Wednesday, November 23, 2011
NOTE! I posted these backwards
Start below with "Jew and the Lotus" and read up from there. Pictures to come...eventually.
I-Spy-An-Elephant (Nov 6)
Our second official task at the Game Count was a two-hour hide. On our second morning in Liwonde they drove Rob and I out to the river where we sat relatively hidden in a bushy area to count the game that came to hang out near us. We requested to be in the elephant zone. I was determined to I-Spy-An-Elephant. Actually, the ride out was the best part. At one point we had a monkey trying to race our car, we saw a herds of buffalo and waterbuck and mpala and warthogs. Oh! And baby warthogs! Surprisingly adorable, considering they grow up to be beastly. I had the line from The Lion King’s Hakunna Matata “when I was a young warthoooooog” stuck in my head all morning. We all saw reedbacks jumping ridiculous heights through fallen trees. It was so cool, those reedbacks! It was Planet Earth but for real!
The actual hide part was relatively uneventful. The area was beautiful, but after a night of not sleeping (hot season seems to be taking revenge on Liwonde at night, no one could sleep), it was hard to stay attentive. But we DID see two elephants come out from the trees on the other side of the river to splash around. They were super far away and we could only really see what they were doing through binoculars. But it was still cool!
“Oh! Water buffalo.” “…Run.” (Nov 5)
So our first official task of the Liwonde Game Count was a 12km transect walk through the park, which my dumbass was less than prepared for in my shorts and sandals at 5am. Robert and I were assigned to a guide-slash-rifle-wielder named Nowa. He had a rifle because it’s dangerous to be out in the park on foot. Regular visitors aren’t allowed to leave their vehicles. Also, poachers are abundant, illegal, dangerous, and fair game to shoot at. I was very happy to find that Nowa was entirely competent and a perfectly nice man. Now that I think about it, I really liked that guy! Anyway, he and Rob kept me going at a “good clip,” aka too fast. Where’s the fire, guys!? I thought we were supposed to be counting animals, not going on a run. The first 5km were the worst, as it was through a landscape of vicious thorn-bushes, which had a way of finding their way under your toenails. We saw no animals, probably because nothing really likes walking through vicious thorn-bushes. But it picked up considerably after that. The second half of our little stroll was much more interesting. We saw a herd of running mpala and waterbuck, we saw a bushpig, and some warthogs chasing a bird. We saw a baboon, which told us in his barking language to get-the-f-out-of-his-habitat.
But here’s my favorite: We were 700m away from the end of our walk and I was thinking, “so far, Robert and Nowa have been spotting all the animals. I outta pull my weight.” I look up and see three huge animals about 50m away from us running in the opposite direction. I’ve seen things like these before in India and think mildly outloud, “oh! Water buffalo.” Nowa looks up, freaks out, and (very competently) positions his rifle against his hip and shoots one shot into the air. Then he turns on his heels and very quickly leads us in the opposite direction. “Come on, fast,” he says. Then he changes his mind, “run.” The buffalo (turns out they were just regular buffalo, not water buffalo) are long gone and far away from us by now and we finally stop to catch our breaths. “I do not like buffalo. They are too too dangerous,” Nowa is shaking all over and struggles to release the empty shell from his gun. He explains that he would much rather be that close to elephants or lions than buffalo, who are territorial, aggressive, and apparently, very dangerous. Good to know!
But here’s my favorite: We were 700m away from the end of our walk and I was thinking, “so far, Robert and Nowa have been spotting all the animals. I outta pull my weight.” I look up and see three huge animals about 50m away from us running in the opposite direction. I’ve seen things like these before in India and think mildly outloud, “oh! Water buffalo.” Nowa looks up, freaks out, and (very competently) positions his rifle against his hip and shoots one shot into the air. Then he turns on his heels and very quickly leads us in the opposite direction. “Come on, fast,” he says. Then he changes his mind, “run.” The buffalo (turns out they were just regular buffalo, not water buffalo) are long gone and far away from us by now and we finally stop to catch our breaths. “I do not like buffalo. They are too too dangerous,” Nowa is shaking all over and struggles to release the empty shell from his gun. He explains that he would much rather be that close to elephants or lions than buffalo, who are territorial, aggressive, and apparently, very dangerous. Good to know!
