Day 3

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Adrian: "Living in the middle of nowhere is very quiet and peaceful. And we watched the sun set and we want to move here."


We had a delicious breakfast of fruit and quiche, and then headed to the People's Cultural Center in Pablo, just a few miles up the "highway." We got an awesome tour by the Native American director. It was fascinating to learn about the Native American culture: some of the highlights being all of the different ways they use bitterroot, and taking only what you need and giving back to Mother Earth.

Josh: We looked around at coyotes, buffalos, bisons, and bears. We rubbed coyotes' skin. They made clothes for a baby you can carry on your back. And feathers run in the back, and dancing. We talked about Indian tribes. We saw big a necklace, and Indians made it.
Adrian: We saw a whole bunch of cows and horses. We watched video of a pow wow.
Christy: We also learned about how they use plants for medicines.



Jessi: After the tour, we got right to work outside!
Adrian and Josh: and pulling up, and digging hole in back and putting flowers around it. And we ate pizza for lunch. And pulling up roots. We took a break and watched Indian movie, eat pizza, spend time together, take a break, and go back to work.
One really exciting part of the break was getting pepsi cans from the vending machine in the People's Center that had BEST BUDDIES logo artwork on the can!!!!!! Everybody, check out Diet Pepsi cans and look for Best Buddies! We found one all the way here in Montana!

Our job was to pull up the gardens' non-native plants, which we learned to identify, and make the soil ready, and then plant native plants for outside the people's center. We spent all day doing this job.
A man from the Tribal Newspaper came and did a story on our community service project!



Then, we went to Mission Mountain Enterprises! MME serves adults with disabilities with day-activity centers, a thrift store run by adults with disabilities, and group homes around the reservation.
We had fun talking to the man that made the rugs (a Native American man with disabilities at the center). We had fun talking to the different people onto disabilities.
It's nice meeting Native American people with disabilities. They are really nice people. They have lots of people with downs like us. And they do sports. They were really impressed with their weightlifting abilities, and told all their friends! We talked about basketball too. We made such good friends there, that they invited us over to their grouphome that evening for game night.



After we visited MME and finished our jobs at the People's Center later that afternoon, we went to Lake McDonald. This lake was crystal clear, aqua blue, made of snow-melt from the mountains that surround the lake. It was so peaceful and beautiful, a perfect relaxation break from a high-energy day. Absolutely unbelievable scenery, in such a remote location.



After we went to the lake, we went to the Group Home, got a tour of their nice house, and then played basketball!



Adrian: "We had fun beating the girls in basketball [we played 4 on 4 boys vs. girls]. I kept dunking on them, and when I missed Jessi called me Ben Wallace. We are going to give Jessi and the girls a re-match in basketball."
Josh: "I have fun today in basketball. Stephanie said, 'you wanna check me?' and I told Stephanie, 'You can't beat me in basketball,' put my hands stretched and hands streched and made my basketball in one hand and I made it!" I am having fuun on that game in basketball me and adrian playing and we play a lot and Stephanie and me bumped backs.
Josh fouled Stephanie, probably, every time she had the ball. Adrian threw Jessi off the pavement, too. And I made Jessi jump holding the ball up.

After this, we went to dairy queen, in the "city' of Ronan, and even sitting on the curb outside of DQ was a breathtaking view. We had a lot of fun taking silly pictures, and had a really fun day bonding together all the time!