#349 Went to volunteer at Weogofga Alabama for 2 weeks but it turned into 2 months

One afternoon us guys went into town to a diner and I thought this statue was the coolest

I had helped out the village in Weogofga back in September and I had stayed for a week and a half. There was a whole world of things to do as construction goes. I said we're going to be snowbirds in Florida but after that, I guess I could ride through in the springtime and help out a little bit and they said that would be great. Tawna the Matriarch had mentioned that if it all worked out well enough that they were going to have a sturgeon release ceremony at the end of April and so I was open to that although could see hardly any way we would stay that long.

I called Marcus on Monday as it was about time to check out at Wind Creek and he said are you sure you want to come today and I said well that's what we talked about. He said it's just that it rained quite a bit and the road is pretty muddy I said well do you think that is something we can't do? He said well I suppose it'll be okay but just know that if it were dry that would be better. l thought do we stay at Wind Creek for a few days or do we go take a chance and we decided to go for it.

It was about 30 to 45 minutes north and as I turned in and I was pleased that they had trimmed back the trees such that we could pass. We drove down a twisty one-lane dirt road ending near where the driveway to the lake house begins. We took our time. Nick and a volunteer from Alaska named Sai met us at the top of the road and said what's up man. I told him what I thought we were going to do. He said you get started but I’m going to get the skid steer to help tug you around. I thought if I get a pretty good head of steam going down the hill my dually will get it right up the hill.

I kind of got my game face on and went ahead and started down the hill but at about near the bottom I went ahead and hit the gas and you know went right up that hill and it was pretty steep but and she was spinning but we got right up to the top like a tractor pull.

They said they were pleased with the truck's performance and of course, I was too. I was thinking I really would like to back in but this was just a strange setup where to get the back of the trailer turned left the front of the truck would be very much downhill and you would be backing up an 18,000 pound trailer up a very steep hill. I decided the better idea was to go in and get pretty close and then kind of jackknife in the middle and just do a 36-point turn.

Nick returned from the village with the Skid Steer which is a track-type Bobcat that can do about anything and go anywhere.

I went in and with a sweeping right then left turn and there was a point where I can get the RV nearly perpendicular to the road but not much more. I disconnected from the RV and got the truck out of the way. We used the bucket of the skid steer to tow the RV around and it didn't want to stay put because it didn't have any kind of formal attachment to do this properly. We just muddled through it and it was muddy and wow it probably took an hour. We would push and tug and pull and we eventually got the RV facing forward again such that I could get the truck driven past her, hooked the truck up, and proceeded to park it. It was a muddy mess and I took a video here to show how we suffered a bit. I tucked her as far into the tree line as I could. I started looking at possible ways to get water and electricity but initially, we would be boondocking.

On my first day of real activity, India and I took a tour with Marcus in one of the Polaris vehicles. He showed us an interesting section where they had a controlled burn to manage the forest and that was interesting. We settled in and on the second day I visited with everybody and then went into town and bought some supplies to hook up water and electricity to create service for the RV.

I connected to the electrical panel at the cabin and so forth to create a 30-amp service. There was a water spigot at the cabin but instead of buying expensive RV water hoses I just bought 150 feet of ½ PVC and put garden hose fittings on each end.

Now that we had the RV utilities finished I went out to the Village for the first time. A lot had been done since I was first here in September. Back then there was only the rough-in framing for the education building. Now it was dried in with windows and a roof and over beside it was the ceremonial roundhouse where they do dances.

The roundhouse was amazing it's about 4 stories tall and it's all done with what's known as the Timber Frame Guild. It is a skill set that uses wooden peg-type construction with no metal hardware.

All of the timbers which were giant logs 15 to 20 ft long probably 2 ft in diameter all came off of the land surrounding the village.

When I was here in September, they had been falling some trees and they were lying where they fell.

Since then, they had to individually drug about a mile down a dirt road with a tractor, and sometimes they had to be winched up a steep grade with power take-off.

It was amazing to see it had all come together. There had been a major invasion of people that stayed on the land for a week or two. They are called the Timber Framers Guild. They are regular folks, sometimes doctors and lawyers but they all love wood. They come out and they volunteer their labor but you have to pay for the coordination company to handle them, to wrangle them. The host provides Porta-Pottys. They all sleep out in the field bringing their tents and then you have to feed them three times a day. Otherwise, they kind of do this amazing stuff at no charge.