Baby Baboon on Board (Nov 4)
After the 50th Anniversary, Peace Corps Volunteers made a mass exodus from Lilongwe to Liwonde Wildlife Reserve in the South. Once a year the Reserve sets aside a highly coveted game count for PCVs. They have us come out for two days and help them take a survey of the game in the park. First Year volunteers take the south camp and Second Years take the luxurious north camp, complete with a swimming pool. Sign me up for next year! Liwonde is bloody hot! Luckily they had crazy rain storms the day before we arrived, so it wasn’t too hot until nighttime.
The south camp consists of a few youth hostels, an outdoor grill for cooking, an eating hall, and monkeys. The monkeys are completely unafraid of humans and have incredibly sticky fingers. Every meal time we were greeted by a hoard of vervets (little grey monkeys) surrounding the camp, waiting for an opportunity to move in on an unattended plate. They stole what they could, literally jumping up on the tables and the side of the grill to take people’s food, going into the hostels to take bananas and eggs, meant for the morning. Then the much larger baboons came in and the vervets scattered. The baboons strutted around camp like they were the highest order of species present. They stood patiently by the waste pile for us to throw things at them, they would have come into the eating hall and cleaned the tables of dropped food for us if we’d let them. We didn’t. We all became desensitized to them after awhile. They ceased being cool wildlife and became serious pests.
But the mommy baboons with babies clinging to their stomachs, that didn’t get old. Those babies were so cute! And when mommy wanted some mommy-time and tried to pry her little offspring from her, baby was like magnetized Velcro. Some mommies would get together in a circle to complain about their husbands and it was like baby gamboree. Baby baboons tumbling and playing and swinging from trees and falling over each other. I tried to lure them over with bananas, but those mommies trained them well, “don’t take bananas from strangers! And don’t trust those Homo sapiens, nothing good ever happened around that species.”
The south camp consists of a few youth hostels, an outdoor grill for cooking, an eating hall, and monkeys. The monkeys are completely unafraid of humans and have incredibly sticky fingers. Every meal time we were greeted by a hoard of vervets (little grey monkeys) surrounding the camp, waiting for an opportunity to move in on an unattended plate. They stole what they could, literally jumping up on the tables and the side of the grill to take people’s food, going into the hostels to take bananas and eggs, meant for the morning. Then the much larger baboons came in and the vervets scattered. The baboons strutted around camp like they were the highest order of species present. They stood patiently by the waste pile for us to throw things at them, they would have come into the eating hall and cleaned the tables of dropped food for us if we’d let them. We didn’t. We all became desensitized to them after awhile. They ceased being cool wildlife and became serious pests.
But the mommy baboons with babies clinging to their stomachs, that didn’t get old. Those babies were so cute! And when mommy wanted some mommy-time and tried to pry her little offspring from her, baby was like magnetized Velcro. Some mommies would get together in a circle to complain about their husbands and it was like baby gamboree. Baby baboons tumbling and playing and swinging from trees and falling over each other. I tried to lure them over with bananas, but those mommies trained them well, “don’t take bananas from strangers! And don’t trust those Homo sapiens, nothing good ever happened around that species.”
Mother's Day, Malawi Style (Oct 20)
Seems like there is a holiday at least once or twice a month, most of which are just an excuse not to go work work. Looks like Mother’s Day in Malawi is no different. So the kids, who were let off of school, came over to watch me while I was cooking. I told them how Mother’s Day works in America, how kids make cards for their moms that say “I Love You” and blah blah. I asked if they wanted to do that, which received a resounding yes. I dug out the crayons and some paper, which I folded into cards for them. Turns out the joy of scribbling on any flat surface with crayons is universal. It wasn’t long before they were all lining up to let me fawn over their stick-munthus (people) and purple galimotos (cars) and box-shaped nyumbas (houses). And, of course, it only took five seconds of my absence for the youngest of the bunch to take Mustard Yellow to my porch with a scribbling vengeance.
