Cultures Destroyed

*Yet another super duper long post. You have been notified (I should put this above just about every post, shouldn't I?)*

Kind of depressing title for the absolutely spectacular day I had today. A contradtiction of sorts I suppose but that's they way life seems at times, the good vs. the bad and all that.

First off, I just wanted to mention that last night I bought tea, shortbread fingers, and Skittles after I wrote my blog entry. I was craving tea and cookies and I succumbed to the Skittles while I was waiting in line. They were just staring back at me with longing I couldn't say no. They were terrible. They don't use artifical flavors here, only fruit juices (health? come on, not with Skittles). Pardon my French, but they were a bastardization (not a word, I know) of what Skittles should be. I swear the purple ones tasted like tomatoes and I did not like that. It reminded me of what I would imagine hanging out with an ex would be like. You're so used to them from before and they keep begging you to hang out again so you finally say yes and then both of you realize, right away, that its just plain not the same and weird and you wish you hadn't hung out at all. It was just like that with the Skittles. Anywho, I bought raspberry and chamomile (sp?) tea. It was in a bright pink box. A little embarassing but who cares, it tastes really good and I like it. In fact I am going to go get some now.

Ok, I've got my girly tea and some cookies that I snagged from the Fanshawe's house so I am set to recount my day. It started off at 6:30 (boooo). I did my usual routine (shower, toast, yogurt, e-mail) and got on the bus at 8. We headed off to Salisbury. I grabbed a book from the common room before I left called "Company of Three". It's about a woman who moves in with two other people and their trials and tribulations. It is a very good book and I have almost finished it (already, its 350 pages long). Pleasure Reading, definitely not mind blowing or whatever. Anyway, most people slept on the bus and we arrived at Salisbury Cathedral. It was fantastic. The sky was blue and it was kind of breezy. We got a tour of the place from an older woman. Actually, all the tour guides looked well past retirement age. She told us a large number of different things about the cathedral. She talked a lot and fast. She would do this sort of walk fast/shuffle thing and say, "Come on! Times awasting!". I did remember a couple of things though. The spire and tower are the tallest in Britain at 404 ft. The oldest clock in the world is inside the cathedral. The cathedral is built on the only piece of shale within 40 miles or something like that. If the cathedral was built anywhere else, it would have sunk or something I guess.

One instance of cultures destroyed was at Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral was built from 1220 to 1258 (only 38 years for the whole thing!!!!) but in the 1600's, after the reformation, some people came in and just defaced the place. They moved tombs, scraped off paint from just about everywhere, took away bones, destroyed priceless stained glass and other atrocities. I don't mean to be all righteous or whatever but that is just plain horrible. The sad thing that stuff like that is happening RIGHT NOW in places all over the world (even the US). Cultures and precious relics and buildings are being destroyed or "revamped" and it sucks. The theme will continue soon.

After the tour, we had time to ourselves so Vanessa and I walked through the town of Salisbury and visited another church and walked along some streets and stuff. Busy, kind of small, town. Saturday is Market Day so there was an outdoor market going on. I ate lunch on a bench that was in the sun and faced the cathdral. Awesome. (On a side note, I made ham and salami sandwiches and the salami stunk up my backpack a little bit, I think that was The Man Upstairs punishing me for not having PBJ). We hopped on the bus and drove through some more rolling hills and fields to Stonehenge. Along the way, someone behind me said that it looked like Iowa. I was completely offended and a little peeved. Iowa has NOTHING on the English countryside. Moving on...

We got to Stonehenge and grabbed some audio guides which told the story of Stonehenge as we walked around it. It is smaller than I thought it was. It was still really awesome. There was bright sunshine lighting up the rocks and blue sky. There was also a very gusty wind that was quite chilly (at least for England, I understand the weather conditions in MN, it's all relative). Stonehenge was made something like 4-5,000 years ago and its still standing. Just incredible. We did the whole circle around the outside of it (it was gated off so no National Lampoon's European Vacation moment) and hopped back on the bus. I didn't talk about Stonehenge that much here but there's not much to say other than you should go see it for yourself (try for a sunny day, hard to do but still).

Back to the depressing topic of Cultrues Destroyed. During the audio tour, it said that back in the day, people would visit Stonehenge and instead of an audio guide, they would get a hammer and chisel. This allowed them to take back a piece of the stones. I was horrified for the second time that day. I know it sounds naive but geez, that's not right.

Next we tried to drive to the Fanshawe residence but we got a little lost along the way not once, not twice, but three times! Oh well. We got there and we greeted warmly by David and Jane. Phil told me that Jane had searched for David's name and saw that I mentioned him in my blog! What a crazy coincedence! I am going to stop using exclamation points now! Anyway, they had small sandwiches, juice, pop, tea, all sorts of cookies set out for us to snack on. Then we went to David's studio and he gave a little presentation on what he does. He showed a whole bunch of photos. They were the most incredible photos I have ever seen. First I should explain about what he does I guess. David is a composer/explorer and he spent 7 years (in the 70's) in Africa going up the Nile recording different African Tribal songs and rituals. He turned all those recordings into the piece, "African Sanctus". After that, he went on a 10 year (yes, 10 year) trip to the Pacific Rim (in the 80's) recording music there. He's still working on the arranging of that music but it will be called "Pacific Odyssey". So he showed us a ton of pictures and talked a lot about his music and about life in general. He said two things that I remembered

• Music is a wound that never heals


• 2% of people DO. 98% of people WISH THEY HAD.

Two very powerful and inspirational quotes. A weird coincedence, David's best friend from the African tribes (he's on the cover of the African Sanctus CD), is the uncle of Barak Obama. How strange? Cultures Destroyed fits into this part of our day because as he was showing pictures, David would said that one of the tribes was completely massacred only two years after he met them in a civil war. He said that men, women, and children were killed, decapitated and thrown in the Nile. An entire TRIBE! Hundreds of thousands of people apparently. Just awful. Then showed a slide of people on Fiji gathered around a tv. He said that it was the end of their culture and that it was really hard for him to find the old music and tribes in the pacific because of the proliferation of tv and other things. Entire tribes and cultures just wiped out and David has their lasting songs and rituals recorded and we heard some of them. It was very eerie.

We had a GREAT dinner of bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes). That was followed up with cake, fruit and custard, more cookies, strawberry cheesecake and just a million things. We all took doggy bags home with food. Some people took bottles of pop back and whole cookie boxes (they asked first). We all felt like beggars who never get food going somewhere and then just scavengering for things to take back with us (it feels like that sometimes). The Fanshawe's were amazingly hospitable and welcoming and I don't think anyone ever felt weird or uncomfortable in their home. If Jane is reading this, Thank You again, it was wonderful. Then we headed back. I set out like a million e-mails and wrote this NOVEL. Holy crap is it long, and no pictures (yet). I haven't gotten the pictures from Vanessa, I will though!

Well, it was a great and very enlightening day for me. All this Culture Destroying can get pretty depressing but its because of people like the National Trust (takes care of Stonehenge) and David Fanshawe (recorded now extinct tribes) that hope still comes. I think the quote, "if you don't know your history, you are doomed to repeat it" really holds true here. Knowing what we know now about how cultures and buildings and atrifacts acan be destroyed, we need to fight hard to preserve and keep them for everyone later. That's all the deep stuff for me today.

God be with thee! (goodbye is a shortened form of that, say that phrase fast and you'll hear it)