The program I'm blogging here epitomises the very essence that made GLOBAL VILLAGE as popular as it is, judging by the viewers' letters that come in regularly and of course by the ratings, That essence can be broken down into 2 series that have pretty much run hand in hand in most of the episodes. One is from France, FARAWAY PEOPLE and the other a German series. TREASURES OF THE WORLD, a superbly filmed catalogue of the objects and landmarks that are inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

For some years now, due to a dearth of suitable documetaries for this series in the international marketplace, Global Village has had to run on repeat screenings. As I choose which stories will go together in any given episode, each time a repeat would come up I'd mix one story with a different one for its first repeat and so on depending on the number of repeats we have under licence. Naturally enough some viewers would write in complaining why we have so many repeats!

So I am very pleased to write that this episode heralds the start of a brand new series of FARAWAY PEOPLE and TRESURES OF THE WORLD which you can see Mondays and Tuesdays from now on, unless we're moved to make way for sports specials.

The first story deals with Mexico's Day of the Dead. Like other countries around the world, Mexico also celebrates their day of the dead (EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS). Celebrations go for days on end. You can buy Ocarinas at the Market of Death, a small clay wind instrument which can call the souls! Men disguise themselves as women and dance from door to door. The ancient Aztecs believed that a goddess allowed the dead to return to their families once a year. The Catholic Church unable to ban this Pagan festival moved it from July to November to coincide with the All Saints Day. Catholic and Pagan in one.

In the second story we tavel to Hawaii to hear the legend of Pele, the Goddess of Fire! Described as "She Who Shapes The Sacred Land", Pele's hair is said to be the ribbons of golden, reddish molten lava that spews forth from Mount Kilauea volcano on the big island of Hawaii. In fact 'Kilauea' means 'to spew forth'. For its cultural and natural significance this area, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, has been inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage List in 1987. 

And perhaps the best news of all is that now you can see the full, unedited versions of these stories online. Due to the needs of television Global Village has to be 25 minutes long. This necessitates cutting back stories which run longer that the needed duration. So remember if you want to see the longer and uncut versions you can, right here on the Global Village site by clicking the box marked VIDEO.