Navajo-France - Exchange 2007

August 14th. After having taught for only one day in Greyhills, Lorenza and Varavouth drove to Window Rock so as to promote the ANF.

It was a good chance to do so since it is a historical date for the Navajo people. During the World War 2, Navajo soldiers greatly contributed to Allies’ victories such as Iwo Jima or Okinawa. Thanks to the military code which stems from their original language, those Code Talkers saved so many American soldiers’ lives. Even Japanese military couldn’t decrypt thoses messages, though they were well known for their code breaking skills. But back then, that exploit couldn’t be officially acknowledged because the US government feared the day they had to call for that skill once again.

Navajos are very proud of their Code Talkers and once a year, a national day is held in the Navajo nation’s capital so as to thank those brave soldiers. On that day, Veterans hold a speech, and other people express their gratefulness with gifts or personal skills like the music.

We took the opportunity to promote the ANF and ask the Navajo government to help us on designing the Navajo and English version of the ANF website. Lorenza also sang in Navajo and French with her guitar. And our performance were good ! People clapped on their hands and really appreciated, a few of them even ask for details ont the ANF.

We teach to two groups of fifteen students, they are beetween fifteen and seventeen years old. Students introduced themselves with powerpoint presentations. It was such interesting to see their presentations because they talk a lot about their culture, their clans and their family.

After that, we introduced ourself, what we like, our hobbies. We also introduced the association, why we are here, and what we will do with the students : the english version of the ANF website.

About the classes, we started to teach them the Web 2.0 and stuff like that. They all have created their own blog with our help on an online blog platform : Blogger. We also explained them some things in HTML, and started to teach the RSS Feed with Netvibes. All this things are new for them. It was a little hard for us to speak in english but they understood us as well.

Finally, the result is interesting, see our blog on blogger wich we opened to talk to the students. On the first post you can find the whole adress list of their own new blog.

Sunday 12 August, 2007. We went hitch-hiking with Leclair and 6 of her students at 8 o’clock am, even though we were still jet-lagged. Couldn’t sleep on or rest thoroughly from our long trip… But in the end, it was a great day. We visited a “small” canyon near Tuba City which was not often visited on tourist tours, unlike the Grand Canyon.

We found out Arizona’s beautiful landscapes for the first time riding the famous yellow school bus (just like in the films !) since we have been traveling only at night till now. Very little greenery and a few massives scattered all over an immense and uninhabited desert. Tuba City really seems to be in the midst of desert.

When we got out of the bus, the landscape was just like a postcard picture. It already looked really huge in books but it’s all the more impressive when you have the real thing before your eyes. “Small” ? WE were the ones to be small, even tiny, in front of those grand and magnificent sceneries out there. We no longer felt our fatigue and we had the opportunity to meet and talk with some of our “pupils” during that surreal field trip.

After a long trip and a troublesome jetlag, we have arrived in Tuba City, Arizona, USA.

Here are some details on this tiresome travelling : Paris to Philadelphia, 8 hours and Matthieu and FX flew for the first time!

Philadelphia to Phoenix : 6 hours.

Once in Phoenix we took the City Bus to get tothe Greyhound station. That bus took us for a ride to Flagstaff in 4 hours. We finally spent the night there in a motel (just like in the movies !).

The next day, Lorenza, founder of the Navajo-France Association, and Leclair, webdesign teacher in Tuba City, as well as her boyfriend, joined us. After a short visit of the town of Flagstaff, we were driven to Tuba City in 1 hour.