Written on a Toasty Day

Going to Glen's house yesterday morning, I met up with Charlotte, Glen's sister.  (Glen is the director of Boys and Girls Club in Mission)  When I got to Glen's at 8:30, they had saved me chocolate chip pancakes from their breakfast party.  Yummm...  After I finished eating, the six of us went on Glen's porch to shoot his gun.  (His backyard is a prairie type field.)  I have shot BB guns and paintball guns, but never a real gun.  I shot a gun for the first time!!  What I fabulous way to start my day!  Then Charlotte, Glen, Mary, and I all went to Sinte Gleska University's museum of Lakota history.

I arrived at WBCWS by 10am.  Right now, I'm working on typing up a contact list of their donators.  Being at WBCWS, I learn a lot about Lakota culture, office work, running a non-profit, domestic violence, and sexual assault.  If you want to learn more about White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, check out http://www.wbcws.org/.

After going home for lunch, I went back to WBCWS to meet up with a couple workers there.  Our party of three went to the Missouri River-about two and a half hours away-to go to a ceremony of girls becoming women.   We were only there for one evening, but the girls doing the ceremony will be there for four days.  We went to talk to the girls about relationships.  There are many unhealthy relationships. Teaching girls to respect themselves and boys to respect girls is very important and will reduce the chance of a violent relationship.  Then a Lakota grandmother told us a story of how hitting a woman used to be handled in Lakota culture.  Another Lakota grandmother told us how a perpetrator was handled.  On the way home, our party of three stopped at McDonald's.  I'm not usually a huge fan, but I live in a town where the only chain fast-food place is Subway...so it was kinda exciting.

This morning, I went to WBCWS.  I used the typewriter to do grant reports again.  I now consider myself experienced with a typewriter: my reports look much neater now, and I got it done much faster.

Then I went to Boys and Girls Club.  We did work in the garden.  Four kids and I painted another "car wash" sign.  We painted it yellow and purple: Viking's colors.  We played in the broken bowling alley attached to Boys and Girls Club.  A couple girls painted my arms with their names in purple.  What a day!

After Boys and Girls Club, Lyric came home with me.  She is so awesome and sweet!  We had dinner and watched Phantom of the Opera.

I am sweating as I type.  I  thought you should all know.  It's an awfully hot day...good thing God made ice cream!