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09/15/2020 12:00 AMAs far as summer road trips go, Moira McGovern’s 2,300 mile drive across the country this past August didn’t have the carefree feelings and spontaneity of a Hollywood-esque high school adventure, because, unlike a lot of people her age, McGovern had decided to make her summer trip about something more than just having fun.
Raising more than $5,000 in cash donations and gathering hundreds of boxes of essential items like hand sanitizers, masks, school supplies, and personal hygiene products, McGovern loaded into a U-Haul truck on Aug. 17 with her mother, driving nine-hour days to personally deliver the desperately needed supplies to the people of Navajo Nation.
“I know a lot people around this area thought sharing their house in Guilford with five other family [members] was really difficult with corona,” McGovern said. “I cannot imagine doing that with 10, 15 people in a tiny house.”
One of the worst-hit places in the country due to rampant poverty, crowding, and a lack of health care infrastructure, the Navajo Nation has experienced just under 10,000 COVID-19 cases as of early this month, with more than 500 deaths out of a population of around 175,000.
McGovern said she was inspired early in the summer to help after seeing Navajo teenagers posting pictures and videos on social media, decrying the less-than-speedy response by governmental agencies to address these issues.
After speaking to members of the Navajo government by phone, she discovered that shipping needed supplies was essentially impossible, or would take too long due to how isolated the area is, and so she approached her mother with the idea of taking over the delivery part themselves.
“It was definitely an experience,” she said. “We didn’t do much sightseeing at all.”
Successfully delivering the supplies donated by generous local families was the priority, McGovern said, and precipitated a last-minute adjustment where they had to reach their drop point a day earlier than intended while still trying to establish communication with their contacts at Navajo Nation.
But the somewhat “hectic” trip was entirely successful in the end, with the supplies reaching the intended distribution hub on time, and people there expressing both heartfelt gratitude, as well as a little bit of surprise.
“It was a very oddly casual experience,” she said. “They were very appreciative, which was kind of different from what I had experienced before.”
When she had initially reached out, McGovern said the reaction was somewhat gruff, and she got the impression that people in Navajo Nation are used to having individuals or organizations promise aid but never actually deliver.
But in the end, everything worked out just as well as she could have hoped, McGovern said, and the significant load of supplies and money donated by local residents will help a lot of people in Navajo Nation.
In a happy coincidence, McGovern and her mother were also able to make contact with and meet a former Guilford resident working as a doctor in the area, who showed them around and spoke to them more about the health care issues in and around Navajo Nation.
Even just seeing how many people live their daily lives there—many with no official addresses, often living in trailers and with extremely limited ability to access things like grocery stores or mail was something that McGovern described as eye-opening, that she hoped more people in the Guilford area could learn about and understand, specifically when it comes to the pandemic.
“It was insane,” McGovern said. “One of the biggest reasons it spread so badly out there is because it is such an impoverished area and such a small community. They only have [a few] grocery stores around the entire Navajo Nation, which of course brought more people together. The hospital just physically could not keep up with the number of cases they were getting, and could not find people until it was almost too late for them to get the treatment they really needed.”
People always need more supplies there, McGovern said—everything from canned food items to books and backpacks for schoolchildren—and that it is becoming more viable (though still difficult) to ship things there.
McGovern also said she learned about a program through Johns Hopkins’ Center for American Indian Health that directly serves the health needs of people at Navajo Nation, and encouraged residents to consider donating to that program.
Taking the trip herself though, and being able to see and begin to understand the disparate experiences of underserved, often forgotten people living on the other side of the country was still incredibly important, McGovern said.
“It was the little things that really hit me,” she said. “Like the grocery stores, and the fact they [don’t have] addresses. They had to draw where they lived on maps so they could get emergency services. It’s the things we take granted in our everyday lives that I feel like really makes an impact.”
For more information on the Center for American Indian Health or to donate, visit caih.jhu.edu.