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Eugene
Dinehdeal
holds
photos
of
family
members,
including
Eva
Dinehdeal
at top,
at the
Dinehdeal
family
compound
in Tuba
City,
Ariz.,
on the
Navajo
reservation
on April
20,
2020.
Eva
Dinehdeal
died of
COVID-19
on
April,
11,
2020.
(AP
Photo/Carolyn
Kaster)
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'The
grief is
so
unbearable':
Virus
takes
toll on
the Navajo
Nation
By
FELICIA
FONSECA
and
TIM
SULLIVAN
apnews.com
TUBA
CITY,
Arizona
- The
virus
arrived
on the
reservation
in early
March,
when
late
winter
winds
were
still
blowing
off the
mesas
and
temperatures
at dawn
were
often
barely
above
freezing.
It
was
carried
in from
Tucson,
doctors
say, by
a man
who had
been to
a
basketball
tournament
and then
made the
long
drive
back to
a small
town in
the
Navajo
highlands.
There,
believers
were
preparing
to
gather
in a
small,
metal-walled
church
with a
battered
white
bell and
crucifixes
on the
window.
On a
dirt
road at
the edge
of the
town, a
hand-painted
sign
with red
letters
points
the way:
“Chilchinbeto
Church
of the
Nazarene.”
From
that
church,
COVID-19
took
hold on
the
Navajo
Nation,
hopscotching
across
families
and
clans
and
churches
and
towns,
and
leaving
the
reservation
with
some of
the
highest
infection
rates in
the U.S.
Crowding,
tradition,
and
medical
disparities
have
tangled
together
on the
tribe’s
land —
an area
nearly
three
times
the size
of
Massachusetts
—
creating
a
virological
catastrophe.
And
the most
basic
measures
to fight
the
virus’
spread —
handwashing
and
isolation
— can be
difficult.
One-third
of the
homes
across
the
vast,
dry
reservation
don’t
have
running
water,
forcing
families
to haul
it in.
Many in
close-knit
Navajo
communities
live in
crowded
houses
where
self-quarantine
is
impossible,
and many
must
drive
hours to
the
nearest
grocery
store.
To most
Navajo,
isolating
an
infected
person
from
their
family
is
deeply
alien.
Eugene
Dinehdeal
shields
his face
from the
setting
sun on
the
Dinehdeal
family
compound
in Tuba
City,
Ariz.,
on the
Navajo
reservation
on April
20,
2020.
The
Navajo
reservation
has some
of the
highest
rates of
coronavirus
in the
country.
(AP
Photo/Carolyn
Kaster)
The
Chilchinbeto
meeting,
which
brought
people
together
from
across
the
region,
included
everything
from
discussions
of
church
finances
to a
joyful
meal of
roast
beef.
They
prayed
for
strength
in the
face of
the new
virus,
which
seemed
like a
distant
worry.
Instead,
it was
already
in their
midst.
“We’re
such a
small
town.
We’re so
remote,
“said
Evelyna
Cleveland-Gray,
a
Chilchinbeto
official
who
struggled
to keep
residents
from
panicking
as the
virus
ripped
through
the town
of about
500,
eventually
killing
more
than a
dozen
people.
“We
never
thought
it would
hit us.”
By
now, the
loss is
felt
across
the
Navajo
Nation.
With
roughly
175,000
people
on the
reservation,
which
straddles
Arizona,
New
Mexico
and a
small
corner
of Utah,
the
Navajo
Nation
has seen
3,122
cases –
a rate
of
nearly
18 cases
per
1,000
people.
At least
100
people
have
died.
If
Navajo
Nation
were its
own
state,
it would
have the
highest
per-capita
rate of
confirmed
positive
coronavirus
cases in
the
country,
behind
only New
York. In
the
states
it
spans,
the
number
of cases
and
deaths
among
people
who are
Native
American,
on and
off the
reservations,
is
disproportionately
high.
There
was the
beloved
42-year-old
high
school
basketball
coach
who left
behind
five
children.
There
was the
carpenter
who
lived
with his
brother
and died
on
Easter
morning
at age
34.
There
was the
28-year-old
mother
who
competed
in
Native
American
pageants.
And
on the
far
western
side of
the
reservation,
there’s
the
extended
Dinehdeal
family
who live
in a
cluster
of
prefabricated
houses
and
mobile
homes in
Tuba
City. A
dog on a
long
chain
lies in
the
driveway,
sleeping
in the
soft red
dirt
that
sweeps
across
the
landscape.
