Sunday, August 19, 2007

Globe (AZ) Trotting


Globe, AZ was our first real city on the road. After the craziness of Tucson, we have found ourselves ready and waiting to dig our nails into our work. Globe is a copper mining town a few hours from Tucson located right next to the San Carlos Apache reservation. Upon our arrival into the city, we visited Besh-ba-gowah (preserved ruins of the Salado people) and then went out to the reservation where we were welcomed with a cultural exposition. We saw native crafts like bead work chokers and handmade moccasins, heard native song and drum, had a demonstration of basket weaving (see photo), ate native cuisine and even heard from the Chairman of the Apache tribe. It was a fun-filled day and a lot to absorb and think about. If we keep up this pace, we will probably know everything in the world by December.

Ellen went onto the reservation to do community service. She worked on something called Project Pride, which was a kick-off event to help beautify the downtown area of San Carlos. SHe painted over grafitti and planted new bushes by the library. There will likely be more of these as the tribe hopes to revitalize its commercial area. I went out and worked with developmentally disabled adults in the morning and then went to paint the locomotive in the middle of town. If you go to http://www.silverbelt.com/ and look for the top story (check me out in the locomotive!) you can see some of our handiwork.

Our show in Globe was in the rodeo arena at the reservation casino. This was an interesting venue to say the least, but the town was very pleased to have us. Both Ellen and I had phenomenal host families that really let us see the beauty of the tight knit communities of Globe and Miami, AZ.

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