How long has it been since I've been back? Down the narrow dirt road into the narrower valley filled with flowers aspen and birch my uncle Tony Little hawk is dead these many years now and so to is my Grandmother Lenor Stiffarm but Tony's son AJ is around here somewhere? I head towards the main part of the Reservation Ft. Belnap has changed a lot since I had last walked these streets feeling like I was in a dream visiting my old home finding it totally different yet still familiar I'm lost a stranger in my own homeland walking up to a lakota man I request direction to my cousin's house in Lakota He replies Chanka kin le ogna waziyatakiya ni na chanku okiz'u icininpa kin hetan wiyohpeyatakiya ni, nahan tipi tokaheya kin bel ti.(Road this along northward you-go and cross-road second from westward you-go and house first there he-lives.) "Thank-you" (pilamayaye) I say and hurry off in the direction realizing that I have also forgotten much my Lakota.
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