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Dakota is a dying language. So all the elders and everybody they’re coming together and
trying to teach the language to the young ones so it doesn’t die. So I learned there
and now I’m also taking a class here so I can try to be fluent to teach others. Right
now, all of these scholarships and stuff, I don’t have to pay a cent towards tuition.
And that’s amazing. I’m just hoping in the future I can keep doing that because it
helps because my mom is the only one working because my dad was in the army and he broke
his back. I ride horses a lot and I’m a peer mentor so I help the young kids learn
how to ride and learn the Dakota language. It’s the ride 38 plus 2 and it’s from
Fort Thompson to Mankato Minnesota. And it’s remembering the Dakota 38 plus 2 that got
hung on December 26, 1862 and two years later two others got hung so that’s why it’s
the plus two. And to me it’s just kind of finding my identity, it’s healing. Everybody
heals there. This is my seventh year on the ride so I’m kind of a veteran but the older
people don’t think of my as a veteran because I’m still young. Kids in our program, the
Shintonka 4H program, they are starting to learn to master riding horses and getting
better so we’re gonna let them on the ride because you kind of have to know how to ride
a horse to be on this ride. I want to be close to my reservation. I know I want to teach
but do I want to be a high school teacher, do I want to be a college professor, do I
want to be a speaker to teach people? I don’t know.