the Cowl

Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: News

Above: Students on the PCAZ trip stand on top of a mountain. The students were given a personal tour with an expert Apache historian. They learned about important battles involving Apache Native Americans, including Geronimo.

Two groups of Providence College students chose to spend their spring breaks differently this year by participating in alternative spring break trips. One group of 11 students and Edmund T. Eddings, of Americorp Vista, went to Arizona, where they stayed on an Apache Native American reservation for a week. A second group of 24 students went to Tijuana, Mexico. Elena Piperno '10 organized the trip to Arizona with assistance from the Feinstein Institute. Clair Seguin '08 organized the student trip to Mexico.

Piperno, who has traveled before to a Native American Reservation in North Dakota, inherited her position of student leader for the alternative spring break trip to Arizona. She began gathering support for the trip and spreading awareness about alternative spring break trips at the beginning of the semester. She organized two information sessions, distributed flyers, hung posters, and set up a table at the involvement fair.

The students arrived in Arizona on Saturday, February 23, 2008. Once on the Apache reservation, the students met their host, Doug Miles. Miles is an artist and lives in downtown San Carlos on the reservation. He welcomed the students and introduced them to the host families with whom the students would be staying.

"With my prior experience I didn't stay with host families," said Piperno. "The families and the culture there made the trip."

"My experience on the reservation totally exceeded my expectations," said Julie Smith '10. "I met the most wonderful people who taught us everything there was to know about Apache culture. They opened up their homes to the 12 of us without a second thought and were willing to share their lives and experiences with us just as we shared a little part of our culture with them. Living on the reservation for a week was an eye-opening experience and one that I will never forget."

The families living on the reservation live modern lifestyles: the family Piperno stayed with was not as traditional as other families on the reservation. They choose to send their children to school outside of the Apache reservation. All the families live in regular homes, have computers, and watch television.

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