Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia (One)
Today it is rainy and cold, and I have “miles to go before I sleep.” In my mind, I fly back to a happier time, and today I choose to be back in Zambia.
We fell in love with Zambia our first time there. We flew in to Lusaka, and our bags didn’t make it. We called frantically from the Holiday Inn and got a different answer every time we called. First we heard that our bags would be in on a later flight that day – which was what we wanted to hear, as we were leaving early the next morning. Later, the harried British Air office told us with clear annoyance in her voice that there were no more flights from Johannesburg, and our bags would catch up with us . . . Catch up with us? We were off to the bush for two weeks!
I was in a skirt. It was cold in the bush, and we had nothing with us but our camera equipment (Thank God!) and a change of underwear. We looked at each other and said “Holy smokes. We’re screwed. What do we do now?”
It was five o’clock at night. We grabbed a taxi and asked him to take us to a place with stores with clothing. He took us to a small strip mall, and waited for us while we ran in and searched desperately for socks, pants, sweatshirts and spare underwear. It was . . .fun! Almost everything we found was from China, but we managed to find it all pretty much in green. The underwear was really cheap stuff and wouldn’t wear well, but it just had to last until our bags caught up with us. Part of what was fun was that we had read Lusaka was dangerous at night, but at least here in the shops area there seemed to be plenty of security and the shops took Visa cards. Within an hour, we had jeans, sweatshirts, socks and enough to live on until the bags came.
At five the next morning we headed back to the airport and out to Nkwali, the first stop in the Robin Pope series of camps. Our large cabin at Nkwali overlooked a huge pod of hippos, and all night we could hear them talking to one another, and occasionally having a huge, very noisy family argument. The food at Nkwali was delicious, and we loved getting to see the kitchen and meet the people who prepared the foods. They grow a lot of their own produce, and have agreements with local farmers to supply much of what they cook up for the guests.
At Nkwali, they provided beautiful linen bathrobes for us to wear after our showers in our enclosed outdoor shower, and kikoy, a multi-purpose shawl/wrap thing in wonderful colors that you can use as headgear, neck gear, wet down to keep cool in the heat of the afternoon, as a wrap – they are both big – maybe 150 cm long by 110 cm wide – and lightweight, very flexible.
Nkwali is such a cool camp. Every detail is managed. The camp manager visited us and assured us they were in contact with British Air, and our bags would reach us the next day. Relieved of that worry, we went out on our first game drive, saw leopard and lion and a million gorgeous birds, and had drinks at sundown overlooking a field full of wildlife action. After dinner, we went to bed to the sound of the soft grunting sounds of the hippo. Paradise, here on earth.
Mary Doria Russell Duo
Some of the very best books on cross-cultural miscommunications are written in science fiction, and by some of the greatest names, the oldies but goodies. Now I know by naming a couple, I am going to offend some of those out there by leaving out your favorites – please feel free to jump in (comments section) and make additonal recommendations.
One of the great classics is Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. It is a hilarious book, with occasional moments of pathos, but an easy read, and an unforgettable book.
Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is another primer in the kinds of misunderstandings that can come with the best of intentions. She also deals with the changes that living in an alien culture makes in the visitor, as well as the visited.
More recently written is a duo by Mary Doria Russell. Her hero, Father Emilio Sandoz, is a Jesuit priest. Sent as an intergalactic evangelist, he runs into some serious problems. These are very strong book, adult books with adult topics and sexual content, not for those who want an easy read and feel good at the end. It is about spiritual testing, as well as survival. There are parts of these two books where you will laugh out loud, and parts where you will be so depressed you don’t want to continue reading. At the same time, they are deeply spiritual.
The saddest, funniest, most horrible part of all is that the worst things happen as a result of the very best intentions. Russel’s characters try to get into one another’s way of thinking – and fail miserably. The results are horrorific.
And yet . . . in the end, there is redemption. These are books that get you thinking, and keep you thinking for a long time. They stretch your mind, opening topics you never dreamed existed.