When I arrived at the village I noticed everybody was stomping mud and laying mud onto a thing called a Rocket Mass Heater. Its several layers of construction pipes and the heat is made to circulate inside a good bit before it goes out the flu so it heats the room and you can even sit on it to keep warm.

After it's been constructed it's all covered in mud and wheat straw and then eventually bricked over.

Covid 19 became a real big problem about the middle of March and everything began to shut down and all the state parks closed. We had planned on staying about 2 weeks but we ended up staying almost 3 months. Marcus said to stay as long as you like and always treated us like family.

When I came by in September the buffalo had to be in a training area that was not very big at all. It was about 50 ft wide by 100 ft long but they had to learn this is your new home. They had to be released into the larger acreage a little bit slowly to get acclimatized. By now, they're settled and they have 200 acres to wander around They can graze all day long and hang out in the woods but they sure do like that feed that they get in the evening. Aunt Lou goes down and bangs on the fence with pipe like a cowbell and they all come stampeding towards you like puppy dogs.

I made a video of what Buffalo was thinking that I thought was pretty funny.

The sturgeon release was going to be a way to invite a lot of people in and a lot of donors and to see the results of all their gifts. Because of covid, it was canceled and yet they wanted to do a sturgeon release in a ceremonial way anyway. I got a lot of cool pictures of that and it was very exciting and spiritual to see the sturgeon go back to where they belong as they were killed off by you know who.

I did a walk-through and got kind of a lay of the land of what are we going to do with the wiring. Most all the wire had been pulled for the rough-in electric but pretty much almost no plumbing had been done.

The Heating and Air was about finished or mostly.

It was decided that the thing that needed to be done right away was to disassemble a structure called the pavilion. Nick, Marcus’s nephew, and I went down by the river to come up with a plan for how to remove the pavilion from the property. It was a wooden deck with columns and a roof. When they bought the land, they were told that the pavilion had to be leveled down to deck high because it was visible from an interstate trail system way up on a ridge above. They didn't want a bunch of man-made structures to be seen from that trail when people are hiking.

Nick and I took a look at it and with a chainsaw, we weakened the entire roof support system. I was like, let's just tie up to it and pull it on down. He thought that was a bit much but that's actually what we did.

We tried to pull it down with a Polaris but it didn’t have the goods. The next day we used the tractor and the power take-off winch and that did the job. The whole roof fell to the ground with a crash. So cool.

Around day 2 or 3 I was asked to go out and meet with the Carpenter/ Foreman and he showed me around. Here's the electrical system and here's how far we got so far. We heard you were an electrician and I said yes. He also introduced me to a guy named Brandon who's doing the plumbing. I would be glad to help with the plumbing too and he said they will be cool. I've never done a rough-in plumbing job but I’ve done a lot of repairs and I trimmed out the plumbing at our house renovation at Porters Neck.

Brandon got me headed in the right direction and he did the toilet flanges to just below the floor and then after that, I started plumbing the whole house.

After the first few days, I had realized that the best place for me to be is on the plumbing project. I had plenty of questions for Brandon the plumber but mostly I began to do things in a common-sense way. I realized that a lot of it was just making sure we had the quarter bubble on the level every few feet. I didn't do it in a very scientific way I would look at the pipe and make sure that each time I strapped it I would have just a little bit past level. There’s no blueprint you just look at the structure of what's under the house and you try to have the lines come out meet up and always continue to fall downhill. I did this for three kitchen sinks, and three-bathroom sinks, and all of these had to meet up to a commonplace and go down to the furthest end of the building. All the gray water would go down and be sent to the food forest as water that would water the plants. Just to be clear gray water isn't perfect but it's just hand washing and dishwashing so it's not that gross it's just not fit to drink. The hot and cold water had been started but there were a few things that needed to be finished up. All this was done in pex and I had to tie it all together. I had to send one cold water line all the way back to the water pump location. but nothing has been done yet The pump will draw water from a 10 or 20,000-gallon underground tank that will be collecting rainwater. It will be pumped untreated the toilets but then there's a fork there where then the rest of the water goes to a very complicated filtration system. There’s an ultraviolet zapper that kills microorganisms then it goes to cold drinking water at the sinks or so forth.

