Real Life On The Navajo Nation - Surviving Without What Others Take For Granted

Well, it's morning, so I'm going to have a shower. Now, this shower here only has cold water because it's coming from a natural spring and there is no hot water in this place. Oh, yeah, that's a little chilly. Ooh, refreshing, wakes me up. Brock Hopper here, and I am on the Navajo Nation, and we're going to show you a day in the life of the people here. And, you know, it's kind of like a soap opera, which I like to call these are the Denae's of our lives. Travel far enough down a dirt road and you'll find the tiny settlement of Monavi in the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation encompasses an area the size of West Virginia and is the most populous tribe in America, numbering roughly 300,000 people. Look around beneath the canyon walls and you'll see fruits and vegetables being grown here, a tiny enclave of people farming the desert thanks to a nearby spring to supply them with irrigation water. In this area, there are still people that speak only Navajo, and you might still see people living in the traditional hogans. I visited my friends here and thought I would show you what a day in their life looks like. Helen's chopping up some firewood here and firing up the grill. Are we going to make lunch or what are we doing here? Oh, we have an injured puppy. OK, and this is Little Bear back here. And she's going to help take care of the injured puppy. OK, what happened with the puppy? Well, we're not sure. He either got bit by a dog or he got shot. So we're making him a warm bathwater and I will clean his wounds and then we're going to get him all fancy. OK, feeling better, feeling good. And this is Tarzan right here. Can you say hi? Say hi. Yeah, how's it going? All right. And OK, so we got we're going to fill this thing with water and we're making this fire to heat up the water, correct? Yep. OK. And back here is Leland. So that's Helen right here. That's her brother. And over here, well, he went somewhere. Malo is an employee. He's a Danette employee. And we've got a crowing rooster back here somewhere. You probably hear him in the background. He does not stop. He starts about 3 a.m. and he just keeps going to like 5 p.m. Yeah, that's that's him right now. Yeah, this is a rooster on crack. There's all kinds of animals around here. And I'm not talking about Tarzan here. I'm talking about the ducks. And we've got chickens and other things. And I'll show you those. We've got dogs and cat. There's a cat around here somewhere. So today, in case you don't know, is the Navajo word for people, the people, right? It's it's what you would say about your own people. You call yourselves the DNA. This is Helen's humble little house here on the DNA lands. That's the water supply right there. It also runs in through the house. My husband has family here. And I really was too shy to come out and get to know anybody. Oh, she thinks I'm not shy. I am to a degree. Oh, Nene. I didn't I stayed. I stayed in my trailer. I didn't really come out. I mean, I went with my husband places, but I didn't go anywhere by myself. And I stayed home. And then when circumstances changed, I started coming out because it got really hot in the trailer to first off. It's really hot here. So and I didn't know how to run the generator at first. I didn't know nothing about no generator. My husband did all that. And so I had to learn how to do that. And yeah, that wasn't fun. And so I met Helen and I met Joey. And I know Wally because he's family to my husband. But I got to meet everybody else. And I just started coming out of my cell. And I like being here. It's nice. It's comfortable. It's peaceful. It's definitely a place you can reflect on things. I don't know. I enjoy it. I'd rather be here than in the city. That's for sure. So Mello's a little shy right now. But he's working on the weeds. He's hoeing around. Hoeing around. He's pulling weeds for me. Mello was here to clear out all these weeds and get this place cleaned up a bit. Can you talk about your husband at all? Well, yeah, he's my my main six. I love him to death. We went to court one time and I was pregnant. They didn't like what we had to say to them because we were the type to stick up for our rights and tell them where they're wrong. And we had the proof of it. And so they got mad and called the cops on us. And the cops said we had warrants when we didn't have any warrants. And so I'm hearing impaired and disabled. And they've known this. And when I was telling them, show me the warrant. Where's the warrant? They said not to worry about it. And then five guys attacked me. Five police officers attacked me and threw me on the ground and sat on me while I was pregnant. And then my husband, they arrested my husband and beat him up. This is all on video, by the way. I have it all on video. This was on live on Facebook. They took my Facebook down. And I have all the evidence to Elvis to show that we're in the right. They never produced the warrant. There was no warrant to be shown. So they took him to jail. He's been in jail for two years now fighting