could I pray to a God who loves terrorists?Could I find comfort in Him knowing that He offers them comfort as well? o, such a god would be my enemy.He would abide in Hades rather than heaven.& I would be damned before I would worship him."unquote.Who are you to know the mind of G-d?Even Torah says that G-d is a G-d of love.He loves the sinner but hates the sin! Remember,the muslims don't worship the same god.You had better rethink what you said here about Him.Anger perverts the tongue

52. -Muslims do pray to the same god. It is almost the same religion as Judaism except for some cultural spins in custom and tradition. to #51 It's about time we realized that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all derive from the same fundamental ideals. -If anything, the Holocaust taught us all a lesson on the unbelievable power of hate and loathing, and the hideousness it brings to the world. Think about that before flinging your unnecessary insults #49. We should all think about this.
-my comment

Africa Cries

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/
Insanity.

Thoughts on Language/Dialect Application

“Go grab yer guns, kids. With all them A-rabs ‘round, we gotta pro-tect arselves, they may look nice ‘n all, but they’re damn sneaky.” My mother says in a grossly exaggerated Texan accent at our family dinner table. It’s Tuesday night, and we were just discussing a CNN news report on Middle Eastern Americans suffering the affects of Islamaphobia. My family speaks a general American bland accent with hints of New York from my father, Boston from my mother, and the Mid-West from my brothers and myself. We speak the accent of Capitol Hill, of well-traveled and upper-middle classmen of a technologically homogenized United States. We speak with the accent of those who have money and power and who read enough about the country and the world around them to generalized regional peoples. This is why my mother speaks in a medley of strong regional accents to emphasize a point of view my family finds backwards or comedic.
A feminine and proper Southern drawl is used when emphasizing manners. A thick Bostonian accent is used for swearing and dark sarcasm. And an Ebonics dialect is taken up to make a statement comical. “…Language is one of the most important factors determining the identity of both the jokers and butts [of the jokes] and in defining the relationship between them…” (Davies 40) Much like the members of the Western Apache group discussed in Keith Basso’s “Indian Models of the Whiteman”, we use our imitations of different groups as an expression off comedy as well as a symbol of the relationship my family’s socio-economic identity, and many of the people in our identifying category, have with other such identities (i.e. the rural Texans, Bostonians and Black people), and our relationships with them.
The characteristics of my family’s identity put us in a position of power. The color of our skin, the income we earn and, subtly, the way we speak reflects our social standing and impressions we give out to those around us. For instance, historically, black people in the United States have not had a high degree of power. Because they tend to speak in an accent (or dialect as some prefer) that is substantially different from that of many other American accents, the way they use their language is an identification marker and thus, a symbol of their status’ power, or lack of.
The linkage between people’s language and power they hold in their broader environment is solid. In the specific case of my family’s use of different accents to emphasize a mood or a point, the jokes are not integrated into our ideologies of power structure, as many linguistic/ethnic jokers are. However, understanding how “people make sense [of the world around them] can be very difficult…” (Basso 3), and a good example of clarifying this point, is by observing the linguistic/ethnic jokes that they make amongst themselves

