Friday afternoon, fueled by Jaritos and a few too many galletas, the rebels finally made their move. A secret meeting was called for 1:30 in the kitchen (thus the galletas) and the attendees had had it. They were frustrated primarily, it seemed, because nothing was happening. Most of the population, including the King, seemed content to just work on their houses. It was unclear to the rebels how anything was going to get done -- the King wasn't holding meetings, no laws had been chosen by him and the socialist provisions that he had vowed to uphold had been canceled when the King realized just how much money it was all going to cost him.
They sat down and wrote a list, a long list, of all the things they thought the King should do before he worked on his private projects. They called this list the "Magna Magna Carta" or the Great Great Charter. They presented this list to King Ethan along with another option "The Party King Treaty" which promised Ethan $1000 a day "for party hosting and public appearances." The King, who had admitted at one point wanting to become King because of the money, thought for a moment and then agreed to become the Party King. There was much rejoicing and the council got going on new projects right away.
At land time on Friday, there was a dispute between two peeps concerning the "You shall harm no peep" law. They came to Gus with their problem but he just shrugged his shoulders. Then, A.C. stepped up to be the judge and M.R. and Napolean were the jury. I sat back and listened as the Village's judicial system was born. A.C. explained, "Each side is going to get a chance to say their whole story and then we can ask questions. I'll decide with the jury what should happen." In the end, both sides admitted they had played a role in the dispute and it wasn't worth wasting any more time on.
It's an interesting example of how Village is sometimes strongest when the students create their own solutions instead of trying to recreate the world we know. I've been in another Village where the judicial system was among the first concerns of the town. We spent days ironing out who would be on the jury, what lawyers would do, where the jail was. Then, predictably, their were endless law suits. The town spent a huge amount of their land time on jury duty. They had created a litigious society.
We had a great turn out for today's work session. About half the Elmquoias came, many with very able assistants. We also had a great crew of alumni who fell right back into the life of Village. It was wonderful to watch them work and play with the current villagers. Sonja shared her house expertise. Alex helped his brother construct his house. David taught a class on peep car making. Sofie offered business advice and got the wind turbine working. Leif, Mats, Miles, and Tommy constructed various projects for the town including a hurricane shelter and a suspended monorail to go to the top of the mountain, across the lake and to the land. Merrill taught his sister the secrets of the Village burglar alarm among other things. What fun.
i'm really glad the king stepped down. now we're back to the socialist gov. and things will actually get done! i wasn't in the group of rebels but i wish i was!
Posted by: sarah | May 30, 2007 at 04:04 PM