04/22/2026
Today was a successful day as we were able to remove 103 bags of household trash, metals, and harborage behind, below Sichomovi village. 💪🏽🥰 Kuna’a to all who came to help out. ❤️🌎
But that’s not what is really on my mind.
The following is my own (Valerie Nuvayestewa’s)personal perspective, as the Project Coordinator for Tutskwat Oqawtoynani.
I came across this bag in the trash from a recent Hopi Tutuqaiki Language Symposium signed by Ricardo Caté of Santo Domingo/Kewa Pueblo, the cartoonist of Without Reservations. I heard great things about the symposium and when I saw it I immediately thought why would someone throw this away? A lot of hard work and effort went into the language symposium, I’m sure months of planning beforehand, set up, cleanup, and the host/committee probably put a lot of thought into who they wanted to invite to speak about various topics that would ultimately inspire all of us to want to dive back into learning our language, our way of life, in the hopes that we hold on tightly to what we have left of our Hopi way of life. I say left because here at First Mesa we do not have all of our ceremonies anymore.
It was sad to see this discarded amongst the trash so I decided to keep it, as we’ve found many treasures along the way.
I know it may seem like just another purse, but I choose to see it as a memento of many people coming together to make sure the Language Symposium was a success. Not for themselves so they could pat themselves on the back, they did this for the benefit of all of us. ❤️Eskwali Hopi Tutuqaiki!
And so this is how I choose to see our cleanups here at First Mesa. It’s ok if others choose to disregard, discard, the cleanups as there are many of us who are committed to this effort and come together to plan and strategize how we are going to “help the Earth to gather Her strength.” Not because we want recognition, but because we recognize the value of a clean, pristine, environment, knowing that we are intimately tied to the lands and waters, whether some choose to acknowledge it or not; our health IS directly affected by our surroundings. By doing the work we are doing, we hope to inspire others to become good stewards of the land, as our future ultimately depends on it. And no, I do not feel I am being overly dramatic as we are thinking about the future of First Mesa. Our grandchildren deserve a chance to run our Mesa trails trash free, they deserve to spend time picking and eating our neveni that grows behind the Mesa. They deserve to create beautiful memories playing in the plaza or near the edge, without seeing and smelling unsightly trash. They deserve the best start in life that we can give them, and for me, this makes all the hard, thankless work we are doing worth the effort! Kuna’a! 😊
We hope to see you all tomorrow at Polacca Community Building, where we will be gathering at 8:00 a.m. to clean our roadways. All three villages, First Mesa Consolidated Villages, and Hopi Solid Waste Program will be participating. 😊🌎❤️
