A letter from Jean Gajary
Dear friends and family,
As most of you know, I took an unusual vacation recently back into the Pine Barrens. For three nights and four days I stayed out in the pines with 15 men and one other woman and worked on building two Native American shelters that were commonly used in this area by the Lenape Indians, the Mandan and Wigwam. I hesitated to sign up, as it can get nippy this time of year, but I ended up diving in anyway. I obsessed on the weather forecast prior to leaving; reminding myself that I could always decline to go if the weather looked adverse. So quite unexpectedly, shortly after I left for the trip the thermometers took a nose dive, and we were caught in a cold snap.
We were asked to not bring our tents and the course description was quite sparse, leaving me to wonder how we would sleep the first night, when no shelter was built. I trusted that they would provide us with an alternate means of shelter, perhaps in one of the traditional homes already built scattered about the site.
The first thing I discovered is that local native people relied heavily on leaves for shelter. On the first day we spent the afternoon collecting leaves into one massive leaf pile that would be used for the Mandan, the warmer of the two shelter types. Then I found out we were all expected to sleep in said pile that night. I was quite unnerved by this, despite reassurances that this would likely be my warmest night out there. (This turned out to be true). I burrowed in with the others, and discovered the wonderful insulating qualities of leaves, as it was, indeed, my warmest night. I woke up in darkness, buried as I was under the leaves. I sat up and opened my eyes to dawn, with first a fog of moisture over my eyes, and then seeing clearly out into the pines a beautiful, thin layer of snow on the ground, with flurries still lightly falling.
That day we built the Mandan (minus some final buttoning up), so the leaf pile was completely consumed. Only 10 of us could fit within it, so 5 were left outside again, this time with only their sleeping bags, the elements, and what leaves they could gather. Five of the largest men volunteered to do this. Of those of us inside, 5 were directly within the Mandan shelter, and 5 were buried in debris huts attached to it and accessible through the Mandan . (These are “emergency” type shelters made by a coffin-like frame of small limbs piled on with about 4 feet of leaves. A person shimmies into the coffin feet first for the night.) I was one of the 5 lucky ones in the Mandan . I managed under the covers, surrounded by the warmth of other bodies. One by one the folks in debris huts came out in the middle of the night quite cold, and we squeezed them in as well. A strong, wintry wind picked up after bedtime, so the men outside had a very difficult night. The few that were comfortable had very high quality low temperature sleeping bags.
By the third day we had finished two shelters, including stone fire places and chimneys, and that night we all cuddled closely up around small fires in each shelter. When I woke up I was initially surprised that the Mandan was no warmer than the first night, as the day before we had buttoned it up with grass insulation and a better door, until I found out that it was only 17 degrees outside!
The first night, burrowed in the leaves, I felt secure for one reason only: I shared that bed of leaves with 15 other people. Each day we all worked hard together with the imperative of shelter. And each night the close-nit bodies pressed against me, the snoring, and the disturbances of needy, cold members of our tribe were never annoyances, but rather a reminder of our need for each other, and met with a desire to respond to whatever was asked of me.
The most important element of survival is shelter, and in the not-too-distant past our ancestors could not have had shelter without community.
In the complex world we live in today we rely on society, instead of community, for our most basic need. Around the campfire I thought of the basic failing of our society, in that in Philadelphia we live amongst homelessness around us. And immediately after crossing the Ben Franklin Bridge I was confronted with a begging homeless man, seeking help from us in our cars. As I gave a bit to him I saw the crags in his face, and a small glimpse of the suffering caused by the recent cold nights.
In the winter the homeless can suffer from a variety of ailments directly related to exposure. I realized one simple, immediate solution to this problem: I can donate high quality sleeping bags to them. Project H.O.M.E. has workers that have established trusting relationships with the homeless population and are willing to disburse them. I have researched the appropriate type of bag (zero degree bag with insulating capacity in moist conditions, and a compression sack), and I would simply like to order them from CampMor, an on-line camping outlet that is severely discounted. If you would like to contribute to meet this immediate need, please contact the meeting secretary. Let’s get as many bags out there as possible for this winter season!
Take care,
Jean
Meeting Secretary: Gail Woodbury
Office Phone: (215) 844-4924
Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.