#324a Helping out in Weogufka, Alabama

I spoke to the speaker, Marcus, from the eco-village in Highlands after his presentation and said if you wish I could offer some electrical work if you want.

I emailed Marcus and I got no response right away. I was beginning to wonder if he had maybe decided not to take me up on my offer but then out of the blue he responded and we made a date for about 1 month out or something like that.

A little bit after our email conversation he asked me to give him a call and he said a lot of things have changed is there any chance you can come by in like about 3 days from now instead?

I thought about it and said absolutely. That's really not what I had planned on but he said we're in kind of a bind here and I said ok.

The actual name of the village is Ekvn-Yefolecv (ee-gun yee-full-lee-juh) https://www.ekvn-yefolecv.org/

We got everything all set up and I headed out on maybe I think it was a Monday morning. It was about an all-day ordeal. I remember getting a rental car for India and it seemed like by the time I got back it was already well into the afternoon. I headed on down but it was a four to five-hour drive and then there was a lot of traffic in Atlanta so by the time I got there it was already dark. I decided to get a room in the town that was nearby called Sylacauga.

As I left I wondered what eco-village means. Will there be electricity? Will it be a hut with dirt floors? I figured I would find out when I get there.

The next day I was to meet someone either his niece or nephew at the post office as you approach the town.

I was there at about 9 or whatever we had decided on and I waited and waited and waited and after about 30 minutes I went inside the post office and asked if I could use the phone.

At this time, I had what we call a dumb phone and it only works if you have Wi-Fi so I was kind of dead in the water.

The lady at the post office was very kind and let me use the house phone I contacted Marcus and he said that his nephew would be there shortly to meet with me.

Certainly, this was a weird start but we all got gathered up and I followed him into the compound. It was a gated entrance and it was a winding road for about a mile and then I really big lake house on the left where we parked my truck and he introduced me to a few of the folks and it was just a really gorgeous lake house sitting right on a big old lake. So not a dirt floor. They had bought a big spread from a guy who owned the local successful hardware store. It was 600 acres with a nice lake, modern lake house forests, and pastures.

This is the back porch of the lake house where I spent my off time gawking at the lake

After I got settled in and sort of introduced myself to a few of the folks mostly Eve and aunt Lou and of course Nick but everyone else was somewhere at the time. Nick suggested I hop into the Polaris and take a tour riding around the compound and get a feel for what it's like.

We left the big house and went down towards the aquaculture tanks where they are raising the sturgeon.

He showed me around and there were several large tanks the size of an above-ground swimming pool typically seen in people's backyards. There was one enormous tank that was empty that was cleaned lately. I believe that means it preparing to have fish one of these days soon. There were some smaller troughs like big bathtubs. As I understand it these were for the hatching of the eggs and where they spend their first little bit of time.

All of the water comes from the lake from a big pump system flowing through all the tanks and gets circulated through some filtering mechanisms to get rid of hydrogen sulfide and then flows back into the lake twenty-four hours a day.

Nick found one of the sturgeons was floating which means in this case he wasn't dead but he wasn't feeling too good. They have been trying to figure out exactly why some of them have been dying off. It was either the heat or hydrogen sulfide or lack of oxygen and they were definitely trying to figure it all out.

Every time we found a dead fish it would be very sad because they had gone to great effort to raise these fish from eggs and there are about a foot long and when you see somebody dying such a shame that's all.

When they clean out the tank and then there's sort of like fish poop and waste and stuff and this water is been flushed into another area that has aquaponics going on. All this waste is fertilizer for the floating plants This is where they going to grow vegetables, in a greenhouse, and I thought that was pretty cool.

There was also a rather large system of brand-new fencing that would be holding some Buffalo whenever they arrived about a week later. This was the reason it was urgent for me to come right away. It was very important to make sure that the electric fence was on a permanent properly working circuit and not just a small drop cord or something laying around.

