Changes in the Land, Changes in Us
by Taiaiake Alfred.
You go out onto the little dock your grandfather built out of logs and tied down in the spring as soon as the water was warm so you could swim and fish off of it all summer long. Dipping the pail into the river you get some of the water your Doda will cook with. “Go get me some water for cooking and I’ll make you something good to eat,” she told you. Later when the sun starts to fade your Doda will be washing clothes in the river with a washboard and hanging them to dry in the trees. The water she cooks with is the same water you drink, and use to take a bath, the same water that you do everything in your lives with.