The Affects of Global Climate Change on Marine Life Behavior

Although we often refer to the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans as separate, they are all connected, encompassing the earth as one great ocean. Because of this, sea life from under the ice in Antarctica, in the emptiness of the middle ocean, and among the coral reefs are all interconnected in a finely balanced system of life. When one environment is effected by change, the organisms within respond behaviorally, and the entire ocean can feel this change. Global climate change, especially global warming, induced by the actions of humans, has profound effects on the ocean and the behaviors of marine life within it.
Elephant seals are an example of a mammalian marine creature that serves as a top predators in Antarctica. Elephant seals travel to the Antarctic shelf, where the females then travel away from the continent and forage within the marginal sea-ice zones. The males stay in a large, condensed group on the pack ice and forage primarily on the Antarctic shelf (Bailleul 2007). In one study, there was a striking correlation between the distance from the continent to sea-ice marginal zones, and the distance the females traveled away from the continent for foraging (Bailleul 2007). This suggests that the foraging behaviors of the elephant seals depend greatly upon the consistency of the Antarctic ice. Global warming has produced a great reduction in the extent of sea ice, with a recorded 12 – 20% decrease since the 1950’s (Barbraud 2006).
Avian species in Antarctica are also delicately connected to the balance of sea ice consistency. They have been laying their eggs on an average of 2.1 days later than in the 1950’s (Barbraud 2006). This significant change in phenological trends is connected to climate change via North Atlantic oscillation, weather conditions and seasonal temperatures (Barbraud 2006). The reduction in sea ice due to weather and temperature changes correlates with the decline in major food source abundances such as krill that are essential for the survival of Antarctic avian species (Barbraud 2006). Decreased food availability is the direct cause for a decrease in reproductive success, lower population abundances and changes in distribution (Moline 2008).
Climate change has also been shown to have severe consequences for the survival of scleratinian expand corals and their associated ecosystems. Changing oceanic temperatures reduces biological diversity, slows coral growth rates, and causes coral bleaching (Crabbe 2008). In one case in the Gulf of Mexico, change in winter air temperature averages at the flower garden banks were shown to connect to growth-rate changes of Montastea annularis coral (Crabbe 2008). Zooxanthellate coral communities in deep reefs ranging from 30 – 40 meters have compareable changes in species compositions that are “slowly but significantly decreasing” (Bak 2005). Coral mortality and species composition decreases are caused by bleaching due to extremely low temperatures, and tropical storms that are increasing with the onset of global warming (Bak 2005). The effects of tropical storms on coral reefs serves as a premiere example of oceanic interconnectedness. Storms do not directly affect the deep-sea coral, but they directly damage shallow coral. The sediment and debris that arises from the destruction of shallow reefs by storms, travels down the steep slopes into the deep-water reefs. The sediment rejection mechanisms of the coral species in the deep-reefs are not well developed and cannot efficiently remove sediment, reulting in coral mortality (Bak 2005).
The effects global climate change on coral reefs, elephant seals and Arctic avian species is seen clearly through a study on exploited, middle-ocean fish species. Water temperature has a significant impact on growth rates of deep-water fish (Thresher 2007). The mean annual growth rate for these fish have been shown to correlate with the summer mean SSTS explain near Maria Island (near Tasmania); the growth rates of the juvenile orange and deep-water oreostomatids expand are significantly less that their growth rates in the 1700’s (Thresher 2007). The study shows that with increased global warming, there will be a decrease in the fish’s population growth rates over the course of time and even a complete reversal (Thresher 2007). As explained earlier, the decrease in one marine population has a domino-like impact on a plethora of other marine and non-marine species alike. The decrease, and possible reversal of these deep-water fish populations will be felt by organisms all over the planet because of the vital co-dependence of our earth’s trophic levels.
The ocean is one body, one giant, organismal like structure that is balanced by the consistency of the systems within it. Global and regional warming causes a shift in zonal winds from the South Pacific, which then strengthens the East Australian Current and increased temperate SSTs regionally (Thresher 2007). If one system is cut off, such as the changing sea ice in the Antarctic, or one system is altered, such as the East Australian Current, than an innumerable amount of marine life are affected. Marine organisms are linked through the food chain to non-marine life, like sea birds and polar bears, that critically depend on them for survival. When global climate change affects one, seemingly insignificant factor of our oceans, in consequence, the entire world is thereby affected.

I Sleep In Your Bed

I have fallen asleep now,
so i am tucking myself in
to you giant, goose-feathered bed
my face sinks into your kind
white
pillows.
They smell like the back of your neck.

Your bed is large and lonely
and my small mass streams warmth that
prickles through the silken threads of the sheets
- liquid love particles permeate
I am a winsome occupant of your heart.

