The Mall, Washington, for a Monday cultural overload with friends, education alternative to school as it was a Bank Holiday. First stop was the Natural History Museum to see the
Hope Diamond, rather more
bijou than the advertising suggested it would be but still a big gem. Presented in a way only the Americans could manage as it rotated, on a small plinth, a quarter turn every few seconds so everyone could see without having to move round it. Other gems and crystals were fairly impressive and some much bigger, but we learned they weren't all diamonds.
Then to the Native American Museum, mainly for its famous
cafe and a menu of traditional food from five aboriginal regions of the Americas. We need the cook-book and to re-create Mesoamerica's Arepas, Frijoles a la Charra, Pickled Cactus and Corn, Salsa de Arbol (aka. beans on fried corn bread with corn salad).
Once home the Guatemalan worry dolls were used with a traditional North American Red Flyer truck and bear stuffing snow fluff, to recreate a scene from the folk tale of
The Chenoo.
Domestic bliss with Kid 9 independently preparing scrambled egg, step one of brunch, and an excellent place to start. Meanwhile Kid 5 is mindfully living in the moment, sorting out her chakras with neatly square slippers.
Then across the river into Anacosta, an area of deep social deprivation however there is vision too and the Gateway Pavilion by Davis Brody Bond architects was quite startling stylish, sympathetically human and a nightmare to locate! The tables, benches and stages were made of palette layers that could be re-stacked for whatever purpose you fancied.
It was peaceful and had been lived in by the family for 11 generations, including a Danish granny who needlepointed the dining room chairs in the 1970s, just like mine did; a female slave abolitionist, confederate politics yet gave safe harbor to wounded Union soldiers and of course their was the original English 'Shirley', the first Governor's wife, who never saw the plantation.