Of course, there had been just a little lack of communication so all the toilets had already been plumbed up with treated cold water. I had to undo and re-plumb that with an untreated water line. The toilet waste is separate and went to the other side of the building. It will eventually go down the hill into something called a biodigester. All the poop as well as any kind of vegetable matter that can decay. All of this mass will produce methane will be collected, compressed, and then sent back up to the house in the form of natural gas where it can be used for cooking and hot water.

I might point out that back in September there had been a whole different plan. I saw a disaster looming that I decided to create a proposal to the head engineer and to the people of the village stating my observations of the plan didn't look quite right.

I sent this memo out 3 or 4 months before I arrived and it's March.

Originally, they were going to put a biodigester under the house so that vegetable matter could plop straight down into the biodigester and then create methane that just rises up to be used for cooking. I saw this plan I said I realize you're not being regulated too tightly here but this is a bomb just waiting to go off.

I sent him a drawing of what farms do where they send it down the way and then compress it and pump it back up the hill That is eventually what they did but the first plan was really weird.

The other thing is under the toilets they were going to just put five-gallon buckets. I guess when the buckets are full you walk it down to the digester and dump it in. I said hey guys you know why don't you just plumb like a house and send it down to the biodigester. By the time I arrived, they had decided to plumb it like a real house. I made a whole lot of suggestions it was probably a 10-page document with PDF drawings. It seems to me they either took my suggestions or it awakened the engineer to change things a bit. It made me feel good to I think I changed the direction of things.

From the very first day that I visited I wondered if I would be seen as some white guy do-gooder and if I might be made to feel weird. For example, your kind of screwed us a little while back up to the present so you know we really don't need all your do-gooder stuff. The opposite was true. There was sort of some chemistry from the beginning and I like to think that they all believe that I was probably a reasonably cool guy. I've never felt so welcomed by anyone.

We also built some chicken coops

India and were invited to join in ceremonial dances and although I know we looked goofy we joined in. I got into it and they even said don't be too concerned about whether you look good at look bad. If you can walk, you can dance. From the very beginning, I felt honored that they even decided to have us come to visit. I am offering something as an electrician and handyman but you know there is so much baggage from the past that they just don't want just anybody on their property. Like it or not white people have got a really bad habit of doing them wrong. It’s like if you're here at all you've already passed sort of the decency test.

So many pretty flowers out in the woods around the village

Marcus, the patriarch is a most interesting fellow. About 17 years ago he began to dream of a way of creating a return to the homelands and I was here at the village as things began to come together. Marcus grew up around Muskogee-speaking Elders and learned the language quite fluently. The language is disappearing, and when the language disappears the culture disappears. That is what he is concerned about. When Marcus was about college age someone mentioned to him, why don't you go to linguistic studies and learn all about like how to learn Muskogee language the right way. He went but it just didn't feel right because he already knew how to speak. He didn't need to dissect it in a European-type way. At a later date, he decided he wanted to be a minister and he studied theology at Harvard divinity. He’s got a very educated background and now he's not a minister although he is ordained. He was teaching at the University of Florida as they started moving to the village full-time. These days he's mostly fighting for his folks to return to their homelands and the ancient ways.

In the 1830s our government under Andrew Jackson defeated the Muskogee/Creek people and drove them part to Oklahoma via the trail of tears. Others were driven to the furthest reaches of the Everglades. These were all the same people but called Seminole. In Alabama, they were called Creek. Creek, Muskogee, and Seminole are all the same people.

After all this time one day, Marcus wakes up and says Why don't I find out where we all lived before the horror of Andrew Jackson came along. He started doing all of this research and he decided that as best he could tell Weogulfga was close enough. A more exact location might have been Horseshoe Bend national military park but it's not like that’s for sale the land they found for sale was very close to and would be more than suitable as a homeland. They found 600 acres from a guy who owned the hardware store in town. It was the Van Zandt family which of course makes me think of Lynard Skynard. I found out that the name Van Zandt in Alabama is very common Smith is in other places. The Vanzants are the Smiths of Alabama

Marcus had created an education program back in Florida where they all lived and it was going very well with about 12 students. This is where they take children that have never spoken English at about 3 months old. They start speaking Creek only and it helps them get it as a first language.

