Tashi Tewa

My 75 yrs young aaki (father) will get his vaccine tomorrow in Nepal. Had plans to bring him here but glad we changed our plan. Let's hope that there won't be any side effects. Especially thanks to my 2 sisters who have always taken the best care of his health. Regarding my Indigenous community, some elders got the vaccine in the capital city and some will take the shot in the Dolpa district during their return to Dolpo. Though won't rule out that hesitancy and fear, the latter group is more concerned about the 2nd shot. The plan of central and provincial gov isn't clear. How the district hospital would respond to such ambiguity, no one knows. Thanks anyways to our community, everyone is kind of safe without any reports of death. On the other hand, there are still many elders in the community who know less about the vaccine. I'm unaware of the gov plan (if exists) to vaccinate that group of elders by taking the vaccine to the community. The district hospital is at-l

In his last talk, a former Fulbright Director Tom Robertson discussed Tharu's agency/power. I watched few starting minutes and will share my general observation. During his presentation, he also comments on an Ojibwe scholar David Treuer's "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present," and dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." Interestingly, Robertson uses the later book to extract 'bikas' (development), not GENOCIDE though the presenter claims that those books are used as a point of motivation to build his arguments. Robertson's point of motivation seems misplaced if one knows what Truer is arguing in his book. Questioning the "dead Indian" narrative and certain thesis stressed by Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Truer emphasizes that "The year 1890 was not the end of us, our cultures, our civilizations. It was a cruel, low, painful point, yes--maybe even the lowest point since European arrived