I was going to help them pick out a generator that could supply electricity if the power is out and it will keep the fish in good shape with the water flowing. It would need a transfer switch and all that installed so it would happen automatically. I was planning on doing that and any unfinished wiring in the big fish tank room.

We kept going in the Polaris up the hill on around the way to an area that would be used for an education building that had been framed up already but not dried in.

There was also an area that would be called The Roundhouse not too far away from the education building. This was where ceremonies would take place and they had presently been cutting some very large logs out of the forest and they would eventually be drug up to this site. They would be de-barked and made into the pillars to hold up the entire Roundhouse.

We took the Polaris on down and around down where the river was and Nick talked about how in certain times of the year you could probably kayak a little bit but right now it’s a little low. This river is where they would release the sturgeon in the springtime. That's because the water needs to be good and deep for them to make it along their way.

I have been considered the majority all my life or all my life so now it's my turn to be kind of the person of pale complexion amongst everyone else being of native. I'm kind of the outsider and I know that and I just figured we'll be friendly and see what happens.

Everybody was beyond friendly to me and everything went great. There was one person there who is a worker bee and he's a nice guy but just seemed very stern and very deliberate. A lot of no-nonsense so I sort of thought well maybe he's a little sad or something and Nick said don't worry about it that's just kind of his personality.

After a very short time, I seemed to really fit in with everyone and I no longer felt like a stranger. A lot of people kept arriving some were working for folks from Oklahoma and some were family. Eventually, the group had grown to a crowd of maybe 15 people in the living room. They were discussing what might happen in the next day or two as they had set up a meet and greet with people who may be interested in helping financially. On Sunday they were going to come by for dinner and a visit and a tour of the facility and they just kind of wanted to put the best face on it.

Some of this was just reminding everybody to be cordial as people arrived and some of it was practicing ceremonial dances. One was about the sturgeon and the other was about the buffalo that were arriving soon. The idea was to get practice stuff so that whenever the actual event happened, they would be pretty familiar with have the dance went and I was sitting outside in the Adirondack chair looking at the bike although it was basically dark outside and just kind of off to myself.

I had taken on the notion that I was a visitor and this was close family stuff going on and really native folk stuff and I had really no business butting in where I didn't belong.

I don't know how else to say it but I didn't want to look like a wanna-be white guy.

I believe it was Marcus that came out to the back deck and said hey what are you doing out here and I just told him I said I didn't know if it was appropriate for me to be involved because I'm not family and I'm not native. He said let me tell you something you're a part of our team now and you’ve shown you care about us. You're as welcome to be involved and join in as anybody so you come on back in here where you belong.

This felt pretty good and although I really still felt like a goofball. I joined in with the dancing and they said if you can walk you can dance.

The folks who were involved in the fundraising and philanthropy came by on a Sunday and the way I decided to work things was to go up to the UU Church in Birmingham and perhaps even catch one of the recovery meetings. I headed on and didn't get back till about 7 and it was getting on about dark.

Most of the folks were leaving at this point and three of the folks stayed the night. They were Sophie and her brother and his new bride who was with child.

The ladies meaning Tawna the mom and Eve the niece and their little daughter had put on turtle shells filled with rattles. They had this elaborate method of taping them onto their lower legs so that when they dance and make a rattling noise it's pretty cool.

It sounds like a small detail but they would wrap their legs with a cotton towel first then they would put the turtle shells on. This would act as padding because otherwise, it would kind of hurt after a short time of dancing.

After the weekend it had been decided that the folks would all go to some cultural places sacred to native people and also to Montgomery to view the Civil Rights Museum.

We all piled up in a van that would hold 16 people I guess. The area where they live is a really pretty racist place, to say the least. The regular folks we bumped into at a gas station noticed us all pour out of the van.

If they see a bunch of people with maybe native skin tone, they think it looks like a bunch of Mexicans.

They really just don't have a clue but then they decide that that's a negative because what are y'all here doing taking our jobs or something?

