A Small Adventure on Uncle Sam's Land 4.0

Hey guys, here's another chapter!

Only horse's crazy, but not me XD

Week 4 (23-28/10/2022)

My journey in the US was getting more exciting this week. After long days of academic learning, I finally got the chance to travel out from Omaha with other Fellows for three days. 

Guess where we went?

It was SOUTH DAKOTA :D

South Dakota (SD) is a US state located up north from Nebraska that is commonly referred to as "The Land of Infinite Variety." Its capital city is Pierre situated in the Central Region where the Missouri River flows through the state. There were three main cities where we explored, i.e., Chamberlain, Rapid City & Sioux Falls. As we departed from Sonesta in the early morning of Sunday, 23/10, the earlier one was our first stop where we had our lunch and gazed at the wonderful Missouri River.

We reached a hotel in Rapid City around 4 pm (local time). After checking-in our rooms, we walked around the city and looked for a place to have our dinner. There were numerous choices ranging from pizza chain to BBQ place and some of us (including me of course) chose Kathmandu Bistro, a South Asian restaurant as our dinner place. I am so excited to introduce some common dishes, e.g. Chicken Biryani, Mutton Kurma and Naan Bread to other fellows, i.e. Hasanah, 'Adik' Nhi Pham and Jeffry as they haven't tasted them before. Razman, Rada, Julie and Michael also joined us and we really enjoyed our meals there.

On the next day, we explored the Mount Rushmore National Memorial; well-known for its unique face carvings depicting four former US Presidents, i.e. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. I also took some time to visit its information and exhibition centre to understand the motivation and challenges faced by its architects to carve the mountain stones in making those faces. To be honest, I feel amazed with their grand architecture plan even though there are some dark side stories surrounding the project which I don't wish to explain further here. One of the best things there was... I finally experienced snowy weather for the FIRST TIME in my whole life :')

After that, we went to the Badlands National Park, another mountainous area where we found enormous limestone rocks and mixed-grass prairie. This area was the main hunting area for Native Americans centuries ago and recognized as a National Park by the US Government in 1978. After wandering around there for around 30 minutes, we moved to Wall to have our lunch and buy some souvenirs before heading back to Chamberlain. It was snowing heavily along the way there :D

On Tuesday, we did sunrise gazing near Missouri River alongside went around the Dignity Statue which depicts a Native American woman in Plains-style dress manifesting "the courage, perseverance and wisdom of the Lakota and Dakota culture in South Dakota.” (Travel South Dakota, 2023). Then, we visited Akta Lakota Museum that exhibits the culture and tradition of Lakota Tribe who lived there even before South Dakota established and achieved its statehood. I was not surprised to know the fact that Native Americans like them confronted with White/Europeans people with unwelcoming behaviour due to aggressive territory expansion conducted by them. Even until today, some of them are still struggling to protect their reservation areas as designed by the government from any developmental threat.

On the way back to Omaha, we stopped in Sioux Falls, SD and Winnebago, NE to have our lunch and visit another Native American museum illustrating the culture and tradition of the Ho-Chunk tribe. One interesting part of them is they usually do fasting while being alone for faith and self-reflection purposes which are almost similar to the concept of Khalwah (lit. "solitude") in Islam. Besides, I felt so sorrowful to know that 90% of its tribal people died due to smallpox a long time ago. We arrived in Omaha around 6.30 pm that day.

After that, we took some time on Wednesday to prepare for the Action Plan Presentations on the next day. The Program Team also conducted a mock presentation as the platform to improvise our action plans by presenting basic information before receiving feedbacks from everyone. For this slot, I presented a project entitled "Stay Vigilant; Not Vigilante" which was already planned even before coming to the US together with some modifications after consulting Dr Patrick and Daniel the Attorney; it received strong support from other Fellows and I still keep their feedback papers until today (Thank you very much guys :D).

On Friday, we attended a community service at Intercultural Senior Centre, a famous meeting and learning place for Omaha senior citizens regardless of their ethnicity. Some of us were assigned to clean several rooms and arrange donated items for distribution. It was also decorated with the Halloween theme that time. The working volunteers there were so friendly as I talked to them about daily activities which are taking place at the centre. 

In short, the fourth week was more adventurous compared to the previous three weeks as other Fellows and I were brought to another US State to have a different learning experience during the fellowship. It also found that there is a similarity between the US and Malaysia when it comes to treatment towards indigenous peoples as the majority of them are not empowered enough to be self-determined while still struggling to maintain their reservations, culture and tradition. Nevertheless, I still had another great time this week!

To be continued...