Oh thank god for computers. It's so nice to be back home again, sitting at a computer. Babylon the Whore, how great is thy technology. How excellent are thy showers? Can I describe the intracasies of a fully functional flushable shitter?
So this probably dosn't make much sense to you does it? You see, It just dawned on me that if I have any readers left they probably are left with the feeling that I don't ever do anything interesting because I rarely ever post. But far to the contrary. In fact just about a month ago I went on this swell 4 day road trip I never wrote anything about.
A few weeks ago I used a jackhammer for the first time and had one of the hardest and longest working days I've ever experienced.
And Just lastnight I got home from "The Rainbow Gathering". Which was by far one of the most interesting experiences ever. Let me elaborate...
The Fiesta home considers the Rainbow Gathering a home event. Therefore the home was completely behind our desicion to go this year. Justin, Myself, Paz, Johnny, and Marvy made up the road team going. We left on Tuesday the 26th of June, heading towards Houston. Our plan was to meet up with the prophet bus team, load up our stuff and we would all ride up to the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas for the Rainbow Gathering.
We got to Houston on tuesday afternoon and spent the night at the Prophet Bus home, waiting for their bus to get repaired as it had been put in the shop a few days prior.
Unfortunatly by wednesday afternoon it was determined that the bus would not be ready, so we loaded up our stuff into two different trucks, and we caravaned out of there at 3:00 A.M. on Thursday Morning. We had a long pretty uneventful trip.
The Gathering turned out to be completely different than those in the past. This has been the General layout of most gatherings in the past. As you drive in you will enter what is known as "Bus Village". This is usually a massive meadow with a several mile radius, in which thousands of cars will park. Somewhere at the end of this "Bus Village" is what is known as "Main Trail" which leads several miles (often through forest) and eventually lets out at the site. The site is typically a huge wide open area, several miles in diameter, where everyone sets up camp in different locations.
Rainbow Gathering 2007 was very, very different. As we drove up we first noticed that there was no Bus Village, just cars parked along the side of the road for miles and miles. Fortunately we were able to find a spot that was fairly close to main trail. The Rangers (which at the gathering are affectionatly known as "Six Up") wouldn't let us drive our trucks down main trail to unload our stuff, we had of course been expecting this, which is why Justin had spent several days before the gathering building a cart to help haul our stuff in.
This turned out to be one of the most usefull tools of the entire gathering. The Main trail down to the site was about a mile and half long, but down hill the entire way, as we were basically going down a mountain side.
Once we started getting close the trail (which at first was heavily packed dirt) turned into thick sloshy mud. We got to the river, our cart weighed down with probably close to 1000 pounds of stuff, and it was decided that we would use every available body to lift the cart and carry it through the river. This turned out to work quite effectivly and soon we were deep in rainbow country.
Different than all other previous gatherings, there was no open meadow in which people set up their camps. All there was for this gathering was trails and woods. We were deep in the National forest and there wasn't an open area to be seen for miles around. Every camp had been built into the woods using the trees and landscape. We found a spot to sleep for the night, and roped off the future site of our camp.
(Editors Note: Although this all sounds easy, it should be duly noted that half the team was incredibly sick. I myself had the worst headache I've ever had and felt on several occasions as if I was going to throw up. All the while we had to continue working and continue trying to carry heavy equipment through thick mud trails.)
Friday morning we navigated the muddy trails (the mud was about 1 foot deep so after each step you would have to yank your foot back out of the mud because it would get stuck.) towards our new campsite and began to setup. By that evening we had our main tarp up, logs for sitting, a fire pit, a shitter, and a kitchen all set up. All of this had been done using the natural landscape and location of the trees to our own advantage. Sometime around this time the team from California arrived. We now had nearly 20 people. Five from our home, (whom I have already named), Six from Houston, these were; Chris, Jaz, Marianne, Devon, Jamie, and Sara. The Team from California brought an additonal 7 people; Bill, Tori, Stephanie, Hicky, Sonia, Crystal, and Lisa.
The next few days all became a blur. Nobody had watches so it was hard to keep track of time and even keeping track of the days became difficult. Sometime during this time family members came from Austin, and left a few days later, more from Houston as well.
Every night we were have singing by the campfire, singing everyones favorite family songs, and Chris and Jaz became quite popular for their anti-war/pro revoloution songs. This was my first rainbow gathering, and all the hardcore rainbows who had been there several times before assured me that this was by far the most difficult one.
All in all we eneded up staying a week at the gathering. We met some interesting people we witnessed to, one of which ended up going to San Diego with the California team.
It was interesting the way people would just hang out at your camp all day. If they liked you and your camp they would stay and hang out. They would help with work and stuff and just listen to devotions, eat our meals, listen to our songs, help us work. Very Very inspiring.
We just got back home lastnight (Friday the 6th). Today is now 7/7/07 quite a landmark day. I need to go now but I might write more about it later.
