Read Lacey and the African Grandmothers Online
Authors: Sue Farrell Holler
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Lacey and the African Grandmothers
Lacey and the African Grandmothers
A Kids' Power Book
Lacey
and the
African Grandmothers
Sue Farrell Holler
Second Story Press
L
IBRARY AND
A
RCHIVES
C
ANADA
C
ATALOGUING IN
P
UBLICATION
Holler, Sue Farrell, 1962-
Lacey and the African grandmothers / by Sue Farrell Holler.
(The kids' power series)
ISBN 978-1-897187-61-6
1. Siksika IndiansâJuvenile fiction. 2. Grandmothers to Grandmothers CampaignâJuvenile fiction. I. Title. II. Series: Kids' power series
PS8615.O437L32 2009Â Â Â Â Â Â Â jC813'.6 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â C2009-904794-2
Copyright © 2009 by Sue Farrell Holler
Edited by Gena K. Gorrell
Copyedited by Karen Smart
Cover and text design by Melissa Kaita
Printed and bound in Canada
Photos courtesy of Sequoia Outreach School
Photos courtesy Sue Farrell Holler
Cover photos © istockphoto
Cover photo of grandmothers courtesy of Sequoia Outreach School
Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council
and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the
financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program.
Published by
S
ECOND
S
TORY
P
RESS
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca
To Lisa Jo Sun Walk, with thanks for allowing
me to tell your story, and to Denise Peterson,
who first shared this story with me.
Contents
Chapter 1
Planting Curled-up Brains
Chapter 5
“I Was Going to Need a Lot of Help”
Chapter 8
White Buffalo Calf Woman
Chapter 10
Kahasi's Big Surprise
“We can do no great things,
only small things with great love.”
âMother Teresa
Lacey and the African Grandmothers
is a work of fiction inspired by a remarkable young woman who was not afraid to use her talents to help others. Her real name is Lisa Jo Sun Walk.
The setting is real, as are the Sequoia Outreach School, Central Bow Valley School, and Blackfoot Crossing. The account of the African grandmothers visiting Lisa Jo and Sequoia is real, as is their visit to Blackfoot Crossing. Much of the conversation between the African women and Lisa Jo is based on their words.
It is my hope that readers will look at their personal talents and find ways to make the world a better place, whether in their families, their communities, their country, or, like Lisa Jo, in another part of the world.
My name is Lacey Little Bird. I am twelve years old, and I am Blackfoot. The Blackfoot are part of the First Nations â the people who lived in North America long before the Europeans came.
My family stays at the Siksika First Nation, the second-biggest reserve in Canada, on the prairie in the middle of Alberta. Most of the land here looks as flat as a table, but it is really made up of gentle rolling hills covered with grasses and other plants. In the olden days our ancestors hunted buffalo here, and they could see the buffalo coming from far away. Now you can't see buffalo, but you can see the houses of the reserve.
At a place called South Camp, the prairie dips into a coulee. That's something like a valley, or a canyon. The Bow River winds through the bottom of the coulee, and along the river there are great trees with green leaves in the spring and summer. Berries grow here, especially
ookonooki â
saskatoon berries â the berries I like best. Other people call this place Blackfoot Crossing because of the new historical center there and because it was there that Chief Crowfoot signed a peace treaty in the 1800s, but we usually just call it South Camp. It is the part of the reserve where my family stays.
South Camp is a long way from the main part of the Siksika First Nation. A highway connects the two parts â South Camp and the larger part that's beside Gleichen. The highway runs all the way to the big city of Calgary, which is about an hour away by car. Most families here don't have cars, so they don't leave the reserve very often.
Above: The Siksika Nation is home to about 7,000 people. It is located just east of Calgary, Alberta. Below: A view of South Camp, taken from the marker that commemorates the signing of Treaty 7.
I don't know why they would want to leave anyway. Siksika is the most beautiful place in the world. Sweet grass grows here, and sage, which smells so clean when you brush up against it.
But the very best part is the sky. It looks like the inside of a bowl that's turned upside down. The sky is much bigger than the land. In the winter, when the sun is waking up, it paints the sky soft blue and pink. In the summer, when the sun goes to sleep beyond the horizon, it streaks the sky dark with orange and pink.
I'm going to tell you a story about Siksika, and about me. I'm just an ordinary girl with a mother, a father, a sister, and too many brothers. The story is about how someone like me got to meet grandmothers who came all the way from Africa.
The story starts with some seeds that looked like curled-up brains.
Chapter 1
Planting Curled-up Brains
T
he smell of simmering herbs made my stomach rumble as I jumped down the stairs to Sequoia. I shook off the winter jacket I'd gotten for Christmas and slowed down when I hit the bottom step. I had run all the way from my own school, but running inside a school wasn't allowed, even in this school, which was in a church basement.
It was unusually quiet. No one was talking, and there wasn't any music. There were calculators, pencils, and erasers scattered on the long tables, and no one was smiling or joking. They all looked serious as they worked out the answers on the tests. I'd forgotten about the exams.