“Let me grab these for you.”
“Thank you,” he drew out the last word exaggeratedly as he handed them over to her.
Rowan followed Theo into his office and took a look around. The walls were filled with images of what appeared to be campaign events, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and Tribal programming. This was clearly a man who was proud of the work he had been involved in. Despite his flustered entrance, he had his shit together. Then she noticed the progress pride flag sticker on the window behind his desk. Ally or queer community member? She made a mental note to get to know him a little better.
“Have a seat.” Theo motioned to the two armchairs in front of his desk. “So, how are you adjusting, moving back from the big city?”
Theo flashed a genuine smile, ran a hand through his short, slicked-back black hair, and folded his hands to rest on his desk. It made her want to run her hand through hers too. Andask him where he got a haircut like that around here.
“Pretty well so far, I think. I’ve only been back for a week now. I’m staying with my dad while I look for a place. It feels unnecessarily hard to find a place to rent around here.”
Theo chuckled lightly.
“Yeah, I hear you. We don’t really advertise anything like that around here. All word of mouth. We did recently build some new houses for Tribal members to eventually buy, and we’re renting them out for the time being until we work through this new home buying program we’re starting. If you’re interested in something short term?”
The idea of a short term commitment was appealing. Just enough so that she could keep one foot out the door if she needed to.
“Absolutely, please, that would be great.”
“Sure. Well, maybe a tour of the building is a good place to start? Does that sound good to you?”
“That would be great. I’m kind of blown away by this place,” she said, standing up from her chair.
“Pretty amazing, right? You’ll notice lots of empty spaces too. We have a lot of expansion planned in the next few years so we built it to surpass our needs for now.”
Theo crossed around the desk and held the door open for Rowan to exit back into the waiting room, then out into the large hallway that ran directly down the center of the building. Rowan tucked her hands into her pockets as she strolled next to Theo.
“The building houses all three branches of our government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Chairwoman Grant oversees the executive branch. She was re-elected a couple years ago, so we’re gearing up for a new campaign here soon.”
Rowan nodded. She’d never met her, but she was looking forward to it. In her lifetime, she’d only ever known men to hold the highest elected role of authority in the Tribe. She was clearly making a lot of good things happen. It felt aggressive, in a productive, good way.
“Then we have the legislative branch, which is basically the Tribal Council, also elected citizens, who are responsible for creating laws, among other duties.” Theo motioned down the hall to a separate wing off to the right. “Their offices and meeting chambers are down that way.”
“Then over here,” he motioned to another large conference style room off to the left, “we have the judicial branch. This is just picking up speed as we get more authority to control our own adjudication system. I’m sure you know in your line of work how the federal government says Tribes are sovereign until we have the need to make laws that govern our own land.”
Rowan nodded and sighed out in agreement. “Sure do.”
“Also, I’m sorry – you probably know all this! I’m talking to you like you’re not from around here!”
Theo’s smile downturned like he was a little mortified at how he’d gone on about it all. Rowan wasn’t offended, though she normally would have scoffed at the mansplaining; things had changed much more than she’d realized while being away.
“No, that’s ok. It’s all a good reminder.”
“We’re really looking forward to the leadership you’ll bring to the environmental department. I know we talked about that in your interviews, the vision the Chairwoman has, as well as your own vision and all the experience you have with Tribal Nations here and internationally with other Indigenous people. Your mix of environmental knowledge, policy work, and that you’re a lawyer, you can help us out with consultations with the federal government over our land use. That’s something we’re really pushing for more self-determination over.”
Rowan nodded in agreement.
She internally hoped she could keep up with all the hype. Sure, she had all of the experience he described and more, but she had never worked directly for a Tribal Nation before, more as a legal consultant or advocate. She knew how unique and nuanced it could be, how political it could be too. There wasno stand-in for direct experience like that, but her breadth of knowledge of how other Indigenous people were approaching their environmental work could provide some useful insight for her Tribe to make its own decisions.
“Speaking of self-determination over our land,” Theo continued, “on this floor we have our brand new food sovereignty program office. It’s an expansion of a traditional foods program one of our community members has built from the ground up over the last several years. This programtechnicallyfalls under the environmental department.”
Rowan picked up on the hesitant way his voice wavered over the wordtechnically.
“What do you mean,technically?”
“Well… the woman who runs it is sort of a firecracker.”
“A firecracker?” Rowan let out a slight laugh as she asked the question.
