them of their home in Kenya, except that Siksika didn’t
have any noisy monkeys.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It keeps us very warm – even in the winter, when the wind blows and there is snow.”
She looked all around and smiled her ray-of-sunshine smile. “I have never seen snow,” she said, then paused. “It is just like Kenya here – the hills, the trees.” She pulled her blanket closer around the winter jacket and gazed at the land. “It is like being at home again. Even your people are the same as my people. It is the same, all of it, except for the cold. I have never been so cold before.”
I didn’t know that Alberta looked like Africa. I wondered how it would be to have an elephant come out from the trees. Or a monkey.
Zubeda stopped walking abruptly and looked into my eyes. Her voice was almost a whisper as she spoke. “Something is wrong. Ah, I know what is different. It’s too quiet.”
“It’s quiet here because we are a long way from the city. The city is very noisy.”
“No, no,” she said. “The animals. The monkeys. I can’t hear the monkeys. Why are they so silent?”
“We don’t have monkeys here. It’s too cold for them. We keep our monkeys in the zoo.”
Her mouth fell open, and she looked frightened at the idea of keeping monkeys in the zoo. “It’s better for them there,” I added quickly. “They couldn’t live here. It’s too cold, and the trees probably don’t have the right kind of food.”
Lisa Jo pointed out her house in South Camp.
Zubeda shook her head slowly in disbelief. “My, my. What a waste of perfectly good trees. You should have monkeys. I think they would like these trees.” She laughed. “Maybe you could give them blankets and big socks to stay warm.”
I felt both sad and happy when it was time for the African grandmothers to go. I was happy that I had met some of the people I would be helping, but sad that they had to leave me. I also felt as if I had grown taller, and my heart felt different inside my body as I stood on the sidewalk and waved goodbye. I also thought of the journey I hoped Kahasi would soon make to Calgary to see the white buffalo calf.
I went back inside the church after the van pulled away. Most of the guests had returned to Siksika, Calgary, and Strathmore. The church was quiet now, as it usually is, but Lila was still there. She was tidying up the display of the purses.
“I was very proud of you today, Lacey,” she said.
I smiled my thanks and slumped onto one of the wooden church seats. I was tired from sewing late into the night, and from the excitement of the day, but part of me wanted to go to the machine in the corner and keep on making purses. “Did you sell very many?” I asked.
“We sold lots and lots. So far, I’ve counted over a thousand dollars in the cash box.”
“A thousand dollars?” I couldn’t believe it. There were still lots of purses on the tables.
“Uh-huh. And I think we’ll sell more. Mrs. B. and I thought we would leave the display here for a few days. Some people who couldn’t come today might want to buy something. A thousand dollars is pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
What was even more amazing was that Lila talked people into buying another eight hundred dollars worth of purses in the next two days. I never knew one girl could make that much money. But I also knew that one girl couldn’t stop now. I had to keep on sewing for the faraway grandmothers.
I didn’t get to go to see the white buffalo calf with Kahasi, but Angel did. And Kelvin. Angel said that when our grandmother saw that animal grazing at the zoo, she just stood at the railing as if she had been turned into stone. She closed her eyes and stood there as still as could be and didn’t say a thing. When everyone wanted to look at the other animals, she said she would just stay there on a bench, and they could come get her when it was time to go. Kelvin stayed with her. Kahasi told me she felt connected to the white buffalo calf in a way she couldn’t explain, that it made her feel peaceful in a way she had never felt before.
Kahasi has a lot of old legends and sayings that she teaches me from time to time. One of my favorites is the one about pebbles in the water. She once told me that everything we do is like throwing a pebble into still water – that a small circle makes a bigger circle, then a bigger one, until the circles are so big that they don’t touch anymore – but still, they are all connected to that pebble.
When I think back to those curled-up seeds and the flowers that grew, learning to sew, the purses, and the African grandmothers visiting, the coming of the white buffalo calf, and Kelvin wanting to change his future, I know what she says is true: Everything is connected. Everything is a circle.
Glossary
AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a deadly infectious disease.
Blackfoot Confederacy: The five First Nations: the Kainai, the Piikani, the Siksika, the Nakoda, and the Tsuu T’ina.
Eh stu: Blackfoot for “Hurry up! Right now!”
Fry Bread: A quickbread, made from flour, water, and baking powder, that is deep-fried.
Immistsiihkiitaan: Blackfoot for fry bread.
Kahasi: Blackfoot word for “my grandmother.”
Kitamatsinopowa: Blackfoot for “Farewell.” Literally, “I’ll see you on the trail.”
Matsowa’p: Blackfoot for beautiful.
Napikwan: Blackfoot name for white people.
Ookonooki: Blackfoot for saskatoon berries, sweet purplish berries that grow on trees.
Siksika: Blackfoot name for Blackfoot people. Also, a First Nations community about 100 km (65 miles) east of Calgary, Alberta.
Sipaattsimaan: Blackfoot word for sweet grass.
Smudge: A purification ceremony in which sweet grass, and sometimes sage, is burned.
Afterword
Lisa Jo was a teenager when she started working with the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign in the fall of 2006. She has raised more than six thousand dollars to help the African grandmothers, and has inspired others at Sequoia to sew purses too. The purses they make are added to the sale held each year by the Grandmothers to Grandmothers group in Calgary.
The mother of two young children, Lisa Jo now lives in Calgary where she is studying at Mount Royal College. She plans to work with children and youth.
Sources
Gleichen, Alberta
www.gleichenalberta.ca
Glenbow Museum
www.glenbow.org/blackfoot
(Blackfoot online, interactive exhibition)
Grandmothers to Grandmothers program
www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/grandmothers.htm
Legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman
www.merceronline/Native/native05.htm
www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html
www.crystalinks.com/buffalocalfwoman.html
Siksika First Nation
www.siksikanation.com
www.blackfootcrossing.ca
Lacey and the African Grandmothers Page 10