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D e c e m b e r 1 8 , 2 0 1 3 • Vo l . 6 • N o . 5 1 • w w w.T h e We e k l y S u n . c o m
read about it on PaGe 19
Reindeer People of Mongolia Win Over Couple’s Hearts
FILE PHOTO
Food for the Soul BY KAREN BOSSICK
D
o a downward facing dog to rejuvenate your body. And feed a hungry tummy at the same
time. Yoga, meditation and acupuncture practitioners are uniting on Saturday and Sunday for the 2nd Annual Super Food for the Soul. They will be offering yoga classes both days at All Things Sacred in Ketchum in exchange for gifts of food or cash for The Hunger Coalition. The event was started by yoga instructor Cathie Caccia’s senior project student Madi Hendrix last year. Hendrix studied yoga with Caccia, then organized the yoga festival to raise funds for The Hunger Coalition as part of her senior project. “It was a wonderful success,” recalled Caccia. “Attendees enjoyed the combination of donating food and/ or cash in exchange for yoga classes so much that before the weekend was over people were already asking if it was going to be held again in 2013. About three months ago Lauri Bunting and I realized on the same day—probably within minutes of each other—that we wanted to organize the second annual event. “Access to high quality food is something Lauri and I both deeply appreciate and do not take for granted. As a result, we are very happy to support The Hunger Coalition in this way.” This year, a meditation and blessing session led by practitioners who recently returned from the Oneness University India has been added to the mix. Also, Marma, or vital junction, release and group acupuncture offered by Dana Henry Bernston. Even though the recession that started in 2008 seems to be winding down, the need for feeding the hungry has risen. Hunger Coalition Director Jeanne Liston says nearly four dozen new families asked for help last month, thanks to cuts in the Food Stamp program. All Things Sacred is located on the second floor of the Galleria at the corner of Leadville and Fourth Street, catty-corner from Atkinsons’ Market. Here’s the schedule for Super Food for the Soul:
Saturday 9am Ryan Redman Yoga and Meditation 10am Leah Taylor Kids Yoga 3pm Dana Henry L.Ac. Marma (vital junction) release and Group Acupuncture 4pm Oneness Meditation and Blessing 5pm Mari Wania Yin/Restorative
Sunday 3pm Pilar Tumolo Heart Centered Hatha 4pm Lauri Bunting Soul-Power Flow 5pm Cathie Caccia Happy Hips and Sacred Sound tws
LEFT: Cindy Ward doesn’t want this little reindeer girl to lose her toes to frostbite. RIGHT: The Dennis the Menace of the tribe.
Editor’s note: As we focus on reindeer, a la Rudolph-and-Santa style, Cindy and Kenny Ward are thinking about the reindeer and reindeer people of Outer Mongolia. They’re directing their Christmas efforts to trying to raise money for a satellite phone system and warm clothes for these nomadic people. BY KAREN BOSSICK
C
indy Ward examined a snapshot she took earlier this year of a Mongolian child sitting bareback on a reindeer. The little girl was barefoot, her chubby toes sticking out from her blue pants. “I don’t want her to lose any toes,” Ward said wistfully. Ward, an associate broker with Sun Valley Real Estate, spent just a day with the Mongolian reindeer people following a long, arduous trip to reach them via plane, train, van and horseback. But the people—especially a young woman named Zaya—won over her heart. And now, from her home in Hailey— halfway around the world—she’s trying to rally support to purchase a satellite phone and warm winter clothing that could save lives. “We’re not out to change their life-
style—they like their lifestyle. But there are life-saving things we can do,” said Ward, who has lived in the Wood River Valley for 33 years. “I feel as if God blessed us with getting to meet them and I’d like to be able to help them from this side of the world.” Cindy Ward and her husband Kenny were introduced to the reindeer people by their 31-year-old daughter, Crystal Ward Simons. Crystal, who had earned masters’ degrees in environmental planning and urban landscape architecture at the University of California-Berkeley, had a research grant to study the pastoral landscape of the nomadic reindeer people of Outer Mongolia. She was inspired to study the people, considered one of the last culturally nomadic people in the world, by the sheepherders she was familiar with having grown up in the Sun Valley area. Such people are fast becoming a thing of the past as even the children of reindeer herders are exposed to computers when they attend school during the winter months. The Wards flew to Beijing, then took a 26-hour Trans-Mongolian train to Mongolia where the train had to be lifted off the Chinese tracks and moved onto the Mongolian tracks.
COURTESY PHOTOS
Cindy Ward, Crystal Ward Simons and Ken Ward.
In Ulaanbaatar, they hopped another plane, then rode in a Russian van for three days where they met horse guides who took them on a six-day journey in search of the reindeer people—past blue prayer flags and yaks pulling wagons and logs. “We wanted to camp in this little town,” Ward said, pointing to a picture of a red-roofed village. “But our guides were afraid the townspeople would harass us if they got too drunk. They wouldn’t hurt us but they could be very persistent trying to
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