Zuni, El Morro, and Caving (Jan 21 and 22)

Zuni is another type of Native American tribe. Where I am located in Gallup, the majority of people are Navajo, with a few Hopi and Zuni. Zuni is a Pueblo (village) tribe, located 35 miles south of here. They differ from the Navajo in that they live more in a community. Navajo reservations are huge, spread out, with random houses everywhere.

This is a house in Zuni, more on the outskirts of town. One thing I noticed is that many of the homes are not that old (not this one) but get really run down. They don't have the means to up keep the homes.

Zuni is really famous for their bread. They have these ovens outside almost every house. They are built out of mud (sand in these parts). As we drove around the village we saw almost all of them with smoke puffing out. They are really neat. I stopped and talked to a man who said they use the ovens for all sorts of cooking, and if some was not using their oven at the moment they would be later on in the day. Seems so primitive, but makes a lot of sense. You see a few people gathering around talking. I think ovens may be shared by extended families.

Zuni people dress up in costumes called Kachinas. They only put these one a special times, and they are very spiritual. They have ceremonies that are closed off to outsiders, although if you are around on one of those days you are allowed to watch and peek through the windows.

This is actually someone's home. It is not that typical of the area to have shacks like this, but it does paint a picture of the poverty in some of these communities. I have some students that come from homes with no running water or electricity. One of the teachers told me a story about a boy she had in her class. He always missed school once a week, and she could never figure out why. Finally she found out that the family did not have enough clothes to send the all the kids to school, so they had to take turns missing school one day each week to rotate the outfits. So sad.

After spending the better part of the morning in Zuni we headed out to El Morro. This is a National Monument that is basically huge sandstone that has petroglyphics and the like carved into if from 100's of years ago. The base of the rock had basically the only water for miles and miles, therefore a meeting ground for many travelers. We did a mini hike here and actually found out at the top of the rock these ruins where the Natives had lived. Kit Carson had come and was trying to collect the Natives and do a census or something, so he would capture the Natives... which as you can probably assume they did not enjoy, so they fled and hid up on cliffs where they could not be reached.

The rock around this area is just so amazing. Breath taking ever time you look at it. You don't realize just how big the rocks/cliffs are until you get close and start climbing.

This ridiculous picture just happens to be the Dordt girls, tiger style.

I have this new thing where I like to be more adventurous than normal, and conquer things, not actually thinking about what I am doing until later. I have had few brushes with death, one being in this next picture. Caitlin, one of my partners in my adventurism, and I - like to do things that can sometimes be seen by others as slightly stupid. So we decide to go off the trail once again (despite some of the warning we receive from posted signs and those with us) to get a picture out on these cliffy rocks. You see I was wearing my UGG boots on this particular trip because we were not expecting to hike so I am going to blame the brush with death on the boots (which I dearly love anyways). If you look to the left there is this little area that has some snow, well I was over there trying to get higher on the rock, but I yes of course slipped, but below is a plunge to my death, basically straight down over 200 feet - thank my lucky start Caitlin was watching and grabbed my arm. Yes she saved my life, and I piddled in my pants. Yes.

Sunday we skipped church - heathens - and went out to do some spulunking. Fun to say out loud and fun to do. We had helmets, flash lights, and a lot of fun. We went out to this forest and the people who took us just knew there were caves, so there we went, exploring through uncharted territory in deep dark holes in the ground. Yes pitch black, holes, in the ground. This area is all rocky, formed from lava. So the caves are basically volcanic rock. The pictures are slightly deceiving for the fact that the flash lights the picture up. You seriously could not see your hand an inch from your face it was so dark. So creepy and awesome.

We started with the whole group of us spulunking, but we lost a bunch as we proceeded to other caves. It is really claustrophobic, and harder than it looks. We did a lot of crawling through holes and crawling on the ground arm style. This picture is Cara and I perservering and crawling out of the last cave we went in, there was barely room for my body to fit out the hole. -- You gotta love our helmets and Cara's head lamp.

The next picture is actually the last hole that I made it through. I had an amazing day seeing God's creation in a whole new way. If you ever get the chance you need to definitely try it out some time. The one nice thing was that it was not too cold down there, it stays a constant temperature all year round.

Our weekends are truly amazing adventures exploring a new aspect of God's creation that I never could have imagined. You think you have seen it all, but New Mexico just opens your eyes to this whole different world. Red rock, lava, mountains, canyons, crevices, hog backs, cliffs etc.