Saturday was one of those weird days that had bits that were so different from each other that it’s hard to remember them as the same day. It started terribly – everyone seemed very tired, short-tempered and bolshy. Going out with the children rather than attacking the mountain of jobs didn’t appeal to me, but I’m glad that Katy’s common sense prevailed over my bad mood.
Despite the setback of lack of scanner we got the children’s entries off to Nature Detectives OK due to noticing on their web site that it was alright to post them over the weekend! 🙂 Because the morning grumpiness had raged for so long, we only just got to the post office in time, and then got into town in time for lunch. When our local Woolworths turned into yet another Next, the only decent cafe where you can get something simple but good like a baked potato is in the library. There are excellent views over the roof tops of the historic buildings, but there are two problems: washing up is limited to wiping the trays, so everything else is thrown in bins. Also, due to the huge new shopping centre development (to add to the two existing shopping centres and the slightly smaller shopping centre development happening just across the road), the whole library will be shut for OVER A YEAR very soon :-x.
Over lunch J asked why Turkey and Greece don’t like each other – I think this carried on from something else we’d been talking about recently. We said that they had invaded each other over the years, and generally vied for being Top Nation like France and Britain had. I told him about France and Britain competing over whether the meridian should go through Paris or London, which led to a discussion of what a meridian is.
Katy also said that Turkey vs. Greece might be due to Christian c.f. Muslim, and how this is an excuse for some people to be violent. We said that Jesus didn’t tell his friends to invade other countries, but to love each other. This wasn’t the same as being weak – he got angry when people did things wrong, but he kept people and the bad things they did separate. Katy said it was like the Nestle boycott – we don’t like what they do and get angry, but we don’t bomb their factories. We wrote to them and won’t give them our money by buying their stuff until they stop. I write all this now as it’s mostly to show how our discussions with the children are often interesting to us and go over unexpected things that force us (me, at least) to test what we believe in.
The reason for our expedition was a special event at the Archaeology and Anthropology Museum, about faces and masks. I’ve been to other departments and their museums, but none of us had been to Arch & Anth before. In short, it was excellent! J said it was his favourite museum, replacing his previous favourite which was the Science Museum in London. Mostly it was the staff – there were extra staff specially for the day, who really were interested in the children and respected them and wanted them to enjoy themselves. It was linked to the Big Draw, and the first thing we had to do was to draw a smiley face on a circle of card so that we could stick it with some blue tac to the exhibit we liked the best. After a bit of wandering around looking at interesting spears and spear throwers, bows and arrows and things dug up locally we got to someone inviting us to draw faces on big paper cups, which quickly became prosthetic ears.
Then the children made masks, and printed faces using stamps that were copies of art from the around the world. Plus there were loads more exhibits: a three storey totem pole, a huge grizzly bear totem pole, samurai armour and sword, mongolese shaman costume, a statue of the goddess of mercy (lots of arms), a statue of a buddhist sage, a huge ceremonial food dish carved out of wood with huge ducks and dolphins for handles, an innuit qayaq (not spelled kayak) next to a polynesian canoe, native american clothes, innuit fur clothes and boots, and an african mask with a face at the back as well as the front. It was labelled a Janus mask, which prompted discussion with J about the god Janus and when I said that was where the month January gets it name from, J remembered Thor giving his name to Thursday. We bumped into a few families we knew which was nice, and Katy had a chat with another mum over mask making about schools and home education.
A Maori sculptor made lovely huge clear acrylic set of carvings, lit up beautifully. He had full body and face tattoos, and a (maori) kilt, and drew maori face tattoos onto a paper plate for the children to turn into another mask. His tattoos took 20 hours (2 x 10 hours with a one hour break in between – mostly for the tattooist) using a needle and a chisel :shock:, with all his family around to support him. The tattoist was his cousin and you have to be a good wood carver before you can tattoo. You get them at puberty, each one is individual, and it represents having a baby (as men can’t have a physical one). Anthropology in the flesh!
On the bus back, J had conversation with Katy and me about money because I think the museum had reminded him of the culture that has shells threaded onto a necklace as currency. We started with bartering, and how the problems with it (trading a fraction of a cow for 4 apples is a bit tricky) led to the creation of money which is in itself useless.
While cooking tea J scrounged some uncooked pasta for everyone, and K turned his face pots (prosthetic ears) from the museum plus some of the pasta plus some sticky tape into a shaker. A strange game was invented while I cooked, involving some tongs from the kitchen, K’s shaker and the remote control for a toy – all of it was turned into a toaster with a slot for the bread (or something – I overheard bits, didn’t see any, but kept them amused for quite a while).
Just in case you thought the sun always shines in this blog(!), on Sunday morning J found some dark blue nail varnish from a box buried in a corner of their room waiting to be unpacked. He ended up with all blue finger and toe nails, K some of each, L a bit, plus lots on her hands :roll:. They were still rather blue at church, which was JMA Sunday where J and the other children his age or older collected certificates from the Minister for raising nearly £400. I don’t think he was phased by J’s blueness!
