By BEN NEARY
NMWF Conservation Director
ALAMO NAVAJO INDIAN RESERVATION — Scores of residents of the remote Alamo Navajo Indian Reservation turned out Tuesday to receive care packages of processed game meat and other staples following a community lockdown over the weekend that tribal officials hoped would fight the spread of coronavirus.
Chapter President Buddy Mexicano watched as volunteers loaded cases of bottled water and sacks of supplies into residents’ vehicles. He said the word had gone out over the community radio station in both Navajo and English alerting the nearly 3,000 residents that the supplies were available.
Getting groceries to elderly residents and others on the Alamo Navajo Indian Reservation, some 30 miles north of Magdalena in Socorro County, is a chore in the best of times. And, as the coronavirus increasingly hits the Navajo Nation, these clearly aren’t the best of times.
Mexicano said there have been a few cases of COVID-19 among the roughly 3,000 residents of his chapter. “We’re trying to tell the people, ‘stay home,’” he said. “I don’t know where this thing came from. We don’t know.”
The Alamo chapter, along with the bulk of the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Four Corners region, staged a 57-hour curfew from April 10-13, during which police maintained checkpoints and officials made public service announcements to try to slow the spread of the virus.
As of Monday, the entire Navajo Nation had reported 813 confirmed cases of disease caused by the virus and 28 deaths. The rate of infection among those on the reservation is among the highest in the nation.
Alamo chapter residents traditionally are hunters, Mexicano said. He said they would particularly welcome the donations of game meat.
“Oh yeah, venison, elk, all this stuff is good to eat,” Mexicano said. “I just want to thank each and every one of them,” he said of the hunters from around New Mexico who donated the processed meat.
Tara Jaramillo is owner of Positive Outcomes, Inc., a Socorro firm that contracts with the New Mexico Department of Health to provide home health care to the elderly, including some who live on the reservation.
“When the Navajo Nation went to curfew and shelter in place, it happened quite quickly, and so the closest grocery store is in Socorro, which is 90 miles, and many of our elders were saying that they were running low on food,” Jaramillo said.
“When they went to a 57-hour cerfew, for people shut up in their homes, we were terrified for people,” Jaramillo said. “We know that the virus is here. In a week, it went from one to seven identified. We know transportation is an issue, food insecurity is huge, so we brought in the troops.”
Even before the curfew, Jaramillo had reached out to Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico WIldlife Federation for help. He, in turn, asked the federation membership through social media to donate processed game meat to the reservation residents.
Deubel hauled two loaded chest freezers of meat to the reservation on Tuesday. He estimated he had at least 600 pounds of meat, some of it from as far away as Farmington. He also brought dozens of cases of bottled water.
Watching residents picking up sacks of meat and other supplies, Jaramillo said, “As a community of hunters, I think it’s well received and very much appreciated.”
Ray Trejo, Southern New Mexico outreach coordinator for the federation, brought another pickup truck loaded with sacks of rice, beans and other supplies. The materials were left over from the town of Deming’s efforts to feed the huge numbers of asylum seekers the federal government had abandoned there last year.
Deubel said the NMWF likes to step up and help fellow New Mexicans in need. He said he was familiar with the Alamo area and knew its isolation.
Deubel said the response from federation membership was overwhelmingly positive when he put out the request for donation of processed game meat. He said hunters are generous by nature.
“A donation of wild harvested meat has a completely different meaning and creates a different bond between the giver and the receiver than a brisket bought from the store,” Deubel said. “WIld game has a meaning, because a hunter has a relationship with that meat. And when you give that meat to another person, whether you know them or not, it creates a relationship.”
Deubel said he’s pleased to see the Alamo Chapter residents receive meat of the highest quality with no preservatives or other additives. He credited Sen. Martin Heinrich with helping to coordinate the delivery with Mexicano and other Alamo leaders.
Craig Secatero, a kindergarten teacher on the reservation, worked on Tuesday loading bags of supplies into residents’ vehicles.
Secatero said many people on the reservation don’t have reliable transportation and said shopping these days is particularly difficult because often stores are sold out of what people need even if they’re able to handle the long drive into town.
“I know there’s a big sense of appreciation,” Secatero said of the residents’ response to the donations. He said everything would be utilized.
While residents lined up to receive the supplies, Steve Kaiser, field assurance engineer with Verizon Wireless, worked to set up a red communications trailer nearby. Soon the SPOT, or portable satellite system, was up and running,
The communications gear in the trailer creates a local Internet hotspot that supports cell service and other needs, Kaiser said. There’s usually no cell service on the reservation and Verizon also was issuing a number of cell phones to the tribe.
Kaiser said the SPOT system, together with a number of cell phones Verizon was providing to community members, would allow reservation residents to communicate with relatives and also support the tribal infrastructure through providing Internet access. He said it would likely remain in operation at the reservation over the coming days before being moved somewhere else it’s needed.
Mexicano he was pleased with Verizon’s assistance. “We can have better communication with the cell phones,” he said. “I want to thank them too.”