Who Goes Home?

The first Rainbow Gathering participants I met outside of my friends who introduced me to the events and took me “home” were the four men who ran the main kitchen at my first Gathering, the small Oklahoma regional Gathering in 2002. I don't remember their Rainbow names ¹ anymore, but I still remember them well—four middle-aged men, one balding and with a potbelly, one with long hair and a very large grey beard, all dressed colorfully, sometimes wearing long skirts. People rarely talk about their Babylonian lives at a Rainbow Gathering, but I heard two of them say things—about kids these days and summers off—that indicated they were schoolteachers. In between hugs exchanged frequently and freely between one another and anyone and everyone else who wanted one, they made sure the water dispenser was full, built fires (one for cooking, one for gathering around), made coffee and their version of doughnuts (fried dough covered in powdered sugar) in the morning, prepared snacks all day, cooked dinner, and yelled out for volunteers to come help with whatever needed done.