Another
runs in
circles
waiting
for
someone,
anyone,
to throw
a ball.
Pickup
trucks,
some in
various
states
of
dismemberment,
are
scattered
across
the
property.
This
is where
generations
of
Dinehdeal
children
have
ridden
their
bikes
and
played
basketball
against
a
weathered
plywood
backboard.
It’s
where
the men
have
tinkered
with
those
pickups
and
where
the
entire
family —
the
tight-knit
web of
parents,
aunties,
uncles
and
cousins
raised
like
siblings
— have
gathered
for
potluck
meals,
birthday
parties
and
holiday
celebrations.
It’s
where
relatives
from out
of town
have
always
been
welcomed.
Now,
it’s
where
the
family
mourns.
It
began in
late
March
with
Maryann
Welch,
who at
age 82
was
still
riding
horses
and
running
a small
sheep
ranch on
Navajo
Mountain,
the
dome-shaped
expanse
that
looms
over
this
part of
the
reservation.
When she
started
to feel
sick,
her
nephew
and her
71-year-old
sister,
Eva
Dinehdeal,
drove
the 90
miles
from
Tuba
City to
take her
to the
hospital.
Soon Eva
was
sick,
too,
with low
oxygen
levels
and a
fever.
Then it
was
Maryann’s
son,
Larry, a
veteran
of the
Army’s
82nd
Airborne
Division,
who
divided
his time
between
the
ranch
and the
Tuba
City
houses.
Larry
and
Maryann
died a
day
apart.
Larry
was
buried
on what
would
have
been his
60th
birthday.
Dinehdeal’s
daughter,
Gloria
Uriarte,
had
moved
back to
Tuba
City
from
outside
Phoenix
with her
6-year-old
son,
Curly,
thinking
they’d
be safer
there as
the
virus
spread.
But
almost
immediately
she was
caring
for
nearly
everyone
around
her,
often
using
the
traditional
practices
that are
deeply
ingrained
among
Navajos.
She kept
sage
boiling
on the
stove,
for
example,
and
encouraged
everyone
to drink
it.
Gloria,
45,
didn’t
escape
sickness.
She and
her
mother
died
April 11
within
hours of
each
other,
in
different
hospitals.
In a
small
bedroom
in one
of the
prefabricated
houses,
just
down the
hall
from a
wooden
table
displaying
the
three
women’s
urns,
Curly
was
tucked
under a
blanket.
He is
immobile
and
nonverbal
after a
brain
injury
and
doesn’t
know
what
happened
to his
mother.
His
family
keeps
Gloria
alive
for him
by
playing
recordings
of her
voice on
a cell
phone.
Set on a
pillow
next to
Curly’s
head of
thick,
black
hair,
Gloria
gently
calls
out
“Good
morning,
good
morning.”
Curly
coos
softly.
Gloria’s
sister
and her
partner
are now
caring
for him.
The
losses
stripped
the
family
of their
matriarchs.
They
regret
not
learning
how to
make
Eva’s
famous
yeast
bread,
which
she sold
at the
local
flea
market
every
Friday.
They
wonder
what to
do with
her
clothes,
which
fill
every
closet
in the
house
and its
storage
sheds.
Angelina
Dinehdeal,
one of
Eva’s
daughters-in-law,
is
trying
to hold
the
family
together.
Grief
and
exhaustion
weigh
heavily
on her.
“It
just
seems
like
every
time I
take
someone
in (to
the
hospital)
they
never
come
out,”
she
said.
In
Navajo
tradition,
communities
gather
for four
days of
mourning
before a
burial.
Sacred
stories
are
told.
Elders
talk to
the
young
about
coping
with
death.
Donations
are
collected
to cover
funeral
costs.
In a
culture
where
dying is
rarely
spoken
about,
it is a
chance
to
openly
grieve.
But
with
families
hunkered
down to
avoid
the
spread
of the
virus,
burials
have
become
rushed
graveside
services.
With
funeral
homes
overwhelmed
by the
dead,
some
families
have
sidestepped
tradition
and had
their
relatives
cremated.
Mourning
is done
over
text
messages,
video
conferences
and
three-way
phone
calls.
“You
can’t
even go
see your
mom and
dad. You
can’t
see your
relatives
to find
that
comfort,”
said
Cheryl
Blie, a
Navajo
who lost
a cousin
to the
virus.
“And the
grief -
the
grief is
so
unbearable.”
