Tonight, I was sitting at the dining room table.  I confidently tossed a small peanut butter packet into the center of the table.  It gently collided with the other packets, piled in the middle.  Linn looked at me for a second and then tossed one of this own peanut butter packets into the slow-growing mountain.  

With that, I turned over my cards, showing the winning hand.  Linn, our Lakota friend, laughed and smiled as I raked in a mound of peanut butter packets.  It was absurd, yet fun, gambling for peanut butter.  We were gathered around the table in fellowship.  Two days ago, I had no idea who many of these people were.  Some, I had met at school, but they were only acquaintances.  Others, I'm meeting for the first time.  Yet, if you walked in, you would believe you were among life-long friends; and very soon, you too, would feel as if you had known us forever.  The sense of community I feel here is amazing.  I had only met Linn for a few moments when we first arrived.  Yet, a day later, he greeted me by name and we laughed and talked as friends.  These people are warm and inviting.  Their communal way of life seems so foreign to me, yet so natural.  I wish it could be this way everywhere.  But at home, people are too busy with over scheduled, fast paced lives.  Out here, in Pine Ridge, it seems that time passes more slowly.  There is time to pause and reflect.  It is so peaceful.  I feel connected to these people and this land after only a few days.  What would it be like after a week, I wonder?  A month?  A lifetime?  I arrived here wondering If I would be able to connect with anyone.  Now, we are all family, bonds woving together by our experiences. 

We are living in community, as the Indians do in our home.  I find this place interesting; the bond between people, animal, plant, and the land.  I am happy now, knowing that I have made friends here with the Lakota and my classmates and I have a handful of peanut butter cups to thank.