And now, times for pillow fights have ceased
and all the whispering has gone silent.
Although you cannot hear me,
I slumber deeply in your thoughts.
my breath hums with your heartbeat.

I will never slip away;
my eyes are eternally shut.
I am your tangible keep-sake,
a throbbing crystal orb
nestled with in the fortress of your memory.

Namibian Sand

I buzzed under white lights,
observing in the meta-present:

dizzying swirls of cruel and senseless numerical humiliation
the timid call for allegiance from a rejected and battered flag,
comicstrip posters that kick the feet out from under the already confused;

and decided

to take out the chap stick
that been in my backpack for six months -
Only to see
find grains of reddish san
melted into it's vanilla base,
screaming for me to remember,
that I've seen the world.

I Hope You Choke On A Spoon-Full Of Your Antics

Look at me!

Is the flesh of your finger-
tips more beautiful than
my eyes you mentioned
over a non-commital cup
of classy conversation?

You scoundral.
I eat bastardss like you
for breakfast with jasmine tea-
the small silver spoon
on the edge of my place
drizzles onto my napkin.

You fucking knight.
Did you sit down beside
a cackling fire in your shed,
polishing your armor for me?
The rounded metal bulge
bellow your chest plate
it’s far too big for you.

I hate you.
I truly hate you because
you look at me softly and
inch towards my stiffened
figure only to speak on the
silvery wings of impulse.

My Diagnostic Essay (Multiethnic Literatures)

"Ethnically Envious"

“Ethnically Envious” is a term recently coined by my mother to describe interest in all peoples and cultures not of my own origin. It is universally agreed throughout my family that my parents will have “brown grandbabies” judging solely from my taste in the magazine cut outs of men posted next my bed; “It would be a surprise if you end up with a white guy” my mother justifies. Race, or “ethnicity” as I prefer, plays the most prominent role in my life because it is the identification category that I find most intriguing and impactful. It is the category most confused and most stereotyped, and the one I have struggled with the most in the acceptance of my own identity.
Other categories of identity, such as class and gender, have never really been significant in my life. I have an agreeable personality, and have made tremendous efforts to understand, and get along with peoples from all walks of life. My personality often hides the stereo-typical traits of my socio-economic class and gender. Many of my close friends have been surprised to hear I am wealthy, “You don’t act like you’re rich” I’ve been told. And many who know me well but who have not seen my house or do not know my father is a surgeon, just assume I am middle to lower middle class because I don’t wear $150 dollar jeans and drive an expensive car to school. In fact, I took the school bus up until my last days of high school.
My gender, however, is simply an omnipresent presence in my life that I passively and contently accepted long ago. My gender has never truly kept me down, nor has it ever been an important part of my conscious or active mind. I have had very few sexist encounters, and aside from the occasional annoyance of inferior treatment by mechanics and car dealers, being a woman has just never been a concentrated subject in my pathway to success.
Ethnicity, on the other hand, has hit me hard. In truth, I have never denied my mother’s label. I have struggled with acceptance of my color. Inside, I sympathize deeply with all the people who suffer/ed under white power, and I feel an enormous weight of guilt that shrouds my race’s history. This is one of the reasons I hold a more connected tie to Judaism than any other member of my family. It is a way for me to separate myself from the white Christian that most often is blamed the culprit of oppression. I recognize the immaturity and underlying prejudices held in my own perceptions of my ethnicity, but I can’t help but feel them intensely. When I became a victim of racism it hurt me more than any other prejudice I had ever experienced; Ladysmith, South Africa, is not place for bouncy white girls.
Although ethnicity has had the most prominent effect on my life, all of the categories mentioned before are intertwined. They are all categories of identity, and all are roots of prejudice; whether it be in the 2008 Presidential election, or the funding of an inner-city Los Angeles High School. It is ethnicity that is most clearly worn on the billions of faces of the world. Humans are organizational beings that like to put things into categories; color is just an easy division.

