Ethnography+Report-+Molly

I am a butterfly. Not a pretty butterfly, a monarch or a blue morpho or something. I am just a little brown butterfly. Some call me a moth. What an insult! Anyway. I'm a butterfly, and yesterday this fly I know was bragging about them getting to be flies on the wall. You've heard that expression, I expect. So I said, Butterflies can do anything flies can do. And she said, No they can't. And we got into a big argument. So I decided to prove it. I'll show her! I decided to fly into the first building I saw and listen to someone for the whole day. She can't do that, I'll bet. So I fly into this building. I picked it because there are a lot of trees, and it has more nature than a lot of them. I can get food if I want; I saw some flowers. Anyhow, I go in, and there's a big long tiled corridor. I go down, and then there are lockers everywhere. I flew in a little crack between the door and the doorframe, and hid in the corner. There was a big screen hanging in front of a chalkboard, and a lot of humans sitting in desks. I've always felt bad for humans. It must not be nice, not being able to fly. They were all looking at a calendar on the screen. I watched as they came up and signed their names on a paper on the tallest human's desk, and it appeared on the screen. I wonder how it does that. Maybe I could ask them- oh. Right. I don't speak human. I forget that a lot. So then, they just sat there while the big human said a lot of things. They all seemed very quiet. I've never known humans so quiet. Normally they can't stop chattering. Just like the caterpillars. They always argue over who will end up as the prettiest butterfly. I think I did, too, but look how much good it did me. Then the big human said something, and they all stood up and went out the door. I decided to follow them. I was getting kind of interested in these humans. They went down the corridor full of lockers, and then down another one and out a big pair of double doors. I nearly got squished- I barely made it through the door before it shut. Then most of them made a run for the machines outside that hold snacks- what are they called? Oh, right, vending machines. A few of them just went and sat right down on these black chairs that looked like they were made of wire. Kind of weird-looking. The other ones came back from the vending machines gradually, and they split up, but they weren't big groups. Mostly it was just two or three people, and they went and sat down on the chairs and ate. Some of them were playing with a ball- the thing almost squished me! Gosh, this building is more dangerous than I thought. Not only did the ball almost squish me, but there were a lot of little kids. Much to my amazement, a few of the girls managed to sit down and stay pretty quiet, but most of them ran around and pretty much went crazy. A few tried to grab me! I dodged them, of course- I may not be pretty, but I'm small and fast, and I can make sharp turns. It was still really frightening, though. The older human children just seemed to think they were kind of funny, but also a little bit annoying. I know I thought they were annoying! Finally they went back inside the room, and I followed them, glad to get away from those little kids. I stayed pretty far away after that- they were using paint. I hate paint. A few of my relatives got stuck in paint and died there. The big human gave them newspapers, and they tore them up and spread them over the desks. Probably so they didn't get paint on them. Then they took out notebooks. Just regular old composition books; I've seen them before. I went into a school once on a trip with my family. And they started to paint the notebooks! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I wish butterflies didn't get stuck in paint! I wanted to go down and paint with them. They took a while, but the end product was amazing. I think this is a writing camp, from the notebooks and the few words I know that the big human was saying, but they're pretty fine artists, too. After that, they put away the paints and cleaned up. They were going in and out busily a lot of the time, and I was really afraid I'd be seen. Thankfully, I wasn't. Then the big human put an image of a website up on the screen and started showing them how to do things on it. I watched very carefully. It would really impress my family if I could manage an actual website! He started to make pages. I know his name now, from the pages. His name is Ted. Anyway, some of the pages said "Homepage" and some said "Where I'm From." I wanted to know where they were from, so I watched closely (which I was already doing.) But all he wrote was "I am from potatoes." What???? I did not understand that. Why only one line? And how can you be from potatoes? But they all seemed to understand why perfectly. I think it had something to do with what he was saying that I couldn't understand. He finished showing them the website, said something else, and they all filed out the door, including him. I knew they were done. It was 12:30 or so, maybe a little later. I have a good sense of time- I have to, to know when the four o'clocks and morning glories open so we can get food. I can't wait to tell that fly. She'll be so jealous! That was the most fun I've had in a while. Maybe I'll do it again tomorrow. LBB (Little Brown Butterfly), signing off.