They loved it, though. They giggled uncontrollably at my praise of their use of colors and their depiction of stick-chickens. When I told them one picture was especially good they would quickly show their masterpiece to anyone who would look and chatter excitedly. It was really sweet; warm fuzzy feelings all around.
It made me think that maybe they aren’t given praise very often. In fact, I know it. It must have really been something for them to get a smile and a pat on the back from an adult. Few of them have both parents around, and when they are, they are too busy doing other things to tell their children their efforts are noticed. Most children spend most of their time with grandparents or other siblings, who do most of the childrearing while parents are working. And besides, children are there to do the menial tasks anyway; carrying water, sweeping the yard, cleaning the house, and doing the dishes and the laundry. If they are drawing pictures with crayons or anything creative, they’re probably in the way or shirking their chores. If you think that’s sad, it is. It really is. That is one thing I’ll give Malawi. One of the few things they should truly be pitied for. Their children don’t often get the attention and the praise they deserve. Maybe if they did, they wouldn’t all grow up to be teen parents…
They loved it, though. They giggled uncontrollably at my praise of their use of colors and their depiction of stick-chickens. When I told them one picture was especially good they would quickly show their masterpiece to anyone who would look and chatter excitedly. It was really sweet; warm fuzzy feelings all around.
It made me think that maybe they aren’t given praise very often. In fact, I know it. It must have really been something for them to get a smile and a pat on the back from an adult. Few of them have both parents around, and when they are, they are too busy doing other things to tell their children their efforts are noticed. Most children spend most of their time with grandparents or other siblings, who do most of the childrearing while parents are working. And besides, children are there to do the menial tasks anyway; carrying water, sweeping the yard, cleaning the house, and doing the dishes and the laundry. If they are drawing pictures with crayons or anything creative, they’re probably in the way or shirking their chores. If you think that’s sad, it is. It really is. That is one thing I’ll give Malawi. One of the few things they should truly be pitied for. Their children don’t often get the attention and the praise they deserve. Maybe if they did, they wouldn’t all grow up to be teen parents…
The Jew and the Lotus
So I started this book, The Jew and the Lotus, about how a group of Jews of different denominations participated in dialogue with the Dalai Lama about the similarities and differences of the history and practices of Judaism and Buddhism. As a JuBu myself (yes, it’s a real-ish term), I can identify with how the two religions complement each other, at least spiritually. I have been surprised and delighted to read about just how similar are the philosophies of Buddhism and Jewish mysticism. It’s like they were once the same thing, back in the beginning of religion.
However, I have beef. Not with the main subject of the book, that’s all fine and dandy. My problem with it is how the author describes the Third World. The first chunk of the book is devoted to his journey to Dharamsala, where the dialogue was to take place. He does the typical “everyone is so poor, everything is do dirty, these people deserve our pity,” that is so common in Western coverage of poverty. He describes the hordes of beggars following him around Delhi, shamelessly shoving babies in his face to demonstrate their need. He dwells on the indecency of the slums and his inability to keep his emotions in check in the face of such desolation. These things are bad, yes. But what he writes in his own ignorance is that the true poor, the ones who are truly desperate and left with nothing, are too busy doing the worst jobs available to have time to beg on the street. Anyone who has spent any time in India would know that the shameless beggers in Delhi should be ignored. They know you’re foreign, they know you have money, and they know you’re easy. The author of “The Jew and the Lotus” is just contributing to the canon of Third World sensationalism that has exaggerated and skewed the common perception of the world outside the West. It’s frustrating seeing things so blatantly misrepresented in a vicious cycle of best-seller poverty-pity.
