Sunday night programing on the local NPR station (KUAZ)

It was a 'typical' Sunday work night, when I was driving to UMC last evening. Pleasant, not too cool, less than average traffic. I was listening to the local NPR station (KUAZ), as Dean and I tend to listen to it a lot. Last night I heard something I hadn't heard before, however! Dean had told me about it some time in the past, but I had never listened on Sunday evening.

We all stereo-type the Southwest as being "the wild, wild, West" - chock full of cowboys and Indians. That's not a total stereo-type, however. Yep, there are cowboys out here...we even saw a Border Patrol on mount, wearing chaps, the other day. I've long known that there are the local Tohono O'odham Indians in this area (they have a huge reservation just outside of Tucson). On Sunday nights, however, KUAZ broadcasts a program for (and by) the tribe! Here is the information I've found (during a very quick search on the Internet this morning):

"The Tohono O'odham Nation consists of four smaller Papago Indian reservations. Tohono O'odham Reservation stretches 90 miles across the southern boundary of Arizona, the reservation actually extends into northern Mexico, too. To the north of Tohono O'odham is the smaller Gila Bend Reservation. To the east is San Xavier Reservation, near Tucson. And, east of the Gila Bend Reservation is the much smaller (20 acre) Florence Village, just west of Florence Arizona.

The location of Tonhono O'odom Nation allows easy access from Tucson and many other Southern Arizona destinations. Sells, Arizona is the nation's capitol and just 15 miles to the south lies Baboquiivari Peak, legendary home of I'itoi, the Papago Creator."

Listening to their program was interesting - their language so different from anything I had heard before! Interesting, also, was the woman doing the program. She was telling of meetings coming up for the tribe, as well as social functions, doing church announcements, and information about health care clinics. She gave all of the information in their Native language, followed by the same information in English. The picture on the left, of the young women is from the Miss Native America pageant. The young woman in the middle is "Miss Tohono O'odham". The black and white picture on the right is Ofelia Zepeda, a Tohono poet and scholar.