Oklahoma City & Dodge City

– Shmuli Hanai 

Today we started off the day in Oklahoma City. We had a nutritious breakfast of veggie omelets and a cereal of choice. Right after breakfast, we talked about gun control and gun violence prevention. We talked about our views on the second amendment and gun control. We also discussed the Constitution as a whole and whether it should be changed and evolve with the times instead of keeping it how it is now, or if it should stay how it is. We mostly had the same opinions, but we made sure to keep in mind how the opposing side would counter the arguments we were making.

From the hotel, we went to the First Americans Museum, where we learned about the First Americans and how brutal the government was to them. In the museum, there was a video with a woman talking about not sleeping without her shoes for 27 years because she thought that something might happen and she would have to be ready to run. I loved looking at the culture but was a little upset with how modern society today has interpreted and appropriated said culture with sports, clothing, music, and other traditions. Something else that really disappointed me was that some of the greatest and most famous American athletes of all time were Native Americans, yet little to no acknowledgement has been given. For instance, I am a huge baseball fan and had no idea Johnny Bench was a Native American. What really upset me were the boarding schools run by the government or Christian missionaries that Native Americans were forced to attend. It was essentially a cultural genocide. They took away their language, took away who they were as a people, and replaced it with white Christian beliefs. I did like learning about how some of the traditional games were played and how they bet with beads.

After that, we got on the bus to drive to Dodge City, Kansas. On our way, we stopped on the road to get a closer look at what the Great Plains looked like. We had an hour of free time before dinner when we got to Dodge City. For dessert, we went to the greatest Dairy Queen in the land. Finally, we ended the night off right with a nice wrap-up session.