So, one of the ladies speaks to Marcus as he puts gas in and says so where y'all from and he said we're from right here and she went psst.

I don't know how exactly to spell it but it was the disgusting sound of yeah right, in a million years you're from here.

Well, they really are from here to a hundred years ago 5,000 years ago and now but the lady was so whacked out with her Trumpian beliefs that she couldn't believe anybody except the white person could possibly be from here.

What a shame.

Well, that turned out to be a long day in the van so we went to Montgomery Alabama first which is probably an hour or so away.

We went to the Legacy Museum which would describe the theme of from bondage to incarceration.

It was a pretty overwhelming display at the Museum I mean they had some Holograms little kids wanting to know, are you my mom? have you seen my mom? There was just a long history of how things have been since slavery.

After the civil war, reconstruction segregation, and Jim Crow and how people have now become incarcerated as a sort of a weird form of slavery. You get locked up for some crime sometimes minor. They give you the option to work but it only pays like $0.50 a day so in a weird way it seems like they might lock people up just so you can get some free labor.

Obviously pretty heavy-duty, with lots of white guilt. The next stop was kind of known as the lynching exhibit. The actual name is The National Memorial. It's an outdoor memorial situated on a 6-acre space where visitors walk a path through our history of racial injustice.

“The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the nation's first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people and people terrorized by lynching.”

It is a memorial to many of the documented people that were lynched. Each county is represented by iron plates hanging from iron rods which artistically look like people being hung. When known the names of the murdered are shown on the iron plates.

I will put a link here for both museums. https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum

It’s a lot to try to describe but you talking about some white guilt, wow. I wasn't there, I didn't do it, but I need to be aware that my people did it and I'm not very happy about any of that.

That doesn't mean it's okay to put my head in the sand either so that's why you visit these places. After that, it was a pretty long ride to some ceremonial mounds of the Muskogee people. I believe it was a little bit past Tuscaloosa. It was called Moundville Archaeological Park When we got there they were closed and I believe we were told that seeing the interior of the museum was not going to happen.

We went and climbed up on top of one of the mountains and had some discussion about what went on there. I don't know what I thought it was but I probably thought it had something to do with burials. As I understand it now, it was more like the status of the elite kings. The elite would live at the top of the mounds and the peasants would bring food and such servants

Marcus said this was not a really proud moment in the Creek Muskogee history. They had left the purely spiritual and democratic way of living and created Kingdoms and Kings. Everybody was expected to worship the king and they lost the ability to be democratic and it all turned into a dictatorship. Everybody brought all these sex slaves and meals up to the top of the mound to serve this king who could look down on his creations and be proud of his doings, but that's just nothing to be proud of is what Marcus was saying.

He gave me the feeling that they sort of saw the error of their ways through prophets and the Kingdom's eventually vanished and crumbled. Eventually, they went back to a more democratic way later on and he was prouder of that era of course.

Well, we are definitely tired by now but it's getting on towards dark by now. I didn't want to mention there was a certain amount of conversation with the museum curator manager and Marcus. He must have described their situation and all and the manager decided to open the museum for an hour. It was really nice thing to do and we did have a really nice visit to the museum.

The family all gathered and took pictures with everybody as the sun went down.

It's just a little thing but nobody can look at anybody know exactly what their heritage is because some folks almost look kind of white but they're mostly native so nobody knows exactly. I remember Sophie a wonderful lady came up to me and said what do you think about all this. I said it was pretty amazing and she said well do you relate like from your heritage. She thought I was naive. I said I'm just an electrician I'm not actually native but it's kind of interesting that you thought that. It's all good it's just I'm not.

By definition, I'm just a white guy with a farmer's tan. I just have a big heart about all the things that were involved today. She realized she stepped in it a little bit but is not in a way that makes any difference or a hill of beans.

Because she didn't know she just thought maybe I was naive and didn't know any different that's all.

It struck me as interesting because I have a pretty dark complexion in the summer and yet it's a truck driver's tan. My chest is Lilly white but some people have said I'm an Italian or Mediterranean-looking dude.

