Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Siletz news letter. (Siletz, Oregon) 1989-1997 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1990)
I W iUf—WWiW»1 —*1 .. . ~ 3 3 x j --,. S !■„ .;. ? _ ADULT RAFT TRIP September 12,13,14, 1990 By: Walt Klamath, Outpatient Counselor Bright and early on a Wednesday morning, the Parents of some of the youths went on a "parenting" raft trip on the Deschutes River, th is trip was the fartest up the Deschutes River that this writer has ; been on rafting excursions. This trip , started about ten miles below the town of Warms Springs and we drifted to the Maupin City Park. We did not drift the first day, as we usually do, but set up camp to get an early start Thursday morning. The weather was different than we normally encounter. The days were quite warm but the nights got a little chilly. This Trip was attended by Sam and Sheila Bayya, Bristol and Kristi Bayya, Robina Baker, Liz John, Irene Holland, Janet Dair, Aquene Amarys and Walt ■ Klamath. From CAEC Dave Graham, Ed Bartlett and John Spence. AS is normal e when working with youth we had many dropouts before we left. In fact we had 6 f dropout the day before we left. Pretty good average. This was a fun trip. All the outings that we have had, none had as much laughing as this one. Some of the things that went on were completely unbelievable, such as rafts going through rapids sideways and not ^ .’ flipping over. The cooking was done by experts, I think we w ill take them on all our excursions. Kristi and Bristol did the ramrodding of the food stuff. Bristo done a job on the barbecuing o f the steaks. Irene dug her hands into the pancake batter. Everyone ate w e ll. Kristi and Bristol had a private raft all to themselves, Kristi took it easy and Bristol did the rowing. Kristi was at the head of the raft leading her man on. The rest of us had to share our rafts. Irene, Aquene, Janet and Kitti womaned a raft. WOW! What a crew. John rowed and Walt took pictures^ therefore I had the hard Job, I did. try the rowing, and found rocks that no one knew existed, so it was decided, by me, that /T*1"1"< J' - ' " . - 1 would do better taking pictures, that is debatable. Ed Bartlett, of CAEC commanded the most important raft, the one with the food and sleeping gear. Nothing became wet this year, as has happened in the past. Sometimes some of the oar boat people became adventurous and run the baggage boat through the rapids. Not quite acceptable. Irenes Janet, K itti and Aquene manned one raft. Now this particular raft was the picture o f coordination. The guardian angel must have been riding with them, that they did not roll over side ways orendo. Dave Graham, CAEC staff, Sam, Sheila, Liz and Robina were in the last raft. This raft did not have too many problems. They actually were kind of boring. They did get into some good water fights. These are on still pictures. Much o f the time they were not in view of John and myself, so they really could have done most anything and not say anything about it. A few of the girls fell out of the rafts as they went over some of the rapids. Irene was the first to try swimming white water, unintentionally. Of course then she had to show off her skills, and inspect the bottom of the raft before coming to the surface. However she did not give a report on the condition down under. Then further on down the line Kitti and Aquene decided that they needed some more excitement and fell out, a lm o s t. into the raft behind them. Janet decided they needed some experience in water rescue and pushed Aquene into the water. Kitti demonstrated great skill in extricating her from the water. This is on video. It will have to be viewed to be appreciated. As is normal this writer did receive some bad mouthing from some of the sleepy heads. Seems that no one really likes to get up early for coffee. It really was not all that early 5:30. It was almost daylight. Our class room consisted of bringing one of the rafts up on land and setting it on its side It worked well. The topics that were chosen to think about work in a J ' sti . ft z . or - e gon December 1990 - PAGE 9 strange way. The. topic of this particular excursion was 'Parenting', I cannot relate as to how others react to the subject, but for me it makes; me think, in a setting-with nature, where we can see the work o f the Great Spirit, it is humbling. It brings-up things that we have forgotten., not necessarily negative. Many good thoughts come to mind. I believe, as does our prevention program , that being with Mother Nature on her terms, is the surest way to get the attention of our people. In this case John Spence put up the board and wrote a few words such as: When I was a child? How was I disciplined? Played with? Taught skills? 1 One may sit down in the quiet Of the evening and think about this, be honest. Many things will come out of this. The sticker was the question. How did you raise your family? Think about it. Then, how was my mother raised? My father? Then patterns begin to emerge, maybe good, maybe not so good, but it sure can be mind boggling. Try it sometime. As we have stated before these raft trips are much more then just fun. Now would be a great time to get names in for the 1991 rafting trips. Social Services has indicated that they would like to sponsor an outing or two. This could be arranged for back to back three day trips. Mostly what it takes is interest. In conclusion; parents, parents to be, or may be parents some day, who would like to get involved in some of our preventiOh/intervention programs, contact the Tribal Alcohol and Drug Program and get on the list. We usually take 12 at a time, plus our staff. We have a difficult time filling the spaces available. The space situation changes continually. Incidentally we already have two children 12 and under who have sent letters into the office, to go on next years Whatever we do. Our programs, the Y-RAC and the Alcohol and Drug Programs, w ill do something, that w ill be fun, risky and educational