this case. It's a very big case. I miscarried my baby. Had to have a five and a half hour surgery where they scraped my insides out. It almost cost me my life having this little guy wherever he went. So he's been fighting for his freedom for the last two years for something that we didn't do. All for asking for a warrant that they never had. And they still won't produce. And they don't want to honor where they messed up. Once they found out I was really pregnant, they suppressed the pregnancy and they suppressed the warrant. So why would you suppress the two main things that deem our innocence? He's facing 60 years to life. And they altered parts of his case too. They went from a misdemeanor to a felony. They don't care. They don't think that anything's gonna happen to them ever. They've been committing crimes against people for a very long time on Yavapai. So they don't think that this is ever gonna come back on them. But we'll see what happens, right? Especially if this video gets out. You can find our video. You can go to TikTok on Little Bear. I explain in detail everything that happens. He's at the Yavapai County Jail in Prescott, Arizona. And anybody out there that could help us would be greatly appreciated because he needs to be free. He's innocent. We were assaulted and he never touched anybody. And all we asked for was a warrant. They told us not to worry about it. We're gonna worry about it, that's for sure, because there wasn't one. And then they beat us up. What kind of world are we in, you know? The cops are supposed to be here to protect and serve, not to attack and assault. Time to take the ducks for a swim. Here we go. And we're gonna get the other one in there, too. Okay, well, happy duck there. And we've got the other duck back in there. There you go. And that's how you take your ducks for a swim. Woo-hoo! Happy ducks. Yeah. Look at that. Right now we're heating up the water on the grill here so we can use it in the bath. So that little bear there can wash up Lincoln, the dog, who has the injuries. The open wounds. Looks like Helen's bringing Lincoln out now. Lincoln's a cute little dog. Look at his wound. He's got, yeah, he's got like open flesh wounds. Let's see those. Wow, that's... Looks like a dog bite. There and then up here. And the other side, too. The other side as well? Yes. Yes, right through his arm. Oh, wow. Right all the way through his arm? Yeah. Wow, bummer. Poor little guy. So they're gonna get him all cleaned up and disinfected so we can avoid him getting any kind of an infection. He was really muddy when he came back all injured. He was real muddy? Yes, he had a thick load of mud on him. That's why he's all muddy still, huh? He's still muddy. He's got a bunch of mud there. All right, Lincoln. Well, I hope we can fix you up okay. So we're gonna clean out those wounds, huh? Yeah. You need cotton ball? Um, no, not right now. And then what do we do after? Well, after I get all this crap out of it, I'm gonna put them in the tub. But I kind of want to get this before I put them in the tub. What's going on? They are clapping on my chair. No, you guys belong outside. Bad birds. So you got a whole lot of little chicks in here. They are so spoiled. I had them in here when the days are cold, nights are cold. Yeah. But they're in here hanging out now. So we got a whole lot of little ducklings and chicks right inside the house here. Yeah, hello little duckies and chickies. If you're interested in Helen's life, I don't know, maybe you've already seen the video, but you can see her house and her life as well as her sisters. And the life, it's called living beyond off-grid, real life on the rez. And it's got, you know, a whole lot of in-depth living here in the Navajo Nation. And we have a Tarzan. We do have a Tarzan. Wave, hi. Okay, so what's going on here? I'm pouring a little cold water in it because it's a little too hot and we don't want it to be too hot. I want it just right. All right, so we threw in the hot and now we're putting a little cold. Make it not so hot. I'm putting Lincoln in the bath here. Hey Lincoln, Lincoln. Oh, I know, honey. Relax, relax. Is it too warm for him, maybe? You want to get another little bit? Yeah, it might be a little too warm still. Get you all nice and fancy, Lincoln. Get you all nice and cleaned up. So while little bear cleans up Lincoln, what are you doing? I'm washing my car. All right, getting the car washed. Nice and clean. Oh, that's the duck scurrying. Helen's spraying the ducks. The chicken you see there, that chicken thinks he's a duck like the other two. He hangs out with them all the time. So there's running water on this property and it comes from a spring back up in the canyon, a natural spring that flows on down. So these are one of the few residences here that don't have to haul their water in. So other people come here and they get the water from the tap here and they haul it home. Filling up the jugs, filling up the barrels. Back to little bear. Well, now he's gotten used to it. This is his first bath, right? Yes, very first bath. He's never had a bath. He's really enjoying it. Oh, that's good. He's