summer work camp

Pat and I have just returned from a vacation trip to Michigan where we watched our oldest granddaughter graduate from high school. We also spent a lot of time with the rest of the grandkids and their parental units. It is hard to believe how much a child can change in four or five months. We stopped in Lousia on the way home for a meeting re: our summer work camp which will begin on July 27th. We will be working with the Monocan Indians at their community on Bear Mountain which is near Lynchburg. A representative from the tribe met with us and explained what we would be doing while there. We will be spending some time working on various projects but will also spend a considerable amount of time learning who these people are and what they are about. The representative told us that they are the only Episcopalian indians in Virginia. She also told us of some of their beliefs. For example; I understood her to say that they believe that we go around and around, and that nobody learns it all on the first go around. I understood this to mean that they believe in some form of reincarnation. She said that when a person has completed the cycle they become the stars in the sky. The stars are their ancestors.
We will have many oppurtunities to learn about indian arts and crafts and will be able to experience an indian sweat lodge. All of this intriques me greatly. I can't wait to get there.
I recently read a book that traced the history of the American Buffalo. I thought it was a great read. I imagined myself as a plains indian boy getting ready to go on his first buffalo hunt in a time long before the white man and his diseases ruined a way of life that had existed for thousands of years. It must have been an exciting time to be alive