Re: third world connections

["Nathan Swartzendruber" <thefishpatrol at hotmail_com>]

It's useful to speak in the general, when it comes to questions like this, 
but not often practical. If cultural realities reflect personal ones, maybe 
there's a little more ground to stand on, but culture isn't unified or 
static. Naturally we (Rhys and I) don't know each other well enough to say 
what each other has and hasn't experienced, but the conflict is real between 
self and culture.

My family was able to come visit me while I was out, so we travelled down to 
the coast so that they could beat jet lag in relative peace. Beaches up to 
the high tide line are public property. Lines of foreigners stacked up in 
beach chairs up on hotel property, because when you set foot on the sand, 
every Kenyan who passed would try to sell you something. I took a walk and 
had a young guy spontaneously join me. So I asked him where he lived, what 
he did, and then about the coast, what lives along the shore. He told me 
tons, wish I could have taken notes (I'm like that). And when we'd walked 
back to the hotel, he asked, "So, what will you buy from me?" Not exactly 
like, I have helped you, now how will you help me? But close.

Part of the challenge is that I liked my life over there. Teaching, doing 
music, hanging out with MKs and staffers. Also no radio, limited tv access, 
limited travel. While I was there, I was really there. Wasn't a perfect 
place, of course. I sure wasn't a perfect teacher; I didn't even have 
perfect students, though they were amazing. Et cetera. Here I'm pulled 
between so many things, my feet are off the ground. It's the wrong kind of 
weightless. The compass doesn't read the same, there are new measurements or 
something. And so forth.

>i don't think any one person is better worse or more valuable than
>another. that gets close to worth and whether wes hould help so'n so's
>country.

True. I'd like to make some fact-based statement about offering more help to 
people who are less able to help themselves, but I don't really have the 
facts. What would East Africa look like if the funds donated to those 
governments had been used appropriately? Differently, obviously, but we 
surely shouldn't name Americanization the goal either. Past the politics and 
power, still, are the people who starve when the rains don't come.

> > >third world, yea it's a hard place to be. there's greed, corruption,
> > >selfishness, drugs, guns, knives, mutilations, beauty, smiles, and
> > >music and wonderful food, scenery like nowhere else, culture that
> > >dictates half of the listed things into normality.... sounds like any
> > >country i can think of
> >
> > But it's so easy then to leave it in the abstract.
>
>is it? sorry, i didn't know. honest.

Speaking generally, again. It's difficult to travel, few people have time to 
really experience other cultures, etc. More than we realize or intend, we 
trust movies, tv, media for what the rest of the world is like. But you're 
right: big picture, small picture, there's only so much we can keep in mind.

> > No, bombs in baby carriages isn't typical, isn't representative, and
> > it's very dangerous to flippantly invoke images of a place/culture you
> > aren't a part of.
>
>don't understand.

Stories need context, I guess. To present any single event as representative 
of a culture's whole, especially if the presenter isn't part of that 
culture. Looking from the outside in and saying "All _____ are _____" is 
unwise, whether that judgment is positive or negative.

Have I tripped myself yet?

Nathan

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