Culture Camp 2011: "Water Fun in the Sun!"

Water is of utmost importance to every culture in the world, and for SDAIHC's 8th Annual Culture Camp, "Water Fun in the Sun!", 31 Native American youth, along with parent chaperones and staff, learned about water's role in the history and present-day lives of local tribes. Despite some unexpected adversity, this year's Culture Camp was a cascade of cheer!

Each day, we traveled to different parts of the County to experience three very different bodies of water. On day 1, we trekked up the North County mountains to the San Luis Rey River on the La Jolla Indian Reservation and were greeted with a presentation from Bill Nelson, John Parada and John Beresford from the Environmental Protection Office of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians. Before some inner tubing, we learned about preventing pollution in the fresh water system, how the cleanliness of the river's water can be checked by the presence of insects known as benthic macroinvertebrates (BMIs), and about different poisonous plants we should avoid. View the video of day 1 on YouTube here.

On day 2, East County heat was subdued by the fresh, still waters of the El Capitan Reservoir, where we learned how to operate motorboats and rowboats to a cove on the edge of the reservoir. After a few hours of boating, wading, and a pizza lunch from Vinny's Brooklyn Pizza, we drove to the Barona Cultural Center, where Director Cheryl Hinton informed us about the forcible removal of the Barona and Viejas people from the original Capitan Grande Reservation in 1931, part of which was flooded to create the El Capitan Reservoir.

Day 3 brought us to Mission Beach, where members, staff and parents enjoyed a warm day of body boarding, skateboarding, water balloon battles, and barbecued kebabs. The Youth Center hand drum, made by Steve Garcia during Culture Camp 2010, was decorated with paint thumbprints of Culture Camp participants under the supervision of Vickie Gambala, Director of Soaring Eagles Families. Ms. Gambala and Richard Orvedal then guided the youth in gathering the materials to create medicine pouches.

Check out pictures from each day of Culture Camp 2011 on our Photobucket here (click on the sub-albums on the right-hand navigation bar).