Alvira and Cytisha
As COVID-19 raged in the Spring of 2020, people who had lost jobs returned home to their families living on the Navajo Nation. Those who had jobs in towns bordering the Nation, returned at nights or on the weekends. Unknowingly, these coming and goings began to fuel the spread of the disease among some of the most vulnerable populations – families living in multigenerational homes without electricity or limited access to clean water. Staying at home – the very rallying call to containing the pandemic – had become a threat in itself.
Early in the pandemic, leaders of CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort), a national and international relief organization, understood the challenges that the Navajo housing crisis posed in containing the virus’ spread. Quarantine hotels, as had been created in other communities, would not work on the Navajo Nation. Families needed to stay together – it was tradition and a deeply held family value. Then there were the practical barriers, too; with families often living in remote areas of the Reservation and limited transportation, they simply could not travel 30 miles to visit an elder in a hotel room.
CORE set out to create semi-temporary shelters that could be built in 2-3 days, and could safely house those who may have been exposed to COVID or those at severe risk of contracting the virus. The solution was to create a free-standing, insulated and furnished home on the family property, near the main home. The family would decide where on the property they wanted the shelter and what direction they wanted it to face.
The teams that built the shelters were all locally hired – mostly people who had lost jobs during COVID and had come back home to be with their families. With shelters being built quickly, Community Educators became critical community liaisons – individuals who spoke Navajo, knew local culture, and could understand concerns families might have about the houses, while also helping families understand how to use the houses and avoid cross-contamination.
Alvira and Cytisha are two Community Educators from Spider Rock, Arizona, who joined the local CORE team during COVID-19. They helped dozens of families live safely together – and occasionally apart – during the most unforeseen circumstances.
But, above all, this is the story of a mother and daughter, working together to help their community, honor their elders and embrace their traditions. This is their story, in their owns words.
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Alvira: I was at work when this all started. I had heard about virus and I thought we’d be fine, but once we found out that it was in Chilchinbito, I thought, “They should already isolate that place.” By the time everything unraveled, we were staying home and isolating ourselves.
I was working from home with my job, and it got to the point where I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I volunteer with an organization called Chinle Planting Hope. We started thinking about all of these elders without transportation, those individuals who couldn’t go out – couldn’t go to the store, and weren’t able to do any shopping. So, at Chinle Planting Hope, we started off with some donations for food boxes for each of those elders. I work with the veterans’ office, so the veterans and the elderly were my main priorities.
We partnered with CORE, too. I’m a community educator who goes out in the community to see who’s eligible for homes. Since I’m fluent in Navajo, I’ll go out and talk to elders in Navajo. The shelters help individuals who are in overcrowded homes. We go out and educate individuals on what the shelters are. We have to explain the shelters in different ways to different people. One of the veterans I know – he really didn’t know the concept of a shelter – so I explained it like a bunker. If you go out to the community, you have to know your audience – your people – and know how to speak to them. There has to be a little bit of humor – a little bit of family.
You always have to go back to your roots. My great-great-grandpas were medicine mans. Two of them – and they were well known. So, the elders knew them. Once people know where your roots are, people can feel that connection to you and you’ll hear the elders say “my daughter” to you in Navajo – then you know you can go talk to them. We were told to never talk about the virus. You can’t name it, according to our traditional ways of life. I would just say, “whatever is around us.”
Cytisha: We don’t want to say the shelters are for isolation – that’s like telling the elders that we don’t want to talk to them. It’s more about just keeping a physical distance. We still want the families together because that’s what’s most important to Navajo – family. We can’t just say, “Hey, go over there; stay over there – we don’t want you here.” We would give examples to show that if someone goes out and goes shopping, and that “thing” is around, the person can stay in the shelter for a while. We’d say, “That ‘thing’ that’s out there, it takes two days for the symptoms to show.” We’d give them examples of how that person who went shopping could stay in the shelter, and after they do that, they can come back into the house. That way, everyone would be more protected and at ease with whatever’s going on.
Alvira: People ask why we didn’t stay home. We have our own ways of praying and our ways of medicine that we use – that protected us as we went forward. If I knew that delivering the food was going to jeopardize me and my kids, I would have stopped. But, I knew how to go forth and help my people.
