(no subject)
7am. My parents are boarding their flight from Cape Town to London, where they will spend one night before heading back to Seattle. What jet setters. I had a fever yesterday, for no apparent reason, felt perfectly fine the day before and woke up feeling like a truck had landed on top of my body while I was sleeping. Today I think I feel fine, but somehow I've managed to accrue 13 bug bites through out the night. Two are on my right thumb making it nearly immobile and one is on my right wrist. Does not bode well for practicing piano.
Anyways, in this last week of sub Saharan travels, I read three books. The first was complete crap, but the second two were strangely related. In the KwaZulu Natal, just east of the Draconsburg mountains, I found on the shelves of the quiet manor house we stayed in Cry, The Beloved Country. I'd been feeling bad that I came to South Africa with out reading such seminal works as this, July's People, and The Power of One, but now I'm actually quite glad I at least was lazy about Cry, The Beloved Country. I couldn't have found a more perfect setting, nestled beneath the shadows of the Draconsburgs only 200km away from "one of the fairest valleys in all of Africa", where Paton set this heart shattering novel. It was, for lack of a better word, perfect. Then in the Durban airport I picked a book at random, The Ministery of Special Cases, about Argentina's dirty war. The connection between the two novels, set twenty years and half a world apart, is that they are both the stories of parents who lose their children, set on the backdrop of widespread oppression by state and the suspension of civil liberties.
When we were driving to do a hike in the Draconsburg, I noticed that there were signs for schools around the Zulu villages saying "This is Clover Country". Clover is a dairy brand, and like all unethical corporations it once attempted to save it's soul (see: public image) through charity. It funded, at least partially, several schools in the impoverished Zulu farming communities of the KwaZulu Natal province in the late nineties. Most of the schools are now all but abandoned, since Clover only funded infrastructure development, not long term operations, and the kids are usually on the side of the highway instead of in classes, extending cupped hands to passing cars for spare change. Anyways, it's beautiful country land, and the Zulu once had an enviable tribal culture in which Ubuntu, the concept that people are people through other people, flourished. But the tribe has been broken (it was broken in 1950 was Paton wrote Cry, The Beloved Country, today it's completely demolished), and the land raped, the people dehumanized and their hope taken away.
So I'm left thinking, if I worked at Clover, I would have those signs taken down immediately. I would not want my company associated with this kind of human hardship. This is Clover Country? Well, thank you for letting me know I can openly blame you for the way the people are forced to live.
Anyways, in this last week of sub Saharan travels, I read three books. The first was complete crap, but the second two were strangely related. In the KwaZulu Natal, just east of the Draconsburg mountains, I found on the shelves of the quiet manor house we stayed in Cry, The Beloved Country. I'd been feeling bad that I came to South Africa with out reading such seminal works as this, July's People, and The Power of One, but now I'm actually quite glad I at least was lazy about Cry, The Beloved Country. I couldn't have found a more perfect setting, nestled beneath the shadows of the Draconsburgs only 200km away from "one of the fairest valleys in all of Africa", where Paton set this heart shattering novel. It was, for lack of a better word, perfect. Then in the Durban airport I picked a book at random, The Ministery of Special Cases, about Argentina's dirty war. The connection between the two novels, set twenty years and half a world apart, is that they are both the stories of parents who lose their children, set on the backdrop of widespread oppression by state and the suspension of civil liberties.
When we were driving to do a hike in the Draconsburg, I noticed that there were signs for schools around the Zulu villages saying "This is Clover Country". Clover is a dairy brand, and like all unethical corporations it once attempted to save it's soul (see: public image) through charity. It funded, at least partially, several schools in the impoverished Zulu farming communities of the KwaZulu Natal province in the late nineties. Most of the schools are now all but abandoned, since Clover only funded infrastructure development, not long term operations, and the kids are usually on the side of the highway instead of in classes, extending cupped hands to passing cars for spare change. Anyways, it's beautiful country land, and the Zulu once had an enviable tribal culture in which Ubuntu, the concept that people are people through other people, flourished. But the tribe has been broken (it was broken in 1950 was Paton wrote Cry, The Beloved Country, today it's completely demolished), and the land raped, the people dehumanized and their hope taken away.
So I'm left thinking, if I worked at Clover, I would have those signs taken down immediately. I would not want my company associated with this kind of human hardship. This is Clover Country? Well, thank you for letting me know I can openly blame you for the way the people are forced to live.