Jessica Emails from Arizona May 2002
From: "Jessica Friedrichs" <jxf243hotmail.com>
>To: jwf5psu.edu
>Subject: blue skys and starry nights
>Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 15:46:33 -0400
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 May 2002 19:46:33.0304 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[E3F51580:01C1F5FF]
>
>hi...
>i just have a brief second on email but i wanted to send along that i am
>glorious and happy out here among the sunshine and sandpiles and
>sheep. it is quite amazing to be in such a place of stunning beauty and
>heartful people...
> ...okay - 5th graders are storming the room! tell all that i am full of
> wonder out here ---learningteachingblur and lots of adventures.
>~jes
>ps...more exciting news - my office is taking a cross country journey in
>june. we'll spend a week doing service in yellowstone!! and much
>more...what a life i lead!
From: "Jessica Friedrichs" <jxf243hotmail.com>
>To: jwf5psu.edu
>Subject: blue skys and starry nights
>Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 14:10:29 -0400
>
>Please forward on to the crowd if possible.
>
> I just wanted to drop a note about my latest adventure here in Tuba
> City, Arizona, one of the main cities on the Navajo reservation. I am
> here as the service-learning coordinator for a University of Pittsburgh
> class.
>The course is actually a film service-learning course and the students are
>both serving as tutors in the Eagle's Nest 5th grade classes as well as
>making a documentary about this community and our experiences here.
> Arizona is full of stunning beauty - the mornings are cold and the days
> are sunny. Driving around we have watched the scenery change from soft
> yellow desert sands to mountains of red rock, to green pine forests, to
> something I imagine can only be compared to the moon. That moonscape is
> where we are staying - among sand, mesas, and giant molehills striped
> with blue, white, pink, and orange (depending on the sun). We spent last
> weekend visiting Canyon de Chelly which looks like red molasses dripped
> down from the sky. The canyon is part of the Navajo reservation and many
> people still live in it. It was quite a sight to round the last corner
> on our way to the canyon floor and be standing in an old woman's
> backyard. She was wearing a bright blue skirt and standing next to a
> crackling fire, her small house nearby.
> Our days are jam-packed with tutoring and making video at the
> school. It has been really interesting for me to lead a group through
> the service-learning/cultural travel experience and see us all unfold in
> so many ways. Because of the video project, which is led by a wonderful
> artist and instructor from Pitt -Jen Saffron, I have thought about many
> issues of what it means to represent people.
> I have been surprised, teased, and confided in by so many people here
> on the reservation. It is exciting to be in a place where everyone
> speaks English so we can communicate! One of my new friends is a social
> worker in the school office who has traveled with her Iroquois husband to
> Egypt (they were invited by the President) as well as to Israel, Turkey,
> France, and so many places I can't remember. She also loves the blues
> and jazz. So many people here have invited us into their homes to share
> their culture with us - a Hopi woman showed us how to make ceremonial
> bread as thin as paper (called Piki) by running sheep brains and then
> dough over a burning hot stone with her bare hands. A Navajo family
> brought us to their hogan (the traditional Navajo home which is circular
> and always has the door facing east towards the sun) and told us what it
> was like to grow up only speaking Navajo, without running
> water/electricity (which they still don't have), and sheering sheep for
> their livelihood.
> The community here is actually very diverse. Tuba City is a frontier
> town in many ways as Mormons set up the original city and trading post
> here. It has exactly one pizza shop, 3 diners, one chinese place, and a
> grocery store. Oh and of course a McDonald's. House are the color of
> sand, or trailers, or some are still traditional hogans (but made of
> siding instead of mud and wood). The yards are made of sand, that cracks me up!
> I keep thinking of how much this place (literally in the middle of
> nowhere) has to offer - a trip to the desert is full of so much
> mindfulness and the people I have met here are so heartful.
> I think of you all much and hope you are as full of stars and sky as
> this place is.