Our elders are sacred to us because our prayers, our tradition, our way of life comes from them. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. With Chinle Planting Hope, every morning at 7am, volunteers all had baskets and we’d go shopping for our elders. Each person would take maybe five elders. I used to deliver to everyone in the Spider Rock area, so there were 15 elders that way; in Tsaile, there were six that way, Cottonwood had eight out that way. Little Mountain had one, Blue Gap had one and Many Farms had about six or seven.
I used to deliver to all of them – it was about a two-day process for me. That’s how I worked and tried to help my community. If you were to go out and see a lot of the elders who aren’t able to go anywhere, just seeing the brightness in their faces when they see you coming – they know you’re coming and they expect you. And, they feel safe because you’re coming to them instead of them going out.
Cytisha: My mother is my big motivator. She’s really respected by people. I look at my mom and how she presents herself. She says, “You help people no matter what. Even if they do bad to you, you always help them.” She always tells me, “No matter if someone slaps you on one side of the face, tell them to slap the other side because no matter what, you’ll be helping them. Later on in life, you’ll be blessed with things – blessed with more comings.”
When my mother got into delivering food, she took me with her because I was always asking her questions – “Where do you go? What do you do?” She said, “Why don’t you come with me? Why don’t you help me?”
At first I wasn’t sure, but I went. There are families out there that live close to us and I never knew that they lived like that because my mother always had high expectations and high standards. We always had to have breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner. We would eat like eight times a day, and so I just thought everyone else should be like that, so what’s there to worry about? But, out there, my mom opened my eyes and she said, “Not a lot of people have things that you have. Not a lot of people are grateful.”
Since we were working with CORE, no one knew that we were mother and daughter because I wanted myself to be out there. I didn’t want people to think, “Oh, she’s following her mom.” I was talking to my mother and I said, “Don’t tell anyone that we’re mom and daughter. Not yet. Not at first – ‘cause I want to make my own name. My name is unique and I want my name to be out there.”
Alvira: The way I looked at COVID from the beginning, on the traditional side, was that people were going and going and going. They didn’t know when to stop. A long time ago, people were quiet; they were steady – they were disciplined. They slowed down. They knew family. Things that were important, hadn’t become important to people anymore. So, when I look back, I always hear people say, “Sit still. Be patient. Be disciplined.” That’s how it was before.
We forgot about where we came from, and our traditional ways of life. That’s how I think about it – as a Native person. So, when all of this happened – I’m not gonna lie – I wasn’t disciplined to sit still. I was always on the go. But, when I came back and had to look at everything, I thought, “There’s a reason why this happened and why this is going on. Slow down. Be disciplined. Know where you’re from – just meditate, sit there and remember.” So, I sat still, meditated and prayed and said, “OK, God, what am I supposed to do, and how am I supposed to help people?” That’s when everything fell into place for me.
Our ancestors, our elders, were so steady. They knew how to stop and pray. We forgot our prayers somewhere along the way. We had to go back to that – even the traditional medicine that a lot of people forgot about until this whole thing hit. Tradition-wise, medicine man-wise, there were things that needed to be done.
Cytisha: The main positive that we could get out of this time is learning where we came from. Us Navajos forgot how to do certain things. Kids my age don’t know things that they are supposed to know. I’m pretty sure that just because I learned from my mother and my grandmother, and my father, nobody knows at my age the things that I know, which is crazy because we’re supposed to keep our tradition alive. We’re supposed to keep the Navajos strong.
Tradition-wise, four days is when you have to stay still – you have to not do anything. You just sit there and you pray. Before the sun comes up is when you pray. That way, the God people, up there, will know: this is a Navajo and they’re praying to us. Let’s help them out. There’s a lot of traditions behind that, and just waking up and being stronger, more motivated and steadier than the day before is a positive thing we have to look forward to.
I am 18 years old and graduating this year. After graduation, I am going to a community school; after I’m done there, I want to go off to a bigger university. After the university, I plan on traveling the world. I know that traveling the world is a lot of people’s wishes, but I love food and I love to eat. I want to go places and eat and take pictures. I’m a tumbleweed rolling in the wind.
If you don’t grind, you don’t shine. That’s one thing I share with my mother. When we’ve been doing things together this year in the community – she pushes me, but she knows what my push limit is. She knows when I can go further. I really look up to her and the things that she does; she’s really a strong woman. So, that’s what I want to do – but I want to do it better! The reason for my goals, and what I want to do after high school is because of her. She’s my precious one – in my heart.