The
virus
hit like
a
tsunami
in
mid-March,
and
smaller
medical
centers
quickly
were
overwhelmed.
Health
problems
that
make
COVID-19
more
deadly,
such as
obesity,
diabetes
and
heart
disease,
are all
much
more
common
among
Native
Americans
than the
general
U.S.
population.
A
cobbled-together
coalition
of
caregivers—
doctors
from the
federal
Indian
Health
Service
and
local
hospitals,
Navajo
Nation
officials,
the
National
Guard,
community
health
nurses,
volunteer
doctors,
nurses
and EMTs
from
across
the
country
— has
rallied
as the
number
of cases
grow.
The
doctors
are
exhausted,
the
hospitals
don’t
have
enough
staff
and the
protective
gear is
carefully
rationed.
Three
isolation
centers
were set
up in
basketball
gyms —
normally
packed
with
fans for
a sport
that’s
hugely
popular
among
Navajos
— to
keep
those
recovering
from
COVID-19
away
from
their
families.
The
sickest
patients
are
flown to
larger
hospitals
off the
reservation.
Medical
workers
on the
reservation
work
relentlessly.
When
an
oxygen
valve
failed
on a
ventilator
at the
Kayenta
Health
Center,
a
volunteer
hand-pumped
oxygen
into a
patient’s
lungs
for
three
hours.
“You
literally
cannot
move.
You have
to
breathe
for
them,”
said
Cindy
Robison,
an Air
Force
veteran
who was
among
the
volunteers.
“You are
paralyzed
by the
overwhelming
‘I know
I can’t
abandon
this
position
even for
a
second.’”
The
Navajo
Nation
or Diné
Bikéyah
includes
some of
the most
rugged,
beautiful
and
isolated
land in
the
United
States.
The
reservation
stretches
across
27,000
square
miles
(70,000
square
kilometers)
with
just
over 6
people
per
square
mile.
But
that
statistic
hides
how most
Navajos
actually
live: in
small
towns or
isolated
outposts.
A trip
to the
grocery
store or
the post
office
is a
chance
to
socialize,
shake
hands,
hug and
catch up
— all
the
things
people
are
asked to
avoid
doing
now.
Navajo
Nation
officials
are
trying
to get
people
to
isolate,
putting
out
statements
about
coronavirus
in
English
and
Navajo,
and
imposing
nightly
curfews
and
weekend
lockdowns.
They’ve
closed
non-essential
businesses
and
popular
tourist
sites
like
Canyon
de
Chelly
and
Monument
Valley.
They
also
must
balance
the
restrictions
with the
realities
of
reservation
life.
“I
hear a
lot of
people
saying,
‘Close
the
borders,
shut
down,
shut
down,’”
said
Jonathan
Nez, the
Navajo
Nation
president.
“Our
folks
are
supposed
to be
helping
get
water
for the
livestock,
water
for the
household.
You shut
all that
down,
how can
our
elders
wash
their
hands
with
soap and
water if
there’s
no water
available
for
them?”
If
the
Navajo
are
susceptible
to the
virus’
spread
in part
because
they are
so
closely
knit,
that’s
also how
many
believe
they
will
beat it.
They’re
leaving
boxes of
food and
supplies
on the
steps of
elders’
homes or
in
grocery
bags
hanging
from
fence
posts.
They’re
driving
for
hours to
take
relatives
to
hospitals.
They’re
delivering
water to
friends
and
family.
Outside
a tribal
office
in Tuba
City, a
steady
stream
of
pickup
trucks
waited
to fill
large
plastic
containers.
Raynelle
Hoskie
was
pulling
a small
trailer
behind
her
black
Ford
pickup,
rushing
so she
could
make it
to her
shift at
a
convenience
store a
half
hour out
of town.
With her
husband
working
in
Florida,
she was
hauling
water
for her
six
children
and her
in-laws
who live
next
door in
a small
traditional
Navajo
home, or
hogan.
To
her,
that
togetherness
is a
strength
of the
Navajo
people
and a
sign of
tradition.
Hoskie
unraveled
a blue
hose and
connected
it to
the
spigot,
then
dropped
the
other
end in
the
water
tank.
“Stop
making
us look
like
we’re
weak,”
she
said.
“We’re a
strong
nation.
Our
language
is
strong,
we’re
tough.
We’ve
always
used our
traditional
herbs,
our
traditional
ceremonies.
They’re
very
powerful.”
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