Solar power, Lakota empowerment.

• Author: Wockner, Gary
• Position: Lakota tradition (history and present, past has not changed a lot - Solar heating

Cleo Weasel Bear smiles widely as she shows visitors the cluttered living room of her trailer home on a bright March day. "This is where I make my star blankets," she says, and picks up one of her prized creations, an antique-white quilt with a shimmering blue star stitched onto its surface. Star blankets are valued highly in Lakota culture--they symbolize a deep reverence for celestial bodies that watch over the Earth--and Cleo's face glows with pride. "But I've hardly been able to work in here this winter. No heat," she says. "I sleep next door at my daughter's." Like many women on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, making and selling arts and crafts is her sole source of income.

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Cleo faces additional challenges beyond heat. She was recently diagnosed with cancer, and doctor visits as well as ongoing treatments cloud her future in unknown ways. The smile on her face belies these material hardships. She briskly escorts her guests--two contractors and an anthropologist from Colorado, and me--through her trailer and around her yard. Her words brim with optimism.

We've come to Cleo's at her invitation, to decide where to place a solar heating system. Tomorrow and the next day we will come back with a crew, tools, and materials. But as we tour her surroundings, we can't help but notice more. Clothes are piled high in all the rooms; a few flat spots are swiped clean for sitting or sleeping. Windows are broken and covered with plastic, as are holes in the walls. The water isn't working. Outside, the trailer is surrounded by detritus--household trash, junked cars and trucks, and broken toys. Several friendly dogs follow us and lick my fingertips as we walk around.

Across the reservation this scene replays itself. Later that afternoon, we drive to the village of Porcupine to inspect the small home of Shirley Bisonette, who has also requested a solar heating unit. Shirley is not feeling well and stays in the bedroom; her wheelchair sits outside the bedroom door. Angel, her boyfriend, escorts us around.

Shirley's house is in even worse shape than Cleo's. The roof leaks and the ceiling is literally falling in, patched with stapled-up plastic to hold back the sagging insulation. A few broken windows are also sealed with plastic. The interior walls are punctuated with holes and show years of grime. The kitchen stove and sink are broken. A small hot plate serves as the main cooking appliance, and a partially broken woodstove is the only heat source.

Outside, dogs again trail us as Angel gives a brief tour of the house's south-facing wall. Several junk cars, mounds of trash, and a large pile of household garbage clutter the yard. A heap of painted scrap lumber lies out front. When things get desperate and the family can't afford firewood, they burn this scrap for heat.

Yet through both of these reservation households, one very bright element offers additional hope. The sun, called wi in Lakota, floods the reservation and showers the south-facing walls of Cleo's and Shirley's houses. Tomorrow, wi will change these women's futures.

Many Hands, Light Work

The next day starts early. We are staying at Richard Sherman's home in the village of Manderson on the reservation. Richard is a wildlife biologist who now works as a Lakota guide and also manages the tribe's buffalo herd. Last night, Richard and I talked at length about the Lakota's buffalo, a recent project he undertakes in conjunction with native activist Winona LaDuke's organization, Honor the Earth. Buffalo represent a new (but also very old) culture of sustainability to many Lakota people, a concept of increasing interest at Pine Ridge. Sustainability, too, has drawn our group to the reservation. (1)

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As Richard leaves the house for his morning buffalo chores, our visiting group loads up tools and equipment and drives over to Oglala Lakota College (OLC) in Porcupine for a morning meeting and solar training session. Accompanying me is Cindy Isenhour, an anthropologist who recently completed her master's thesis about the reservation. Cindy works as director of development for the Fort Collins, Colorado-based nonprofit Trees, Water & People (TWP), which operates a Tribal Lands Program at Pine Ridge. She serves as cultural liaison for the group's Pine Ridge programs.

Joining Cindy and me are Alison Mason, a solar engineer/installer and TWP contractor, and Don Alvarez, also a TWP contractor/installer. Alison operates a small solar company in Fort Collins and works for TWP's Tribal Lands Program as the brain-trust who designs and implements the solar program. Although her impact today in Porcupine may be small, it is creating ripples beyond this reservation. For this project and others, Alison recently received the "Solar Woman of the Year" award from the American Solar Energy Society.

The OLC campus in Porcupine is a small building with administrative offices and six classrooms. In one, 30 students listen intently as Alison gives a brief discussion of global warming, then describes the specific solar installation that will take place later at Shirley Bisonette's. Most of the students are college-aged men and women in either a...