In the Navajo Nation
It’s the middle of winter break at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and eight Harvard students are hiking to a cabin through snow and sagebrush in Navajo, N.M., singing Kanye West songs to distract themselves from the unsettling dark. And so the second year of the Phillips Brooks House Association’s alternative winter break public service trip began. The students traveled to the Navajo Nation reservation to live and work together for a week, forgoing electricity, the internet, and running water as participants in a public service and cultural exchange trip. Navajo undergraduate Damon Clark ’17 also made the trip, one of PBHA’s many immersive opportunities, last year. “I think this experience not only builds a foundational knowledge of Native Americans and Navajo culture, but also lets Harvard students engage with a community that they’ve never worked with before,” said Clark, a social studies concentrator. “I think getting to know each other’s lifestyles is...