School started up again last Monday. Since we'll be leaving Tenerife soon, several of us teachers took the fourth through twelfth graders to the local Museum of Natural Sciences and Anthropology.
It amazed me to see the world of "stone age" people who lived here in the 1400's and later. Though they did not make any metal tools, they had a full life carving out an agricultural and goat herding existence in the rugged mountains of the islands, with a complex society of noblemen, farmers, priests (animists), fishermen, servants...
Though they formed their own simple pottery, made their clothing from skins and lived in homes built of rocks, we tend to be patronizing toward them, and the Spanish simply wiped them out. They harvested sea salt, cactus fruits, seeds and nuts much as the rural islanders do today. Since they also made bone, shell and wood jewelry, carved bone fish hooks and wove natural fibers into useful objects, I imagine that they had much the same jobs people can have today, without the technology. Like many rural peoples, they created mortar and pestles from naturally rounded volcanic rocks with holes in them.
Here we see the life the Spanish and others have carved out of the same rugged hills, with the rich and poor, the farmers, goat herders and tradesmen. I wonder when we get to heaven and look upon our civilization from God's eyes if we will seem more wonderful for making cement dwellings with metal embellishments instead of stone ones... I love modern technology. I wonder how it touches the heart of God... It was, for me, a thought-provoking field trip.
Of course, the highlight of the field trip for the students was--you guessed it! MacDonald's cheeseburgers!
No comments:
Post a Comment