You can read either of these two books, The Sparrow and The Children of God as a stand-alone read, or you can read them together. I personally found The Children of God the better book, but because I find Russell so addictive, so insightful, I recommend them both. They are available from Amazon at around $10/each in paperback.
Fantasy Dubai Skyscrapers
My very cool nephew who works at Google sent me an e-mail this morning telling me to look at these photos. One of these days I will figure out how to link, but meanwhile, cut and paste to see these fantastic images of Dubai skyscrapers soaring above the fog – looks like a science fiction set or fairy tale city.
“Somebody posted these on Digg.com, thought you might enjoy looking at them. Very cool photos of Dubai skyscrapers piercing a layer of fog.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/our_dubai_property_investment/sets/1531412/
Indian Workers
In most Western newspapers, this would be a huge story. Here, they don’t even name the company who has created this problem! (?)
Here is what the Dubai Press said:
Indian workers refuse to release colleague’s body
Saturday, 14 October , 2006, 13:27
Dubai: Rebellious workers are refusing to release the body of an Indian, who died in a squalid camp housing 1,300 labourers held captive by an influential contracting company in Kuwait.
Bino Stephen died on Friday in the desert camp where men hailing from India, the Philippines and Egypt are being held.
No government action has been forthcoming despite media reports on the appalling living conditions in the camp.
”We want to find a solution to our dreadful situation by having our living conditions improved or have us repatriated back home,” said Mohammed, one of the workers.
Four other inmates have been ill since last week because of suspected malaria and the water supply is unfit for human consumption.
An official of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour told the Kuwait Times that the death of one person in the camp could not be termed ‘disaster’.
He said if there is a complaint, it has to be registered, and the complainant should come personally to do so in order to take action.
When asked whether the ministry would send an inspector to the camp to check the conditions there, the official said he cannot take the risk in case the inspector falls sick or gets infected.
Here is what the Kuwait Times says:
Ray of hope for workers
By Nawara Fattahova
KUWAIT: The condition of a group of workers who protested against unfair living conditions in their camp has improved after Kuwait Times published reports about their plight over the weekend. The workers received promise from their employer that they will be shifted from the camp by the beginning of November after one of the workers died early this week. Also four sick workers were taken by ambulance to get medical treatment.
The workers were recently shifted to a camp in the desert and they refused to stay there and went on strike. They were then imprisoned at the camp, and later a worker died and four others fell sick. The workers sought help, and it was difficult. Then one of the workers got advice to call the emergency number 777. “After calling the emergency, they sent an ambulance, which took the four sick workers to the hospital,” said Mohammed, one of the workers at the camp.
“After we got the promise to be shifted from this place, and saving the sick workers, we decided to go back to work. Although we don’t trust the employer, we hope he will fulfil his promise and let us live in a normal place,” he added.
The Kuwait Times will be following this case, and will inform the readers whether the workers left the camp or are still living in the hard and terrible conditions.
“I Didn’t Teach You That!”
“I didn’t teach you that!” I exclaimed, mentally reviewing everything we had learned together in the last two years. This girl was SMART. If she learned this from me, I had to think carefully when I taught it – she was smart, and she remembers things.
We had just finished critiqueing a presentation she was about to make, in English, on quitting smoking. She had prepared puppets, and a dialogue, and oh! She did a great job! We were sitting in a restaurant, in a private room, where we could eat and still have fun without worrying about embarrassing ourselves.
“No, khalti, no, you didn’t teach us that in words. But that is what you DID,” she responded.
Hunh? Hmmmm. I had to think about that. While I was thinking, she continued.
“When we would say we wanted to do something, you would say ‘OK, what does your week look like? How would Monday after schoool work?’ and we would DO it. You didn’t just talk about things, you did them. When you start a project, you finish it. This is the most important thing I learned from you.”
There are some things you can’t teach; it’s just words. There are things you teach and you have no idea you are teaching. I have to admit, I got choked up.
And I have no idea where this smart young woman is going to go with her life, but I can’t wait to see.
Learning Opportunities
“Oh! I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. I caught them grinning as we worked on a project, and remembered the article I had read that morning in the Gulf Times.
