Introduction: Welcome to Hopi

Just over six months ago, I moved across the country to start working as an Environmental Engineer on the Hopi Reservation.  To my family and friends who are interested in following along, and to anyone else curious about life on the Hopi Reservation and about water and sanitation projects, I invite you to join me in learning about and exploring this fascinating corner of the world!

View from atop the mesa behind the Hopi Veteran's Memorial Center

During my first weeks here, I began to understand that depicting life at Hopi can be a sensitive endeavor for an outsider.  As those weeks have passed into months, and in my attempts to answer the questions of interested and curious family and friends, I became overwhelmed with the complexity of trying to share this special place with the thoughtfulness, care, and respect that it deserves.  So now, finally, I will just begin with something simple:

First Mesa, just down the road from where I live and work

Q: Where am I?

A: The Hopi Reservation is located in Northeast Arizona, between the Grand Canyon and the Four Corners, surrounded on all sides by the Navajo Reservation.  I live in Polacca, right next to the Hopi Health Care Center, which also happens to be the location of my office.

It takes about an hour (60 miles) to leave both the Hopi and Navajo Reservations and arrive in Winslow (of The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” fame).  It takes almost 2 hours (100 miles) to travel to Flagstaff, the nearest town of significant size (population 70,000).  It takes 4 hours to reach Phoenix or Albuquerque.

The original Hopi Villages are among the oldest continuously-inhabited villages in the United States.  The Hopi and their ancestors have occupied this part of the world for millennia, and settled in the oldest existing villages around 1100.

Google map - location of the Hopi Reservation in Northeast Arizona

Google map satellite image of the location of the Hopi Health Care Center on the Hopi Reservation

Q: What am I doing?

A: I am a field environmental engineer for the Indian Health Service (IHS) in the Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction (SFC).  I work in the Office of Environmental Health and Engineering (OEHE) with another field environmental engineer and two engineering technicians.  The projects to which I have so far been assigned include: assisting with the drilling of a new well to increase the water supply in a Village located on the west side of the Reservation; conducting a wastewater feasibility study with the intention of serving homes on Second Mesa (in the center of the Reservation) with water and sewer service for the first time; and collaborating with the Hopi Tribe to update its Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan.  (There are, of course, many more details to share, but this is, after all, only the introduction.)

An existing wastewater lagoon serving a Second Mesa Village

Q: Why did I start this blog?

A: When I accepted this position, several friends and family asked whether I would maintain a blog to keep them updated on my activities.  I had done the same, for the same reason, while serving as an Environmental Health Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama for the previous two years.  I am happy to continue to share my activities with those who are interested.

The Peace Corps blog also fulfilled the Third Goal of the Peace Corps: “To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.”  Writing about my experience as an IHS engineer, of course, is different.  The IHS mission is to “to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.”  The SFC program strives to support this through the development and construction of water and sanitation facilities.  However, I still feel compelled to address the many questions of friends and family about life here, especially as I continue to recognize how clueless I was upon my arrival about not only Hopi culture, but also the structure of US government-Tribal interactions.  I do not plan to reveal the secrets of this place, for those secrets belong to the Hopi people.  However, given my own experience and education (which has included shamefully little learning about America's Native Peoples) and given many visible issues in the national discourse (about diversity, privilege, and injustice), I believe that some effort to address the cluelessness about and invisibility of this place and others like it seems warranted.  I can only speak to my experiences and what I have learned here, but I feel compelled to share at least that – and maybe a little about history, infrastructure, diversity, and injustice, too.

The double rainbow that appeared following a thunderstorm outside my house

As a result, this blog will be mostly about my engineering and personal activities here, but I hope to provide some context – because it is the social, cultural, political, and economic context that makes the environmental engineering work here so much more interesting, complex, and different from much of the rest of the country.  The lens through which I see this work will necessarily be that of an outsider – which means that I must respect the privacy of the people here, and understand that my observations are limited.  However, I also cannot help but see this place through the lens of a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, seeking to understand the community and the bigger picture in an effort to make my best contribution as an engineer.

Sunset on the Navajo Reservation, just south of Hopi

Q: What do I expect will come of this experience?

A: I took this position with the hope that serving an under-served rural population, where physical, cultural, technical, political, and economic constraints have continued to prevent all of the residents from having access to adequate water and sanitation services, would be compelling, challenging, and rewarding.  I hope in my time here I will gain both essential engineering experience (technical skills, project planning and design, construction management), and the cultural experiences that will help make my work here – and elsewhere – more successful (through understanding another perspective with respect to life, land, values, resources, social interaction, language, economics, and politics).  I hope to better understand the relationship between the Tribe and the US government, the differences between living on the Reservation and off it, and the challenges that Native People face in America, from their perspectives.  I continue my pursuit to learn what role I can play as an engineer in addressing social and environmental challenges and injustices.

And I humbly hope that maybe you can learn something along with me.  Welcome to Hopi!

Road to climb Second Mesa