Culture

I woke up this morning hoping that school would be canceled. Don’t get me wrong I am enjoying working at the Tribal School, but when we left the school yesterday it sounded as though there would be no school the next day… and I seemed to have become attached to that idea. In fact I had already mentally planned what I would do in the case of cancellation and these plans mostly involved sleeping. A lot. ☺ Well, rather than being cancelled school was only delayed two hours, giving me a chance to see what Culture Days look like at this school.

Every Thursday the Tribal school has Culture Day. At first I was a little unsure as to what this meant. I wasn’t sure if they were taught the history of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe or what, but I soon found out that there are several activities for students to engage in during this time. These involved learning the Coeur d’Alene language, making walking sticks, beading, knitting, sewing, and many other things. Personally I had my eye on the language learning part, but fifteen minutes before the activities began I was asked if I knew how to sew and if I would help the girls sew “wing dresses”. Now, I worked as a seamstress for two and a half years at Central and that wore on me. I enjoyed the people and the fact that it supplied me with a bit of money, but in the end I *hated * sewing and I had pretty much decided that I would avoid it in the future if at all possible. So here I was, working with about five girls who had never sewn before, fighting a begrudging attitude, *and * there was no pattern to work with! After a little bit of scrambling my mentor, the math teacher/librarian, and I were able to figure out how to put the all ready cut out pieces together. At the end of the time the dresses were looking pretty good, I was actually starting to enjoy sewing again, and I was wishing that I could make something for myself.
By the way... does anyone know how to turn this picture right side up?