Day 17

Friday, June 6, 2008

Cultural Knowledge: Sickness

The initial lecture today covered a peculiar twist in African Culture. The concept of sickness and the individual. According to African culture a person does not become sick for “no reason,” but all sickness is personalized. A person is sick because of direct causation either by his or her own actions or by the ill will of another.

If you get a disease, it does not matter that we in the west might say that a germ causes it, the individual gets the germ and thus the disease due to other factors. If not, they would say, how come everyone does not get the disease? If we say, “they were killed in a traffic accident,” they would say, “Yes, but not everyone died in the accident, or not everyone died who drove on that road, so why did they die, why were they hurt?”

If a person can find the cause then through medicines, breaking curses, or certain ceremonies they can be put right. Even if they taking the western medicines, it does not preclude fixing what is wrong in an African way.

This has traditionally been a sticking point with western missionaries who have insisted that the Africans rejected these notions and give up all the old healing practices. After just 16 days on the continent I don’t think I’m in any position to even give an opinion about what “ought” to be done in these situations.

Cultural Overview Class: Education

Culture is the way a person is taught to derive meaning and respond to the circumstances of life. It is learned behavior, but it is deeply programmed in the cerebral cortex.

How is African Culture taught? It has been taught through a mentoring model based in the family, with different members being responsible for different skills and ideas being taught. The emphasis was upon raising a person who could contribute to society. They were to have broad knowledge of the culture even when selecting an individual skill to master. Modern Education has not taught people how to be good Africans thus making them rootless people neither western nor African.

Posting

I was able to spend just enough time to post my email and blog (35 minutes) I’m beginning to believe as basic human right we should demand high sped Internet for the world! I type everything at Flora and take it to the computers on a jump drive. It takes forever for the Internet to load, it takes just seconds to past the information into the email, and then an eternity for it to actually send. Then the blog does its part to make yearn for a long string and tin cup, but eventually it allows me to paste in the information. Finally at the speed of seasonal change the computer relents and I am finished.

Flora

I came back to Flora and began to read, but got sleepy so I decided to pack for the weekend trip. I want to pack as light as possible, but the Boy Scout in me kept repeating “Be Prepared.” In the end I only took one thing I did not use (a pair of pants incase the primary ones got terribly soiled or torn open).

I sterilized water and filled my Camelbak (a flexible canteen for those who are not familiar). I packed my camera in hopes that there would be moments when I could take some photographs.

I reread my paper and made some notes for the final section. Then I read a book on Christianity by Marcus Borg that is very challenging and I can safely say not my vision of Christianity, but I think he does represent what it has come to mean to so many people. Now, I am in the stew trying to figure out how we counter this vision of Christianity with what I would believe is a more authentic vision, without being labeled as “narrow, bigoted, anti-intellectual, and mean.”