Bare Walls

This vast, empty expanse of wall space is where our maps used to hang. We had one of the world, with all the countries' flags along the bottom, and one of the United States. Before the kids and I left for Ohio, we took the maps down, in preparation from painting, and we put them on our kitchen table, under the plastic cover we use as a tablecloth.


Putting the maps on the table has actually awakened a remarkable interest in geography! We had never formally memorized state capitals, but after several weeks of people asking each other over meals what the capitols of the different states they could see while eating has made the boys much more familiar! And since I did have to memorize them as a girl, it has provided me a stellar opportunity to show off, LOL. The ones I didn't remember right away were Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Maine. (Ask me them now though--I've learned!)


The US map is at one end of the table, and the world map is at the other. One day as I was eating lunch at the world map end, I happened to notice that South Africa has 2 capitol cities marked with a star on our map! Upon further research, we learned that in fact, South Africa has 3 capital cities! Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria is the administrative capital, and Bloemfontein, which isn't even marked as a capital on our map, is the judicial capital. Interesting! I wonder how efficient it can possibly be to have all these areas of government in separate areas, but then again, ours are all together, and they certainly are not efficient in the slightest. So maybe it doesn't make a difference at all!

Then, just last night, Caleb noticed that Bolivia ALSO had 2 cities marked with a star, La Paz and Sucre. Now that really struck me as odd. I happened to study South America in 6th grade, even doing a detailed salt dough map, LOL, and I totally have only heard of La Paz as the capitol. So we looked that up as well, and it turns out that, similar to South Africa, Sucre is the Consitutional capital (where the judical branch is), while La Paz is the administrative capital, home of the president and congress. And actually Sucre was the original capital. It was the seat of the Conservative party, who were financed and supported by the silver mines, which were around Sucre. Then in 1899 the Liberal party overthrew the Conservatives, and they were supported and financed by the tin mining industry, which was centered around La Paz. They wanted to move the capital city to where their supporters were, but they were only partially successful. The president and congress moved, but the Supreme Court stayed in Sucre. There have been recent efforts to move the entire thing back to Sucre, but so far, things are staying the same, with Sucre the "capital of Bolivia" (this is actually stated in their Constitution) and with La Paz the "seat of government". Boy, the things you are totally oblivious to . . .

I do miss having the maps on the wall. Whenever I am planning a trip, or when I am on the phone and someone mentions a location, I love being able to just turn my head and see it on a map! So now I'm thinking that what we really need is another set of maps. I just really like maps . . .