trying not to look so relaxed. And he's only like a year and a couple months old, I think. Yeah, he's not very old. Still a baby, huh, mister? So while little bear's finishing up with the bath there, Helen is continuing washing up the car. Getting it all spick and span and nice and shiny and clean. It rained here a bunch not too long ago, huh? Yes, it rained about four days ago. Yeah, like really, really poured hard, huh? That's why I saw those puddles out there coming in. He hopped out on you? Yeah. Okay, so he's done. He's had enough. You're drying him off now, huh? Yeah. Well, I think he's going to feel better. Yeah, most definitely. Lincoln's got a little bit of a limp when he walks because, you know, he's injured. Oh, you're feeling better, huh? He's feeling a little better. Oh, come on, Lincoln. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, right after he gets washed, he wants to roll in the dirt. Isn't that just like a dog? Look, let me get all the dirt off you before I take you back inside. Leland's going to pick some peaches right off the tree. We have plenty of trees here. Apricots, peaches, and apples. As well as a bunch of vegetables that are being grown here on the property. This is where they grow some squash, a lot of corn, and some grapevines back there. And it's all fresh, organic food. Real healthy stuff. So this is one way of getting connected to the land. Is letting the land supply a bounty. The birds are getting it. The birds are getting them? Well, you you better get them before they do. The ants too? All right. Well, there's quite a few peaches on this tree and they're looking pretty good. Yeah, check these out right in through here. Lots of peaches. Well, that looks like a pretty good haul right there for today. More to pick later. So where are you taking these peaches? Just up here? To a guy. What's his name? Fraz? And he can't he can't see? Okay. All right. Well, that's nice. Give him some peaches. So what happened? So it rained really hard. They fell down. The ground shook. And then it must have made a lot of noise, huh? A lot of noise. Like thunder? Wow. Yeah, let me get a close up of those rocks. Don't go up there. Okay. So those rocks right there, they fell down. They were up there and they fell down right there where you see them now. From the rain. Wow. Helen's really got this car looking spiffy and shiny now. Look at that. There's no electricity, so there's no refrigeration here. The only opportunity to keep anything cool is to have a little ice chest like this. And it only lasts as long as the ice lasts, of course. Helen put me in charge of cooking hot dogs, so I'm going to use the coals we had. Hopefully there's still a few coals here left from when we were heating up the water to wash the dog. So I'll put in some wood in there and we're going to throw some hot dogs right on the grill here and have some lunch. The fire is going and I just grabbed Helen's buns. Isn't that right, Helen? Yes, you did. This is the rooster that is incredibly annoying crowing at all hours of the day and night. This can be a good place to chill as you can see, right? It's an awesome place. Yeah, you got a hammock and you got sleeping dogs underneath it. The chicks are back. There they go. And the ducklings back there. And so is Tarzan. Time to throw some dogs on the barbie. Those look pretty done, so it's hot dog time. Dig in there, Helen. Hot dog time. Throw it back at me. Kelsey's trying to feed some lettuce to the ducks and chicks. Yeah, they'll get to it eventually, I guess. Of course, the dog gets to check it out. There they go. Some leftovers from last night. We've got a pork chop there and some cabbage that we wrapped in foil and put on the grill. It's actually pretty good. I cooked this up last night. Yummy. I'm gonna go drop Mellow off. I'll be back in about 30 minutes. Okay. So the women left us. They went to drop off Mellow back to his house. And so myself with Leland here, we're just hanging out. And he told me how he used to play right over there. There's like a boarding school out that way. And he used to play out there when he was a young kid. They kidnapped your grandma? Was it like... Who kidnapped her? People from Capitola. Capitola up there. Yeah. They did. They threw them out. But they came to them. Planted them in squash. The horseback came along. They threw a grandma in. They took, kidnapped, guys for grandma too now. 10 years. 