I Want a Medal, But Will Swallow Nevertheless

Say what you will.
Recognition is glory...

true

but truth is not.

He is great
in the eyes
of those that follow their guides
with blindfolds.
Unable to solve their knots

Greatness comes
with a lift by many hands.
The many hands of
many people
A person is smart,
people are dumb.

Dumb and numb
and incontrevertibly
predictable,

Like gold he bears bodly.

He is celebrated in light
of all that beholds him,
defeating jealousy
that weakens will.

Refection in silence,
ripples strength
not easily defeated.

House

I’m leaving that house and my fingerprints on the door,
I want the crime scene investigators to think they’ve discovered something
When you finally die of irresponsibility
In your maintenance, beauty and care.
Your shallow walls won’t stop from crumbling
And your crooked windows are begging for a rogue pebble.

Shallow walls and crooked windows can’t fly in the market pool anymore.
My hand makes no hesitation as it swallows a fist full of doorknob and twists.
Twists like a perfect red licorice, twists…
like there’s no tomorrow.
And the door swings open swiftly,
Several muscles worth of force behind the gentle punch
of fresh air.

Love Poem

A blockage of my esophagus is causing my
tear ducts to fill.
My throats burns,
and in slow,
powerful
bursts of heart power…
I heave mercilessly.

Rest assured,
I am so very far
from histrionics and hysterics.
I am close to anger,
but unrelated to hate.
I am a bright,
budding
flower of love,
whose water-proof casparian strip
filtrates
all nutrients of potential.

I am left in dire yearning
yet grieve for nothing
on the eve
of my rebirth.

The Love of Learning (short story)

The concrete is much harder at Pine Ridge Reservation. It is too coarse and scalding to walk-bare-footed. Samuel was of the third generation of Curtis men who wore boots. When Samuel was four years old, he watched his father drive away in a rusted Ford pick-up. He only remembered the grass of the prairie swallowing the truck’s drunken roar. “It’s been quiet for ten years.” So murmured his grandmother in her sleep for every lonely night of 1995.

Every weekend, Samuel drank with his friends until his head was numb and his body soft and he dropped the crooked cans into road ditches in the late hours of the night. He washed his long black hair with a bucket of water he pumped by hand each morning. He feasted on Hamburger Helper when the government checks came and threw the memory away after sniffing from a tank of gasoline behind the empty buildings of splintered wood that faded gray under the vast, blue Dakota skies.

Samuel had never known his morther, or anyone with money and he had never been outside the stollen borders of Pine Ridge. One sunny afternoon, when Samuel was young, he had once asked, “Why?”

“Hunhunhe michinkshi,” Hinyete answered, “None of us damned Indians have money and we were never meant to have any money neither. But you see, history has it’s own way with things that are meant to be. They ain’t always pretty.”

Samuel became solemn and thought about what the man he called “Hunka”, had said.

“But listen,” Hinyete grunted with laughter, “we’ve always lived in tiny mobile homes.” Samuel remembered laughing heartily with him.

Hinyete was the only man he knew who could make a painful reality into a valuable life lesson that almost, just almost, lifted him out of darkness. Even his little jokes and puns were not quite enough to lighten the boy’s heart. Hinyete was appointed hunka-father to Samuel by his once good friend, Marshal Curtis. Hinyete had been told as a boy that he came from a rich lineage of sacred shamans and took it upon himself to uphold his family’s reputation. After Marshal left his boy, and his elderly mother, Hinyete saw to watching over them. With no structure and guidance it was certain that Samuel would be lost to another generation of appalling deterioration.

And Samuel was deteriorating. He could feel it in his limbs as his body began to ache from mistreatment. He could feel it when he lay on the plain, lost under the great morning sky. He could feel it in his heart where the holes grew deeper and darker each passing year of his youth. Samuel Dawning Star was missing a part of himself, and could not figure out who the hell he was.

