Coffee coffee coffee place

There's a new coffee shop in Shiprock, NM on the Navajo Reservation. It's the only locally-owned business for miles along that particular strip of road and the place is practically buried by all the huge KFC, Burger King and Taco Bell signs all around it.

It's called Aohweeh Gohweeh (geez, I hope I spelled that correct I'm relying on memory here) Coffee Place and the propetier, Gloria has a sly sense of humor. The name is a play on the subtle variations of the Navajo language and literally translated into English it reads "Coffee coffee". Thus we English speakers would call the place "Coffee coffee coffee place." Ha ha.

The irony is that coffee is really a secondary thing to Gloria who opened the place to support local artists. She's hoping the revenue generated by coffee sales will help her continue to keep open a place that will sell local arts and crafts. Pretty cool, I think.

Anyway, one of the things she's selling are these little wooden plates that look like coasters but have the names of various Navajo tribes (and English translations) engraved on them. There's even a tribal wheel thingy to help younger Navajo who may not know what tribe their mother's family is from.

As a joke, I told Gloria, "Hey, what about me? I don't have a tribe."

"Oh, there's a plate for people who don't have tribes." She pulled one out of the stack and showed it to me. Under the long Navajo word, presumably for "person without tribe" or the like, were the words "white person."

I don't know why, but this cracks me up.

"But I'm not a white person either," I told her.

"Well, I'll just give you a tribe," she replied and pulled out a random plate. It read "Two Goats Tribe" or something.

Interesting because I am a Capricorn. I wondered if she sensed something about me that caused her to pick that tribe but she said it was just a random choosing.

Talking story with Gloria and the local artists who happened to be mulling around the place made my day.