18, 16 now. Out of... I don't know. We was like one of you. Yeah. I'm part Hopi though. You're part Hopi and part Diné? Background. Background, yeah. Yeah. You're background? Yeah. Background. And you're from which clan? Squash. Squash clan. Okay. So you're Hopi and Diné from the Squash clan? Yeah. My sister didn't know us. They talk more and more. But I started that now. I pretty much juggled me. They talk more to me now. The women are back. So Little Bear's back. And it's time to finish fixing up Lincoln, the dog here. She's gonna fix up Lincoln, my baby. Yeah, get him out of the cage. He had a nice little nap while they were away. And we're gonna get him all fixed up now. Heal those wounds. Arm up. Okay, so she's just cleaning the site with some regular water, right? Yeah, just water and a little napkin. Cleaning the area around it. Helen's tired so she's taking a nap. I'm tired too because of that rooster crowing starting at three in the morning. He's loud. All the way. We gave him a bath and I tried to clean up the best I could around his wound stop. And I do it in sections because that way it helps with the stress levels. If you do it all at once when they're under stress and extreme pain like that, they're not gonna want you to touch them. But when you do it in sections like I'm doing it and talking to him through it and cleaning around it and letting him know I'm not here to hurt him or stress him out, make the matters worse. I'm just merely letting him know I want to help him keep it clean and doctor him up and without all the stress that comes with it. You know, see he's already in pain and the flies are bothering him. So you just want to keep him as relaxed as possible. And I also let them smell their stuff too because then they know that what you're doing and you're not hurting them or trying to, you know, hurt them more, make them upset more. So what I'm getting ready to do now is just put a little neosporin around the site and then I'm going to cover it with gauze so he don't lick it because obviously he can't keep his licks to himself. He wants to lick, lick, lick. Okay, so we just put some dabbing some neosporin into those wounds, huh? Yeah, just around it. Not really inside it. I mean, it's not gonna hurt it to put it inside of it, but I just want to do it around it. Okay. And then we're gonna put the gauze over it on this side. So you're gonna wrap that leg? Yep. And that'll prevent him from licking the neosporin, right? Yep. Just a little bit around it. Now quit. No moving. No licking. Let's do this one. Wrap it. I'm gonna wrap that leg. Thank you, Lincoln, for helping. You're so smart. So we're gonna wrap that leg up all good. Well, Lincoln looks to be all wrapped up now. Is he ready to go? Yeah, he is. He's being a little bossy brat now. And must be feeling good if he's showing me his teeth. Lincoln here undid his bandages and so we're re-wrapping it. But this time we thought to make a little cone for his head out of a plastic juice jug and so he can't lick it and keep irritating it. So hopefully this might work, right? Yeah, I'm hoping so. Because those wounds are looking open and kind of nasty so we want to heal those up. No moving. Just chill. Let it heal. I know all those flies are messing with you, aren't they? So Lincoln is now officially a cone head. He's got the plastic jug cone look. What do you think of that, Lincoln? I'm not happy about it. I don't like this at all. The chicks are invading the home. They're invading the house. One by one they're coming in. Okay, they're making themselves... They just like to make a mess. They like to go poop everywhere. They like to make a mess and go poop? Is that the whole... Yeah. But, you know, you like having them in here sometimes, huh? Because they're fun. They're cute. So you guys don't poop, okay? They're always pooping everywhere. Well, looks like you're gonna have to mop today, too. Meanwhile, over in this corner, we have Lincoln who's trying to get... Oh, he got his cone off his head and now he's trying to lick his wounds again. Okay, it's just one thing after another around here. Never a dull moment, right? Never a dull moment. It's a chick invasion. They're everywhere. Look at them just roaming about anywhere they want to go. In the house and the big ducks are coming in, too. Again. Yeah. So what are you up to, Tarzan? Oh, you got a little fishing pole? I don't think you're gonna catch many fish in there, but you could try. Yeah? Okay, well, give it a go. So no fish in that other place. So you're trying the big pond now, huh? The duck pond? See what you can get in there? Maybe bigger fish, huh? Well, you're gonna be competing with these ducks, it looks like. That was funny. You just said what? Stop linking it. Stop linking it because his name is Lincoln. Stop linking your sword, Lincoln. Stop linking it. Look at what he did. I know, that's the second one and that's all they're gone now because he's leaving. Siesta time. One evening we heard like a thump and a crash and, well, it turned out to be that the ceiling had fallen down all of a sudden. It may have been caused by the heavy rains that they had a few days earlier. So we picked it up and put it out here. What are we doing now, Helen? We're going to water the peppers and carrots. And what else you got going on here? I have some squash. Okay, so that's the peppers planted right there. And you got tomatoes down here? Cherry tomatoes. Then I have some squash here. Oh, there's one right there. Oh, there's one. Okay, a little sprout right there coming up. What else do we have down here? We got pickles. Pickles or cucumbers? Oh, cucumbers. Okay, so cucumbers there. There is beets, a whole roll of beets all the way down. Then we have some onions. Green onions right here and then some more carrots over here. Carrots. What about, you got