We had a long but full day today and I doubt this post will make much sense as my eyes are growing very tired!!! So I will keep it short and hope to be able to make a more coherent post tomorrow! I started the day off with early morning sorting and labeling of the undies that our church brought to Tree of Life for their Warm Welcome shop that we collected on Undie Sunday! What a great way to provide some nice new things for these people who suffer such great poverty. The statistics we were told were that there is 80% unemployment and Todd county is the 5th poorest county in the US in 2008. I doubt that much has changed –if anything it has gotten worse.

We made a couple excursions to the grocery stores (there appear to be 2 in town–one owned by a white man (as are most of the businesses here) and one that was supposed to be Native American owned. We were able to help a couple of girls find prom dresses at the store today which was pretty fun and they looked so pretty in them. We finished out our afternoon by stocking shelves and hanging pants. The men spent much of their day in the Youth Center doing wiring, painting and hanging sheetrock in a home, I believe. Lots got done today but there is much to do!

We ate at the Buffalo Jump tonight to help support Noella and Shane and had delicious food–Native Tacos and Fry Bread. I am stuffed. Then Judy did a little piano time with the kids—-we kept kidding her because they kept calling it a recital so we were telling her the paparazzi were coming, etc. Even after just 3 days this group has bonded and it has been great to get to know each other.

Later we headed back to the West Wing (doesn’t that sound fancy?) and Mike Marshall came and showed us many Lakota games that they play—explained how to play them, the process and materials used and let us have fun playing them!!! Great night of fun and information once again.

As I said this is not too great tonight—I am just beat. Lack of sleep and just all the excitement is wearing me down after only 3 days!!! What a wimp I am !!! Tomorrow is kind of a day off for the Tree of Life folks so we shall see what we can do. We may do some sightseeing and tomorrow night I am doing a craft class with the kids where we are going to make cards and just have fun!!! Should be great!!!