Building Walls

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall...

Robert Frost, “Mending Walls”

There have been lots of walls built throughout history … usually to keep someone or something in or out. The 5,500 mi (8,850 km) Great Wall of China, was purportedly begun in the 7th century BCE, the majority of the existing wall built during the Ming Dynasty(1368–1644). Visiting the wall is on my bucket list. I'd like to stand on it and ponder the feeling that millions of feet have walked this wall over centuries before me. It was built as an elaborate defense system to protect the “civilized” Chinese folks from the nomadic northern invaders.

Hadrian's Wall, a 73-mile barricade, was built c.122AD under the orders of Emperor Hadrian “to protect Roman Britain from the Picts and the other barbarian tribes that inhabited northern England and Scotland.” We stayed in Chester on one of our trips to England, so we could get up close and personal with this wall.

According to Wiki, the Wailing Wall, an ancient limestone wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, is a relatively small segment of a far longer ancient retaining wall, known in its entirety as the "Western Wall". The wall was originally erected as part of the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple by Herod (although some would claim differently). The wall resulted in the encasement of the natural, steep hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount, the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray.

It has also been called the "Wailing Wall", referring to the practice of Jews weeping at the site over the destruction of the Temples. The wall has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries; the earliest source mentioning this specific site as a place of worship is from the 16th century.

When we were in Peru, we had the opportunity to visit some the of walls built by the Incas. In Sacsayhuaman on the northern outskirts of Cuzco, the capital of the Inca empire, a citadel was built using huge boulders, cut to fit so tightly and exactly, no mortar was needed. We marveled at the craftsmenship of these masons.

In more modern times, the Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (i.e. East Germany) that completely divided East Berlin and West Berlin (East Germany from West Germany and ostensibly from the rest of the world) from 1961 to 1989. It became symbolic of the “Iron Curtain” that separated the Eastern Bloc countries from Western Europe.

And then, of course, there's Trump's proposed wall along the Mexican border … we won't go there … too politically hot to touch on this blog.

So what has triggered my pondering of walls? David's recent masonry project. He built a 5' high cinder block wall in our new back yard which matches with the wall that encompasses our property. We're walled in or the neighbors are walled out, whichever way you wish to look at it.

It was no easy project. We loaded 72 – 6x8x16 cement blocks weighing 28 lbs each, along with 10 cement caps and 14 half blocks onto three separate trolleys at Home Depot. We rented a truck from Home Depot, loaded the blocks onto the truck, unloaded them in the driveway, then hauled them through the gate to the backyard and stacked them for the wall-building project. Whew! The easy part was actually building the wall. After painting it the same color as the house, it looks great. The result was not to keep anyone or anything in or out, but to enclose the unsightly A/C system and make an enclosure for storing garden tools and supplies.

Leave only footprints ...

“Take only memories. Leave only footprints” … Chief Seattle

Chief Seattle, the Anglicized name of Si'ahl, was the revered leader of the Duwamish native American people from the Pacific Northwest. The city of Seattle was named after him, in fact. He is credited with the insightful quote above. It is doubtful he actually said these exact words … translations, transcriptions and history being what they are, but I think he probably believed these words. If you take the time to read his speech from 1854 (one of several versions of the same speech), you cannot help but be inspired … and feel guilty.

We personally are able to take more now … photos and sound bites along with memories … with no repercussions. We collect stones and shells sometimes, a sample of beach sand and even loose feathers once in awhile, but that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about using up resources, abusing the Earth and water and air that sustain us. He recognized even then that men would destroy and deplete in the name of sport, progress and profit.

Living on a sailboat, we think we have a smaller carbon footprint than most. We try to reuse and recycle. We don't dump non-biodegradable trash into the sea. We try to use wind and solar rather than depending upon diesel fuel or gasoline. Then, of course, we “fly” back to the USA on a jet, buy a car and a house and we join the madding crowd. It's hard when you're tooling along on the highway at 65 mph or letting the water run while brushing your teeth or running the A/C, to acknowledge how we waste shamefully and are completely oblivious to it. Modern man has done a good job of botching up Chief Seattle's world ... and ours.

