Dine Computer Trip

Computers For People: A Macintosh Adventure in Arizona

by Jonathan Machen What can you do with seven donated late-model Macintosh computers that are gathering dust in the basement offices of a Boulder non-profit? Delete them abruptly into the great computer graveyard in the ground, or service them and take them to a place where they can be loved and used? Four individuals from Boulder embarked on just such an adventure in September 2000, crossing cultural (and phone) lines by arranging to transport those computers to a Navajo community in Tuba City, Arizona, where they were networked into several mobile buildings of a disabled citizen’s intensive care facility. Along the way, the group learned about the political issues surrounding Navajo relocation and visited the ancient Hopi town of Old Orabi as well as the ruins of Canyon De Chelly.

Jonathan, David and Ben at the Solstice Institute

Welcome to Tuba City!

This journey, an unusual effort of technological assistance, was given its inspiration by a chance meeting between two people: Ben Lipman, director of the Solstice Institute in Boulder (a non-profit in Boulder dedicated to researching and promoting issues of sustainability) and David Nosal, a volunteer for Boulder’s Traditional Support Caravan, a group committed to assisting the Black Mesa Navajo (Dine’) Indian reservations of north-east Arizona. Through his experience with the support caravan, Mr. Nosal learned of needs of the Dine’ Association of Disabled Citizens, a group of dedicated locals who provide round-the-clock health care to disabled members of the Dine’ nation. An idea occurred to Mr. Lipman one day when he and David were talking. Why not take the donated computers to the center for disabled citizens? Would they not benefit from having working Mac computers and printers at their disposal? David thought they would, based on his previous conversations with the Dine’. The idea was shelved until Ben’s friend Jonathan Machen, newly assisting Ben in the repair and maintenance of Mac computers, saw the merit and challenge of finding Audrey Link something useful to do with those dust-gathering computers. The goal was set and a timetable was established for getting the computers up to speed. In the meantime, additional help was drummed up in the very able services of Audrey Link, who assisted the three men in the transportation and installation of the computers.

At last, the refurbished computers were finally tweaked to their optimal running efficiency. A convoy of two vehicles, packed to the gills with computers, monitors, printers, hard drives and extension cords, left Boulder and headed for Crestone, Colorado, where John Milchen, a friend of Ben’s, offered to let the group camp. Set alongside the North Crestone Creek, Milchen’s property serves as the base for a spiritual retreat center he operates.

John Milchen and Ben “I’d say you need to drive that-a-way”

As if proof were needed for the sanctity of the place (never mind the golden, early evening light draping San Antonio peak and the high altitude plains of the San Luis Valley), the startled Boulderites were met with a smile and a nod by the head Lama of Taiwan and his small entourage, who came strolling out of the woods. The Lama had been visiting spiritual centers in Colorado, and obviously thought John’s property held a special significance.

Another day of driving through southern Colorado and north-eastern Arizona finally brought the intrepid computer couriers to Tuba City, a dusty, red-dirt sculpted community nestled above and alongside an ancient wash. The wash Moonrise over Tuba City appeared dry, but was indicative of water that lay hidden underground. Also hidden underground (but some miles to the north) lay the coal deposits of Black Mesa, ancestral lands of the Dine’ and Hopi peoples, as well as the site of the Peabody Corporation’s infamous mining operation, a program that for many years has turned the Dine’ and Hopi against each other in a complicated resettlement battle. The Dine’, in particular, have been left the disinherited heirs to a land that once sustained them, and the issue has attracted the attention of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who in 1998 sent an investigator to the area. At that time it was determined that the human and religious rights of the Traditional Dine’ people were being violated. In the eyes of Dr. Thayer Scudder, Professor of Anthropology at the California Institute of Technology, who has studied resettlement issues in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East for the UN and the World Bank: "The forced relocation of over 12,000 Native Americans is one of the worst cases of involuntary community resettlement that I have studied throughout the world over the past 40 years.

