Going For Gold

I once set-up a mini museum in a Pre-Kindergarten classroom. I explained to the attentive little people some rules, and that a special posture and walk exist when visiting a museum. Objects are for being admired through glass, or from a safe distance behind a velvet rope, but definitely not for touching. When in transit from thing to thing, we walk slowly with our hands behind our backs muttering intelligent comments. This expression mirrors those of the little people in their museum.

Saturdays visit to Bogota's Museo del Oro (Gold Museum to you and me) was a chance to know a little more about my new home. Colombian history is no different to anywhere else. It seemed the whole world followed the pattern of seeking shelter, food & love, fighting, hunting, gathering, adorning, dancing, experimenting with various mind altering substances and eventually listening and dancing to the Beatles.

As for mind altering substances, the coca leaf is king here. Long before the mass-production and distribution of cocaine, indigenous people enjoyed the stimulant and anaesthetic in it's purest form, the leaf. It was chewed out of necessity for long treks at high altitude. People in the mountains used lime with the coca. People on the coast mixed the chewed leaf with ground sea shells to speed up the chemical processes and cure annoyances from toothache to altitude sickness. Here's a poporo, used to hold the lime while chewing.

And finally, a well-groomed reminder that it'll soon be Movember again...

Stay cool, stay in school...

- Glenn x