Struggle continues

Page 5

Dear Editor:

I love the reserve, but how does one move on to make things easier for this generation and the ones after us when nothing is being done now?

Why is the bigger percentage of the population still trying to commit suicide or not finish school?

My parents never finished school, but they had their own way of teaching me the values a child needs to expand his or her mind. I was taught to survive life and its struggles because they weren't given the opportunity to live a much better life, money-wise. So I survived life getting water before it got dark, getting enough wood for the week, so we wouldn't freeze, making what money I had stretch to the next welfare day, because there were no jobs. I had to learn how to cut up wild game for tomorrow's meals.

The struggles are still there. I know things are not easy. Living in a city, renting an apartment and going to school and having a job is still hard work.

I don't need the band office for this, since I had to do things myself. Chief and council can still manipulate the population and control who they can and still overpay themselves. I just got tired of their BS, that's all.

First Nations people are always asking for money ... where is it? The taxpayers are asking too. The bigger the money for reserves ... the bigger and better cars for chief and council and, of course, their immediate families.

So how are people supposed to survive if this goes on? I'm worried for the next generation of people. Right now they're kids, but they will start to worry if another corrupt nation is in office when they're ready for life as an adult.

-sent by e-mail from Toronto and unsigned