It was Hinyete who made sure Samuel stayed in school. He had casually warned the boy that if he were ever to be expelled or droped-out, he would simply loose one of the only two family members he owned. At Red Cloud High School, Samuel was only a fortunate statistic. There were only thirty-five kids in Red Cloud’s Class of ’97 and Samuel knew plenty more who weren’t in school. Half of Shannon County was under eighteen but the high school could only muster 170 students.

“We’re going to try something different this year,” his teacher said one morning. “I want to know what you’re interested in.”

The students stared blankly at the mousy woman and she took the response with stoicism. “I want to know what you’re interested in so that you can study it.” The stares held unwavering, “I want you to find inspiration in learning.”

The teacher’s words cut through Samuel like a knife through butter. She had never before entroached on his mind and he could not explain why she now stood in front of him, glowing in a sharp yellow light. He was thoroughly irritated, and yet, beyond the howling stubborness that ran in his veins, he listened intently to his heart. He wracked the dusty shelves of his consciousness for any reminence of intrigue. Watching the students around him chatter freely only irritated him more. He could not understand how they could keep unscathed from the task, when he could not.

That night, Samuel fell into a frantic sleep and awoke steeped in cold sweat. He had never before experienced the raw disturbance of stress. He soaked his shirt in the bucket of water he had saved for his hair and went outside to hang it dry. He had searched deeply for an interest, and Samuel’s fingers began to shake as he realized there were none.

“I have no interests,” Samuel said to his teacher the next day. Her face faltered with frustration – he was not the first to say this, “but I wanna find one.”

She raised her eyebrow, “Would you like me to give you a list of study topics, and you can pick one of them?”

“Yes.”

Earnesty was unfamiliar to Samuel, and the list presented to him made his life no easier. Each topic he read into, he found more fascinating. US government was so complicated and mysterious; the Paleontology of the Dakotas was rich and plentiful; and the literature of Mark Twain was so frank it reminded him of Hinyete. He had felt glorious as he skimmed through pages of an encyclopedia. The boy was surfing a giant wave and had found himself able to keep clear of it’s crashing curls. Four books were craddled his arms when he left Red Cloud Highschool that day and they happily melted into his chest, their weight balancing his stride. Samuel Dawning Star Curtis had been introduced to the world of learning and fell freely in love.

The walk home was impossible. Twenty miles from the school to Samuel’s trailer could not be done in one afternoon, but the boy walked anyway. Confusion and excitement spun in his mind like fighting brothers. The air became cold as the sun hung low on the horizon. A wash of dark sky arched above long yellow grass, waving softly with the wind. When Samuel reached the empty buildings, he collapsed beside them, opening his chest to the setting sun.

A steady engine roared in the distance as an old beaten car came down the road. It was Hinyete, and Samuel stood to greet him. The car pulled into the large empty gravel lot and Hinyete swung the door open slowly, walking over casually to Samuel.

“What you doin out here boy?”

“I was takin a break…” Samuel said as he slipped his hands in his pockets and kicked the dust lightly around him.

“Washte,” he hummed, “Something is on your mind michinkshi?”

Samuel looked off across the plain; his dark eyes were bright from the orange reflection of the sun. “What are your interests, Hinyete?”

The man paused for a long while, until he had collected his thoughts.

“I was in love once,” he began, “and I was interested in her. Everything she said and did. I once had a best friend, and I was interested in all the things we did together. My friend had a boy and then he left, and I was interested in the boy, so I looked out for him.”

Hinyete smiled at Samuel and leaned in to nudge him.

“I am interested in what I love, Samuel.”

Samuel found himself relieved and satisfied with Hinyete’s words, “Pilamayo yelo, Hunka.” He said.

“Anhe, So you’re learning! You must have realized something michinkshi.” He adjusted his white cowboy hat and paused again for another long while. Hinyete pointed his finger at Samuel and lowered his head to look him in the eyes, “You’re no Indian trash, Samuel. If you’ve found love, you should listen to your heart.”