“Sorry?” they looked puzzled. “Why khalti?”
“I’m humming! I’m so sorry! You are fobidden to hear music during Ramadan!” I apologized.
“No, khalti! Where did you get that idea?”
“In today’s Gulf Times” I replied, and went to get the morning paper. The three of us read through the article, on the religion page, together. It was in English, and I secretly rejoiced – a perfect opportunity!
I hate classroom teaching. I trained as a teacher, and actually, I loved my students, but oh, the classroom just overwhelms me. For one thing, I must be a little ADD (attention deficit disorder) because when the bell rings, and I know I have fifty five minutes in the classroom, I feel TRAPPED. I bet you didn’t know that some teachers feel that way, too!
What I like is living learning, and that is why I think those who are home schooling are enjoying so much success – really small classes, individual attention, and hands-on examples to illustrate what is being taught.
“We have to check with our Mom and Dad, they can tell us why, but we don’t believe this” they said, as we finished reading the article. (Teacher secretly dances for joy! They are reading in English with full comprehension!)
Later they came back to me and explained – in English – that while some believers felt that all music was forbidden at ALL times, not only during Ramadan, other believers felt that it was not forbidden, as long as it did not deal with forbidden things, like sex. This time, I really did dance. They could explain a complex subject to me in English, and I learned something too. This is the best kind of teaching, when the teacher also gets to learn from her students.
John Milton and Freedom of the Press
John Milton wrote the Areopagitica in 1644, in protest of a law passed in England which required all books and pamphlets to be OK’ed by a group of censors before being published. He believed that if England allowed licensing of books – who could be printed and who could not – it would be an attempt at controlling what the people were thinking. Milton is not easy reading, but I still get a thrill reading his defense of freedom of the press.
This comment on Milton is from the St. Lawrence Institute:
“While knowledge of this context is important to an understanding of the nature of Milton’s passion in writing this pamphlet, it is not essential to a modern appreciation of its contents. Milton’s words are just as powerful today in their call for freedom of thought as they were in his own. The issue he is addressing is still with us: the debate between legitimate societal control and freedom – whether of printing, speech, or thought – is on-going, and will continue to be of central importance in our media-dependent culture.”
This is John Milton’s most often quoted paragraph:
“And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”
If you are looking for a challenge, you can read the whole Areopagitica here:
Change Two
It’s a continuing theme – the Locard Exchange Principal in every day life. We live in foreign cultures, we pick up foreign ideas. Change 1 was one of the earliest entries in the blog – investment. Investment is not alien to my culture; investing to protect yourself against an uncertain future, as insurance and as protection for your children – that got through to us and accelerated the investment process. Starting early in our married life paid off big dividends.
Change Two came in Jordan. We had finished an amazing dinner at a private home, mezze’s, a mensef (huge platter of rice flavored with leban, spices and sultanas, with meat – in this case, lamb, but we have also had goat or chicken served as mensef). The host was peeling an orange and had that look in his eye that tells you he is thinking about something and isn’t sure whether he should voice it or not. He struggles, and then he goes ahead . ..
“I don’t understand one thing about your culture” he says. I am surprised; this is a very sophisticated man, well educated, holding a high position. He has travelled. . . it will be interesting to see what comes next.
“Why is it you kick your children out of the house at such an early age? You love your children – I just don’t understand.”
We had observed the opposite – that in Jordan, young people lived with their parents, even after graduation from university, sometimes even after being married. . . and it seemed very alien to us, very uncomfortable.
We are raised knowing that the goal is to be independent, to live on our own. It is very very scary, but a rite of passage. You leave school, you find a place to live, you pay rent, you pay your own bills, you look for a mate – all on your own. You are supposed to be educated and wise, but you still feel very young and not at all sure of your own judgement. You can ask your parents for advice, but you are expected to make your own decisions. Eventually, you get the hang of it.
But . . . through the years, that question nagged at us. It opened us up to a new way of thinking. It would come up from time to time. Just that one little question, popping into our minds. Having friends from other cultures who helped their kids out well beyond college gave us some different ideas, a different model.