Such a situation would never have arisen in the US if the people involved had been Anglo-Americans. That alone illustrates the extent to which the human rights of one of the poorest minority groups in the US have been violated."

In Tuba City, the effects of the relocation are not immediately evident, but the town is growing, no doubt with families and individuals who have been forced to relocate off of Black Mesa.

The travelers from Boulder pulled into the parking lot of the Dine’ Association for Disabled Citizens, noted the semi-circular arrangement of mobile homes arranged in covered-wagon camp style around an open, dusty parking lot, and attempted to gain their bearings. Their arrival had been anticipated, and arrangements had been made for them to make their headquarters (and sleep) in a former mobile office, dusty and devoid of furniture. The other buildings on the property were fully furnished and functioning around-the-clock care facilities for the disabled Dine’.

These facilities were shown to the group, one by one, by the Director of the center. She took pride in every building; indeed, a sense of dignity and compassion for the residents pervaded the small complex. The administration office already contained a complete and functioning PC network, but six of the outlying mobile homes had little more than electric typewriters to assist in normal office functions. The Macintosh computers, it appeared, would function especially well in these offices, giving some of the employees opportunities to do not only word “hmm...d’ya think we should rewire processing, but graphics layout. After a brief, excited session of their entire phone system, too?” brainstorming, the tired travelers fell to sleep on the dusty white checkerboard linoleum floor, dreaming of computer cables and smiling monitor screens.

Early the next morning the group got busy with setting up the seven computers. Jonathan was in charge of putting the right computers in the right buildings, with help from David and Audrey, while Ben tried to assess the telephone network throughout the compound. Understanding where the phone connections entered and exited each building was crucial to making a simple and effective computer network.

A phone line with a special connector was routed to each Mac, then to a common printer in one of the main rooms.

The real challenge appeared to be deciding just how many of the buildings could be physically strung together. The first three units were arranged in a row, offset by the main administration building by ninety degrees. Facing the first three buildings from across the parking lot stood three more mobile units. Ben’s skill with re-wiring phones was put to the test only in the first three buildings, where the network finally found a home. However, each non-networked building got a computer with word processing capabilities and a printer of its own.

Installation and education Once everything was installed, A follow-up lesson was arranged to educate the office workers on how to use their new Mac computers. In return, the office staff provided the Boulderites with a feast of chili and fry bread, as well as presenting small gifts in thanks for their efforts. This hospitality was repeated in the evening, when the groups’ primary hosts, Ray and Rose Bizardi, prepared a more traditional feast of mutton stew, reflective of the traditional role of sheep in the Dine’ life. For good or ill, the traditional culture of the region is fast dissolving. The Dine’ are adapting to survive, but doing so with grace and resolve. This reality became obvious to Ben, Jonathan, David and Audrey as they watched the Dine’ assimilate Mac computer technology (as well as the PC technology already established) that is helping them care more effectively for their disabled citizens.

As the group sat in the Bizardi’s living room eating fry bread and mutton stew, the T.V. blared a movie, Armageddon. Like other lit-fuse thrillers, the bomb was diffused just in time to narrowly miss the complete destruction of the world. Jonathan’s thoughts mulled over the irony implicit in such a movie, viewed in such a place. In nearby Hopi lands, which the group would visit the next day on their way back to Boulder, ancient prophecies had also foretold a future time of great change and upheaval. Certainly, the traditional Dine’ and Hopi cultures have all but disappeared in their original strength and dignity, leaving an impoverished people living within one of richest countries of the wold. Yet the spirit of groups like the Dine’ persists as people around the world protest their exploitation, and strive to help them help themselves.

From left to right: Canyon De Chelly ruins, gas station at Teec Nos Pos, Canyon De Chelly cliff.

Sketches by Jonathan for more information on the Solstice Institute, go to: www.sustainability.org to see more artwork, go to Jonathan Machen at: www.dimensional.com/~jon feedback: jon@dimensional.com, solstice@ic.org