After all this, we were invited to some folk's home who were also in the philanthropy business to have a nice wonderful dinner. They had a beautiful home and they were all just most wonderful with good food and wonderful fellowship.

I suppose I would ask forgiveness for not knowing the guy's name but I just met him for one minute.

Now it was probably about nine o clock and we had a two-hour drive back towards the house and so there was a decision that we should go get ice cream.

We all got what I thought was frozen yogurt but it turns out it was probably just regular ice cream.

We all had a nice time and when we got back in the van, we started telling jokes and stories and being silly and we started just uncontrollably laughing and being silly. It was decided that we were all having a bit of a sugar high.

I'm pleased to say that I said and did a few things that made them all belly laugh and made me feel good and Sophie told the craziest story. I was designed to set a crowd up to go on and on to eventually pull your leg. We all listened attentively and later realized we all fell for it hook line & sinker.

We got back to the big house and I'll tell you what that was one long day. A 12-hour trip in a van.

The next day we went to some more ceremonial Creek traditional places and one of them was Horseshoe Bend. This was actually we're a really big battle that occurred between Andrew Jackson and the native Creek /Muskogee people. The Calvary wiped out pretty much the whole native Creek population here.

We went out to a higher elevation and walked about and looked over a bluff and did a little bit of hiking. We had a nice visit with nature and then that was the end of day two of cultural stuff.

One part of me could say well that really kind of screwed up my leaving date but at the same time whatever it's all good, it's important to do cultural stuff too.

One day it was time for the Buffalo to arrive and everybody gathered up the folks that were really involved dressed up in ceremonial clothes They were going to do some dancing to welcome the buffalo. I sat down there in the pasture with everyone and helped take pictures of the event. The Buffaloes were brought in on cattle cars and man when he got out and started running around and rubbing around in the dirt everybody was just so pleased. It was a really big moment because they're kind of getting back their roots by raising buffaloes. They did the Buffalo dance and it was all very good and it was just nice to be a part of all this.

A day or so later I went down towards the Buffalo and they were eating some food and out of the trough and I just decided to video what men buffalo are thinking. It was pretty fun and I’ll paste it here.

I was about ready to get back to the house in Franklin North Carolina but there was quite a bit more to be done. I finished up the generator and we had the wrong propane regulator but I never could get it to crank. If figured this detail is something they going to have to do on their own.

They understood that and they are also going to have to get a regular gas guy who can hook it up permanently. I worked on the greenhouse wiring and finished that up. I made sure the water well was properly wired and all that that that done. Towards the very end of my stay, I had told them to let's get about a thousand feet of pex and I could run a cold-water line from the water well up towards where the Buffalo water trough is.

We did all that and now it's really about time for me to go.

These are the family dogs that keep an eye on the place

I didn't get going until about noon or 2. To get on back will be a 6-hour drive.

I said bye to everybody of course and Nick was so kind he decided to make me some leather moccasin shoes but he needed to trace my feet and so I just thought that and everybody was so cool.

I gave Tawna the mother of the young children a cool thing that Grandpa made that I've been having in my center console for a while. It was a stone that was in the shape of an eagle's head and she appreciated it and I'm glad she received it well. I knew it was going to be a long night so I got a couple of those 5-hour Energy drinks so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. When I got back and I believe it was around 10 pm to India in Franklin.

We did lots of wonderful things in Franklin North Carolina and had a great visit with my big sister Sheila and her husband Wesley.

We discovered a wonderful group that meets on the first Monday of every month and has a civil discussion about politics and other things but everybody has to behave himself and they try to keep it reasonably non-partisan.

I really enjoyed it because it seemed like you were a democracy. Sitting down talking about the issues of the day and expressing one's opinion without people getting mad and everybody was quite civil.

Right after Franklin, they would go to see my sister and Winston-Salem to have a nice visit at Thanksgiving