It’s a fine line. We don’t want to intrude on our son’s privacy; we want to be close without being interfering. And at the same time, he will inheirit everything from us – why should we not be helpful now, during the years of struggle, when he and his wife could use the help?
At the same time, we don’t want to be so generous as to preclude them from developing their own financial strategies, from learning thrift, and the thrill of finding a good buy. We want them to know the thrill of discovering for themselves how to balance spending and savings, investment in major purchases and investment in family.
We are so thankful for that thoughtful friend, a friend with the courage to risk asking a question that might be perceived as impolite.His question caused us to do things a little differently. It wasn’t immediate, but a long term effect; it caused us to question our own way of doing things and moderate it into a more supportive approach.
Ramadan Fastathon
While I have learned to stream NPR (National Public Radio) on my computer in Kuwait, nothing beats listening to it in “real time” here. Today, while listening, I learned that university students locally are fasting in support of their Islamic brothers and sisters, and they call it a “Fastathon”. They sign up to fast for a day, and can attend that night’s Ifthar supper. Local merchants will donate money to some charity for every person who signs up.
The interviews – some students got it – that fasting cleanses the system, that it is to experience sympathy with the poor . . . and then there is one poor sap who says “Yeh, I heard of Ramadan. I think it is a political party that causes problems in the Middle East.” Doh.
My Mother just called to ask if Omar, my father’s health care aid, can eat the lentil soup I fixed for their supper. “No! No!” I cry, “it has Jimmy Dean sausage in it!” but Mom says it is no problem, as Dad really wants the chicken noodle soup from last night, and that one is totally halal. Omar can’t eat until seven, so they are waiting so they can all eat together. Ramadan awareness is definitely on the rise here.
Opposite World
I need to write this post while I am freshly back home, because it wears off, you forget the sharpness of the differences . . .
You have to think about how you will manage your bags when you get here, because there will be no willing men with carts to do it for you.
Getting on the highway . . . people are so polite. People drive exactly at the speed limit, or maybe up to 4 miles over. If you put on your turn signal, they slow down and allow you to enter their lane. No one weaves back and forth, no one gets on your tail and insists you get out of their way. Traffic flows smoothly, predictably. People are wearing seat belts; their babies are in baby seats and their children are buckled in the back seat. It’s five lanes, and it’s all very tame. Our testosterone drivers in Kuwait would find it very very dull. I didn’t see a single accident, or single wrecked car all the way home, about twenty miles.
At the grocery stores, there are places for inviduals to put their grocery carts back – and they really do. There are also enough parking places. The cashiers also put the groceries in a bag for you, but there is no one who carries them out to your car.
The streets are immaculate – not because we have hoards of people to pick them up, but because people here have a horror of littering – and huge fines that discourage the rare few who would toss a kleenex out a window.
Service providers are more helpful, and less servile. There is a sense of interchangeable rolls – the guy behind the counter at Starbucks might also be a full time IT student at the local university, just piling up a few barista bucks to pay his way through school. (There is always a tip jar in every Starbucks – Have you ever noticed there are no tip jars at the Starbucks in Kuwait?) The gal behind the counter at the grocery store might live just up the street from you. The guy at the Half Price book store has kids at the same school where your child goes to school. It’s different when all the workers are part of the same community.
The health care worker living with my parents to take care of my father is treated like family. He’s from Ghana. I watch him watch us as we gather. I imagine some of it is very familiar to him – the way women communicate when family gathers, laughter, tears, family business, making plans and arrangements. And I imagine some of it is very . . . foreign. I would love to read HIS blog!
There are seasons here. You need to have socks with you to keep your feet warm, and closed-toed shoes. There are trees that were green two months ago, and are now a flaming red, or orange, or yellow. I need a sweater outside, over a shirt. It’s cool, but not yet really cold.
Part of the transportation system here is ferry boats. People take them to get to work. My home town is, like Kuwait City, on the beach, but the water is not jade green, but a deeper, colder blue.
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