Sarah Haynor and Richard Honeystewa hanging out in Hopi

This photo, taken by Outreach Director Richard Malcolm while on a community service site visit with Canyon Country 2009, shows one of the special friendships created this summer at Deer Hill. Sarah Haynor, of Seattle, WA, is taking a break from the service work to hang out with Richard Honeystewa, son of the group’s Hopi host, Iva Honeystewa. The photo really sums up the spirit of Deer Hill’s community service work.

Iva has been hosting Deer Hill groups for seven years now at her home on Second Mesa, Arizona. The Canyon Country group this year spent most of their week while in Hopi whitewashing the plaza of the ancient village of Shungopavi in preparation for the villages annual Homedance. This is definitely messy work, but fun, and it was great to work with local people from the community and having a troop of Hopi kids helping us out. Having helped in the preparations, the group were lucky enough to attend the centuries-old event, intended to honor the Kachinas, or ancestor spirits, and bring rain to the mesas.

The Canyon Country group were also excited to learn the art of Hopi silversmithing from Iva. During the in-depth workshop, they drew their own designs, carved them in “tufa” rock, then cast the pendants. In the final step, they polished up their creations and added a loop for a chain. These pieces make great mementos of the trip.

The group’s time in Hopi coincided with some other events that we were able to attend. One of the favorites was a Tewa warrior dance. Iva also took the group to check out a traditional Hopi engagement ceremony, a community event that was very different from what we expected. Finally, it was fun to spend an evening with Iva’s family watching the 4th July fireworks at the Hopi community center.

All in all this was a great week, and really fulfilled all the goals we at Deer Hill have for our community service experiences: doing work that is important to the traditional lifeways of the host family and community, having lots of fun, and making time for intercultural sharing and learning with our native friends.