Danny Lopez: “We used to grow our own crops together, and we ate from the land.” Photo by Bernard Siquieros

In the dog days before our summer monsoons begin, the desert appears irrevocably dead, especially during this third season of the worst drought in 100 years.  Even the thick, fleshy saguaros – which store so much water for use during prolonged drought – appear shriveled in the transition zone between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of Arizona.

Today everything looked drier and more brittle than I can ever recall as I drove to meet Tohono O’odham elder Danny Lopez. In the stirring dust at his feet, Lopez – a man of slight build with a bit of mischievous twinkle in his eye – begins the San Juan’s Day blessing for rain upon the endangered native crop fields surrounding us.

San Juan’s Day coincides with the summer solstice. It is the ceremonial day of summer planting, a day when we try to recall that this dry hot place isn’t merely lifeless dust. With the first pounding of the brief monsoon rains, the desert floor will explode with fecundity after the long months of quiescence. The toads will once again emerge from their 11 months of entombment in the hard-baked soil to mate with furious impulse. And the now puny grasses and wild foods will emerge and provide much needed forage.

His voice rising and falling, Lopez switches between O’odham and English throughout the San Juan ceremony. He thanks the Creator for the day. For the animals and plants around us on this traditional crop farm managed by the nonprofit conservation organization Native Seeds/SEARCH. For guiding us – the 75 or so people gathered in a circle around Lopez and his wife, Florence – through each of our lives.

Amidst the O’odham blessings on this early Sunday morning, he tells us in English to remain faithful and true to our upbringing, to our past, and to our respective cultures. He says that only by honoring our diverse pasts can we place hope in a better and healthier tomorrow. The crowd is large: People are always willing to drive a hundred miles to hear Lopez gently lecture them about what people should or shouldn’t do to live better lives.

Earlier in the summer, during a break in his teaching schedule at the University of Arizona (where he is a summer lecturer on O’odham culture), I asked Lopez about his mission to restore health and wellness to his people. A full-time instructor with the Tohono O’odham Community College since it opened in the late 1990s, Lopez also chairs the college’s Himdag committee. (Himdag means “The Desert People’s Way,” the O’odham culture.) He co-developed an O’odham traditional foods and farming curriculum at the college and is much sought after as a teacher and speaker on O’odham culture.

“You always hear people talking about how diabetes hit us,” he told me. Some estimate that as many as 60% of the O’odham have Type II adult-onset diabetes, including children as young as six years of age. “I go to the primary (school) and see the little, overweight guys and girls, and I become conscious of the effects of diabetes,” Lopez said. “And before that, many years ago, my wife was diagnosed with diabetes.” A pause, then quietly, “My sister Christine lost her leg because of diabetes.”

I maintain a respectful silence until Lopez adds, “I try to talk to my peers – and even my elders – about having a more active lifestyle – something to get your heart beating faster.” His actions match his words; he and his wife have been going to a fitness center in Sells – weights, bicycling, and treadmill.

“A lot of younger people are dying ahead of me,” Lopez, who is 66, said. “Even though my people are always hearing about what to eat and not eat and about our sedentary behavior, people don’t want to be told what to do, how to change.

“That’s why I like to work with the little kids, to talk with them about what they should or shouldn’t eat, drink, do; they listen. We as grandparents have to teach our youth our values: being industrious, listening, respecting, knowing your relatives, being an early riser in order to get something done – the work ethic. We parents have to go back to teaching the O’odham values – the idea of family, of working together.

“We used to grow our own crops together, and we ate from the land. That was so important back then. But now that big yellow Schwan’s truck – with its frozen pizzas – comes out to our village all the time.” And after a lengthy pause, he added, “If you don’t eat your own foods, you lose your culture.”

He stressed that dietary choices need to be supported by a local food system capable of producing traditional and healthy foods. During Lopez’s lifetime, processed foods have been introduced into the Southwest, leading to the demise of traditional farming. Prior to that, the O’odham suffered virtually no obesity nor diabetes.

I asked Lopez about his traditional-foods garden. He finds it tough to maintain a garden with his speaking and teaching schedules. Nonetheless, he still participates in the revival of the community’s harvest of wild foods, including cacti such as cholla buds and saguaro fruit, whose thick mucilaginous fibers protect the plants from the region’s cycles of drought. When these desert foods are eaten, they help slow sugar’s absorption into the bloodstream, acting as a natural insulin regulator.

Lopez also worries about all the negative influences upon the Himdag, everything from excessive television viewing to increasing gang activity among the youth. He is encouraged, however, by those who are learning the O’odham ways again. A growing number of youth are finding out about their heritage from their elders and reacquiring some of the Desert People’s traditional foods and practices.

On San Juan’s Day, he shares part of the Himdag ways with the people in the circle. Eagle feathers aloft, first east, then north, south, and west, Lopez finishes the blessing. His soft, bubbling voice hints at a long life of both blessings and laments. He reminds us to keep faith during this cycle of drought. The rains will return to the desert, and life will sprout renewed.

Michael McDonald is a third-generation desert rat and former executive director of Native Seeds/SEARCH. He currently serves as the CFO of the University of Arizona Alumni Association. To learn more, see the Tohono O’odham Community College website, www.tocc.cc.az.us, and the Tohono O’odham Community Action website, www.tocaonline.org.