Raven Chacon, the Navajo composer, is staying with us this week. At the moment he’s over at his grandmother’s, having forsaken my lasagna for her mutton stew.  I’m not offended; in North Hollywood, where he lives, you can probably get lasagna around every corner, but I’m sure mutton stew is hard to come by.

Raven’s here to teach composition to my husband’s music students at Chinle High School, part of the Native American Composer Apprentice Project sponsored by the Grand Canyon Chamber Music Festival. Last month we entertained the piano tuner from Prescott and his teenage son. He pronounced one of the high school’s pianos DOA and took the workings of the other one back to his studio for intensive care, but while he was here we took him and his son on a hike into Canyon de Chelly. When you’re this isolated, you have to supply some perks to get people out here.

I followed my husband, Eric Swanson ’05, to the red sandstone heart of Navajo country last year, the ink not even dry on his diploma. He was a nontraditional student, meaning “old enough to be your classmates’ father.” He’s one of the few people I know who turned a midlife crisis into something positive, giving up a thriving landscaping business to follow his dream of teaching music.

He chose Utah State University for its fabled guitar program, but he ended up enjoying his education classes just as much. He found he was a natural teacher, with a special rapport with, of all creatures, teenagers.

Chinle High offered Eric a job before he had even completed his coursework. He could teach guitar, his major instrument; get about a third of his student loans forgiven for working on an Indian reservation; and we could trade our $900-a-month mortgage in Logan for a $150-a-month two-bedroom apartment subsidized by the school district. It was our chance to catch up financially with the 40-something couples who didn’t fritter away their youth racking up questionable experiences in foreign climes, while at the same time learning about a fascinating culture and hopefully making a difference in a shamefully neglected pocket of America.

An added perk for us is being two miles from Canyon de Chelly, an 800-foot-deep sandstone chasm that is managed by the National Park Service but is home to about 50 Navajo families. Unfortunately, our exploration is limited; other than the mile-and-a-half-long White House Trail, the canyon is off limits to non-Navajos unless they are with a certified Navajo guide.

Eric’s day starts out much as it did when he was student-teaching at Spring Creek Middle School in Providence, Utah, a mere two years ago. He gets his bike out of the shed and pedals the mile to school. Unlike in Providence, he sometimes has to give a wide berth to a giant bull that, for reasons of his own, likes to lie down in the middle of the sidewalk. more