pumpkins at the end? I have pumpkins at the end. Okay, way at the end? Yeah. And what's that? What's, is that more pumpkins down there with that at the end, very end to the right? This one is cantaloupe. This is squash. Oh, this bunch here is squash? My brother Leland gave me those seeds. You see the pears? Yeah, you got a lot of pears this year, huh? Coming up. Cool. Yeah. And then you've got some other stuff that we're going to show in just a little bit here. You got a whole lot of it too. Unlimited free water makes for a lot of vegetables and fruit trees as well. These are grapes. My mother made this shack like 30 years ago. Yeah. So yeah, these will be ripe at the end of August. We'll have more ripening at the end of August and throughout September, maybe October. And I'm just going to step back and show how big this thing is. There's a ton of grapes. You're going to have a lot of grapes this year. Are you guys watching the TV show Heartland on your phone? You guys like Heartland a lot, huh? I love Heartland. Heartland's awesome. I don't know how many times you've seen it. I've only, I haven't seen the whole thing yet. I've seen parts of it. But you've seen like the whole series a bunch of times, Helen? Yes. I don't know how many series I've watched over and over. I love that good one. Yes, I love it. Leland's heading down the road. Just walked down the road and you know, Leland's here and this guy right back here, his wife, just gave me some fry bread, yummy stuff. Good, good. Well, it looks like she's heading out and heading down the road back home. She's going to go check on her animals. This is Leland doing Waylon Jennings. Which one? Waylon Jennings song. And that was Leland's rendition of Country Roads Take Me Home. This is Thelma and the other cat is Louise. That's Sadie. Hi, Sadie. Sadie, my lady. There's some pretty large grasshoppers around here. Just down the way, not too far, is a beautiful little pond. A little oasis here in the desert. Do we have murderers in our midst? Yes, we do. Ducks and the chickens. They threw my guinea in the pool and drowned it. And they also murdered another little chicken. It went into the kennel and they killed it. Drowned it. Threw it in the water and drowned it too. So yeah, there's murderers. So the big ducks and the big chicken are pushing the little chicks in the pool and drowning them? Yes, they don't like the small ones. Oh. I personally think they're jealous. And these are the bodies of the deceased. So these little chicks you're raising, are they going to be for egg laying when they get older? Yes, they will be laying brown and white eggs. Helen's chasing the ducks, trying to get them back in the pens. But they're going the wrong way. Well, they're just going away from you. I just found some interesting pot shards here on the Diné lands. Let's see, we've got this one here, a little design in there. And this one's got a little design on that one, painted. Probably they were bowls because see how it's curved. So this is the inside. So that probably was a bowl. And what do we have here? A little textured one. And actually, there's a couple over here that have a texture to them on the outside. That would be the inside. I just found these. Now, this one has a little lip right here up top. So it might have been a pitcher or something. And this, as you can see, he's got a stripe painted design there. I'm just going to leave these where I found them. I just found this. That's pretty cool. All kinds of pot shards up here. Look at that design. Just all types of designs. So it's time to go get some dinner. We're feeling a little bit lazy and we just want something cheap and quick. So we're just going to run down and get some pizza, right? Yes. Okay, let's go. I'm going to get in the car and drive on down. If you look out in the distance there, that's smoke from the fires. And that's the fire that's been raging on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and the northern part of Arizona. You know what? I think this is actually a new fire. This thing's really starting to billow with smoke. Well, we're pulling into Little Caesars. Pizza, pizza. Little Caesars is closed because they ran out of pizzas. So maybe we're going to go to Bash's now and get some pizza there. Struck out with that pizza there. So we got some of these fish fillets here and we're going to put it on the grill there and crisping them up and hopefully it'll taste pretty good. So we did get a little pizza, but I don't know that we're going to be in the mood to try and cook it. We got this one right here, this little frozen pizza. So yeah, I don't know if we're going to get to cooking that, but maybe later. I wrapped the fish in foil and we had it on the grill, but now I just put it right on the coals to speed up cooking. We're all kind of tired and we just want to eat and go to bed. I hope you enjoyed spending the day here on the Navajo Nation and learning a little bit about life here. Don't forget to give me a like on the video, share, and subscribe. Until next time, we all will see ya. Bye. Have a great day. Bye. It looks like Tatooine from Star Wars.