>Love lot,
>~jessica
>
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From: "Jessica Friedrichs" <jxf243hotmail.com>
>To: jwf5psu.edu
>Subject: blue skys and starry nights
>Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 15:46:33 -0400
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 May 2002 19:46:33.0304 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[E3F51580:01C1F5FF]
>
>hi...
>i just have a brief second on email but i wanted to send along that i am
>glorious and happy out here among the sunshine and sandpiles and
>sheep. it is quite amazing to be in such a place of stunning beauty and
>heartful people...
> ...okay - 5th graders are storming the room! tell all that i am full of
> wonder out here ---learningteachingblur and lots of adventures.
>~jes
>ps...more exciting news - my office is taking a cross country journey in
>june. we'll spend a week doing service in yellowstone!! and much
>more...what a life i lead!
From: "Jessica Friedrichs" <jxf243hotmail.com>
>To: jwf5psu.edu
>Subject: blue skys and starry nights
>Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 14:10:29 -0400
>
>Please forward on to the crowd if possible.
>
> I just wanted to drop a note about my latest adventure here in Tuba
> City, Arizona, one of the main cities on the Navajo reservation. I am
> here as the service-learning coordinator for a University of Pittsburgh
> class.
>The course is actually a film service-learning course and the students are
>both serving as tutors in the Eagle's Nest 5th grade classes as well as
>making a documentary about this community and our experiences here.
> Arizona is full of stunning beauty - the mornings are cold and the days
> are sunny. Driving around we have watched the scenery change from soft
> yellow desert sands to mountains of red rock, to green pine forests, to
> something I imagine can only be compared to the moon. That moonscape is
> where we are staying - among sand, mesas, and giant molehills striped
> with blue, white, pink, and orange (depending on the sun). We spent last
> weekend visiting Canyon de Chelly which looks like red molasses dripped
> down from the sky. The canyon is part of the Navajo reservation and many
> people still live in it. It was quite a sight to round the last corner
> on our way to the canyon floor and be standing in an old woman's
> backyard. She was wearing a bright blue skirt and standing next to a
> crackling fire, her small house nearby.
> Our days are jam-packed with tutoring and making video at the
> school. It has been really interesting for me to lead a group through
> the service-learning/cultural travel experience and see us all unfold in
> so many ways. Because of the video project, which is led by a wonderful
> artist and instructor from Pitt -Jen Saffron, I have thought about many
> issues of what it means to represent people.
> I have been surprised, teased, and confided in by so many people here
> on the reservation. It is exciting to be in a place where everyone
> speaks English so we can communicate! One of my new friends is a social
> worker in the school office who has traveled with her Iroquois husband to
> Egypt (they were invited by the President) as well as to Israel, Turkey,
> France, and so many places I can't remember. She also loves the blues
> and jazz. So many people here have invited us into their homes to share
> their culture with us - a Hopi woman showed us how to make ceremonial
> bread as thin as paper (called Piki) by running sheep brains and then
> dough over a burning hot stone with her bare hands. A Navajo family
> brought us to their hogan (the traditional Navajo home which is circular
> and always has the door facing east towards the sun) and told us what it
> was like to grow up only speaking Navajo, without running
> water/electricity (which they still don't have), and sheering sheep for
> their livelihood.
> The community here is actually very diverse. Tuba City is a frontier
> town in many ways as Mormons set up the original city and trading post
> here. It has exactly one pizza shop, 3 diners, one chinese place, and a
> grocery store. Oh and of course a McDonald's. House are the color of
> sand, or trailers, or some are still traditional hogans (but made of
> siding instead of mud and wood). The yards are made of sand, that cracks me up!
> I keep thinking of how much this place (literally in the middle of
> nowhere) has to offer - a trip to the desert is full of so much
> mindfulness and the people I have met here are so heartful.
> I think of you all much and hope you are as full of stars and sky as
> this place is.
>Love lot,
>~jessica
>
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