After leaving Berkeley and driving south to Bakersfield, then east through the Tehachapi Mountains, the Mojave Desert, and, eventually, Flagstaff, Arizona, then north on Indian Route 12, two rental vans reach St. Michaels—an Arizona town of 1,125. They follow unmarked roads through a windswept landscape of dun-colored fields and long mesas, under a vast sky, and finally come to rest outside Robert Yazzie’s house, a low-slung building with a hogan out back and a patch of bare earth to one side.
It is a brisk, clear morning in the fall of 2020. Out scramble a team of 10 volunteers, stiff from a 16-hour journey that started after work on Monday and continued through the night. After exchanging greetings with Yazzie, the crew empty the vans—hauling out tents, tables, pots, pans, chairs, blankets, and boxes and boxes of herbs. They have come to deliver traditional Chinese medicine in a community ravaged by COVID-19.
Leading the group is