They have internet and Wi-Fi throughout the lake house and that's where they're living now. The kids have access to Wi-Fi and they get on YouTube and everything else and they taught themselves English on their own. It's not forbidden to know English but they get it on their own and were not encouraged and are very much discouraged by their dad Marcus.

If he could completely control everything, they would never hear anything but Creek. He has never spoken one word of English to the children.

A lot of other people have and even Mom does.

He's very strict about it and he's very repetitive that the European contact was the downfall of everything so he wants no part of it. He lives in two worlds. He said his Mom told him we have to have one foot in the red canoe and one foot in the white canoe and I guess just figuring that out will be his life chore.

Now I will offer to introduce the people who live in the village.

There's Marcus his partner Bride Tawna.

They have two children, one's about nine one's about six the boy is the older his name is Mekkaneko and the little girl's name is Hemokke.

There Eve, Marcus's niece, and his nephew Nick. Ramsey is a cousin who lives and works in the village as much as possible but sometimes he has to go towards Mobile to earn extra living money. Then there is Aunt Lou, Marcus’s Aunt.

Finally, there's Ahvlok, the v sounds like u. He's the coolest guy, 26 years old. We really hit it off.

I later told him that I wondered if I wasn't guilty of enjoying his company so much because he's a 26-year-old male and so is my kid being back home who's 26.

Cordell is about the same age and the hardest-working guy I have met in a while. He was there for a month or so and he had decided maybe this wasn't going to be his thing. He went back home to Oklahoma after a bit but he was such a great guy and such a hard worker. I wrote him a letter of recommendation and I suggested he might be a smoke jumper because he's so motivated and wanted to be a marine.

I enjoyed everybody but I just really hung out and worked a lot with Nick and Ahvlok. Tawna and Eve were so friendly. They really connected with me and we talked a lot and stuff. Aunt Lou was always cordial but I couldn’t connect as well as I would have liked. I think I looked too much like the kind of people who disrespected her in her years of life. She was always friendly but we weren’t quite buds.

Marcus asked me early on if I could help install skylights and I thought well why not When I got on the roof it was a real slick metal finish and I just assumed I would just slide right off and I thought this just is not me.

He kept on needing it done and I kept on saying would a roofer be the way to go. It seemed as though the roofer wasn’t available for months. The other problem is I had no idea how to the work. The roofer came by one morning and drew a sketch of “how-to” on a piece of cardboard with a sharpie and that completed my training. Finally, we decided if I could tie off and have safety harnesses and just a little direction, we can give it a whirl.

Ahvlok had been a commercial roofer but had not done this exact kind of job. We got up there and we taught ourselves how to do this thang. There were quite a few of them, like 23 and it required a lot of layout, metal cutting, wood cutting, thinking, being careful, and lots of silicone roof cement but we figured it out.

After the skylights were finished and the plumbing was finished. The heating and air was in good shape. I focused on what I'm good at and finished up all the electrical. Installing the panel and getting everything done and ready for what’s called the rough-in. Finally, everything was done and insulated and the sheetrock was ready to hang. We were so far out in the country typical trade inspections weren’t required. People think this is so great not having to follow all those rules but it does protect the customer. I am glad I was there as I took on the role of you’ve got to be kidding that’s not ready yet. The sheetrock was hung and finished. I trimmed out the electrical and tested the plumbing for leaks. I found a lot of my mistakes and fixed them. As I was about to leave the village the paint had been purchased and they were getting ready to paint.

Time slows here sometimes. One day after a big rain I felt I needed to fix a mud puddle

I guess I will wrap it up by saying that after 2 1/2 months or so it was the first of June and it was time to go as the state-federal parks had begun to reopen and we were just kind of ready to go.

Everyone gathered and we had a nice ceremony and it was a great sendoff. Of course, I teared up a bit and that caught me off guard. It was ok to be vulnerable. We really enjoyed our time here and we will return someday.