We've been in places, Tristan da Cunha comes to mind, where people are acutely aware of sustainable resources. Too many animals on the island and there's not enough grazing area; too many plantings without rotation and the soil is depleted; too much fishing and lobstering and the fish and lobster are gone. They work hard there to maintain the delicate balance between man and nature.

Do you remember (if you're old enough to have been around in the 70s) the public service ad for the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign featuring a crying Indian, Iron Eyes Cody? Okay, so Iron Eyes Cody was really an Italian immigrant, but it got the point across in a not-so-subtle way.

I remember seeing a sign inside a bus in Ecuador, “Keep the bus clean. Throw your trash out the window.” It wasn't a joke, the bus driver was really keen on keeping his bus clean. We threw some trash into a waste basket in the front of the bus and he methodically emptied it by throwing the same trash out the window.

I look at the trash and rubble on the beautiful local beaches here and my eyes tear up … they really do. Plastic bottles and bags and garbage just strewn about as if it would disappear somehow or maybe someone else will clean it up. Maybe they just don't see it. In all fairness, I certainly remember throwing trash out the car window when we were young kids, encouraged by our parents to do so. Shame on us! It's a matter of education, awareness and pride perhaps, and an innate understanding of the role humans play in the complex web woven by nature and how we abuse our privileges.

I'm getting on my soapbox and waxing philosophical and I really don't mean to. This topic came up because today is Earth Day 2016 and it's a good time to reflect about how we live, how we waste and what we, as individuals, can do differently to preserve our world.

Happy Earth Day … Be kind to her, she's the only planet we've got.

Hindu Temple in the Sea & Lord Hanuman

When the British abolished slavery in 1833, there was a significant lack of laborers in the Caribbean. Between 1833-1920, over 143,000 Indian workers were sent to Trinidad as indentured laborers to meet the demands. Consequently, there is a high percentage of Indian population on the island and nearly a quarter million of them are Hindus. It only makes sense then that there would be some elaborate Hindu temples on the island. We find Hindu temples to be fascinating. In fact, there are two in particular of note in Waterloo, just south of Port of Spain, and we decided to pay them a visit.

We knew we were getting close when we started seeing Hindu prayer flags and tiny temples in each yard. We threaded our way (read that … David maneuvered adeptly) through narrow, crowded streets towards the sea and finally came to the Hindu Temple in the Sea.

This temple has an interesting history. The indentured laborer, Sewdass Sadhu, came to Trinidad in 1907. He was a devout Hindu and wished to build a temple. He built his first temple in 1947 on land owned by the sugar cane company for which he worked. The company ordered it torn down, charged Sadhu with trespassing, fined him $500 (2 year's wages) and jailed him for 14 days. A determined man, he figured if he couldn’t build his temple on the land, then he would build it in the sea, and thus Sadhu's dream to rebuild his temple began to take shape.

With two buckets and an old lady’s bicycle with a carrier on the back, Sadhu began the laborious task of building the temple in the sea … 500 feet into the swamp land of the Gulf of Paria. For 25 years, he worked at building his temple and with the help of local people, businesses and a government grant, it continues today to be a place of worship and serenity. A great testament to the devotion and tenacity of the human spirit.

A prayer ceremony was in progress when we arrived which we did not want to disturb. We quietly removed our shoes and walked around the outside of the temple, peeking in discreetly for a look at the elaborate decoration within.

We headed back inland to find Lord Hanuman, the Monkey King. We were familiar with several Hindu gods, but not Hanuman. It seems that he is regarded as a perfect symbol of selflessness and loyalty. The 85' murti (statue) of Lord Hanuman is reputed to be the largest outside of India.

Lord Hanuman towers over the Dattatreya Temple and Yoga Centre, “built according to the Dravidian style of architecture of South India”. It's an elaborate building, guarded by two large elephants at the entrance. Photos were not allowed inside the temple, but after removing our shoes, we walked quietly inside, admiring the intricate and colorful individual temples to various Hindu deities. Fruit and other small offerings were placed in front of each temple.

A small store sold souvenirs of the temple, but mostly provided incense and candles for prayer ceremonies.

We had a leisurely lunch in the small town of Carapichaima, then headed north to meet our guide for a late afternoon boat tour of the Caroni Swamp and a look at the scarlet ibis. Wear plenty of sunscreen, insect repellent and a hat and come on along.