Let’s continue my rant to include Sub-Saharan Africa. Dirt, flies, malnourished children, poverty, beggars, etc. That’s what you see on TV, especially those infomercials. That’s what you read about in magazines and books like Three Cups of Tea, which glorify the poverty outside of our cushy First World empire. Give money here to this NGO, give money here to this fund. Well, you all know my views on foreign aid and how it’s keeping places like Malawi down. But the thing is, these people have been surviving just fine for much longer than we have. Yeah, they have less money and less education and more AIDS, room for improvment. But they aren’t dirty, they know how to keep the flies off their faces and their food. Being broke doesn’t have the same stigma or pose the same challenges as it does in America. They’ll still eat, they’ll still have everything they need. They have almost zero waste because they actually recycle, and creatively. Few things are actually wasted here (cow poop will soon be NOT wasted!). They are better off than us in a lot of areas of life. That’s true in Indian-India, that’s true in Tibetan-India, and that’s true here, in Africa. Of course, I’m generalizing. This is how it is most of the time. There are times, like the famine here ten years ago, that truly are horrendous. The droughts in West Africa which could turn into wide-spread famine, the war in Somalia. These are legitimately terrible things. But the pictures and stories of beggars and children sitting in front of mud huts? No. Mud huts are totally fine and cozy. I’m rather fond of them. And so, it is our own egotism and marketing that when we think of Africa we think of abject poverty. It’s not so. Last night, the BBC reminded me that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. They had to remind me. Malawi makes it work, they’ve been making it work for a good long time.
However, I have beef. Not with the main subject of the book, that’s all fine and dandy. My problem with it is how the author describes the Third World. The first chunk of the book is devoted to his journey to Dharamsala, where the dialogue was to take place. He does the typical “everyone is so poor, everything is do dirty, these people deserve our pity,” that is so common in Western coverage of poverty. He describes the hordes of beggars following him around Delhi, shamelessly shoving babies in his face to demonstrate their need. He dwells on the indecency of the slums and his inability to keep his emotions in check in the face of such desolation. These things are bad, yes. But what he writes in his own ignorance is that the true poor, the ones who are truly desperate and left with nothing, are too busy doing the worst jobs available to have time to beg on the street. Anyone who has spent any time in India would know that the shameless beggers in Delhi should be ignored. They know you’re foreign, they know you have money, and they know you’re easy. The author of “The Jew and the Lotus” is just contributing to the canon of Third World sensationalism that has exaggerated and skewed the common perception of the world outside the West. It’s frustrating seeing things so blatantly misrepresented in a vicious cycle of best-seller poverty-pity.
Let’s continue my rant to include Sub-Saharan Africa. Dirt, flies, malnourished children, poverty, beggars, etc. That’s what you see on TV, especially those infomercials. That’s what you read about in magazines and books like Three Cups of Tea, which glorify the poverty outside of our cushy First World empire. Give money here to this NGO, give money here to this fund. Well, you all know my views on foreign aid and how it’s keeping places like Malawi down. But the thing is, these people have been surviving just fine for much longer than we have. Yeah, they have less money and less education and more AIDS, room for improvment. But they aren’t dirty, they know how to keep the flies off their faces and their food. Being broke doesn’t have the same stigma or pose the same challenges as it does in America. They’ll still eat, they’ll still have everything they need. They have almost zero waste because they actually recycle, and creatively. Few things are actually wasted here (cow poop will soon be NOT wasted!). They are better off than us in a lot of areas of life. That’s true in Indian-India, that’s true in Tibetan-India, and that’s true here, in Africa. Of course, I’m generalizing. This is how it is most of the time. There are times, like the famine here ten years ago, that truly are horrendous. The droughts in West Africa which could turn into wide-spread famine, the war in Somalia. These are legitimately terrible things. But the pictures and stories of beggars and children sitting in front of mud huts? No. Mud huts are totally fine and cozy. I’m rather fond of them. And so, it is our own egotism and marketing that when we think of Africa we think of abject poverty. It’s not so. Last night, the BBC reminded me that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. They had to remind me. Malawi makes it work, they’ve been making it work for a good long time.
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