The workshop got off to a good start on Monday, in spite of
the fact that we had to wait a bit past the official start time for everyone to
arrive. (It seems that the Crow culture is similar to many African cultures in
this regard: I learned that people talk about “Indian time” here, while in
Africa we talked about “African time”. Events just rarely start at the time
they are scheduled to begin.)
I was responsible for providing an abbreviated training
session in the morning. (Instead of the usual two or three days, I had two or
three hours.) Then shortly before noon, we broke into groups and began the
actual word collection.
We had five groups working at Little Big Horn College. One of
those groups was made up of women who had made the 1hr 15min drive over from Pryor,
where they live. They came so that they could benefit from the training session
Monday morning. Starting Tuesday, we plan to have four or five groups continuing
at the college and two others in Pryor (including the one that was at the college on Monday).
This first day was typical in many respects, each participant
adjusting to what they were being asked to do. I spent the afternoon checking
in on various groups, answering the questions about the process, and doing my
best to encourage everyone. By the end of the day, 721 words had been collected—a
more-than-adequate beginning.
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