"We can't redeem the world, it can't be fixed. Why can't the world be fixed? Because the root source of all social problems is us individuals...... its as old as Voltaite- tend your own garden. You can make the space around you maybe a little bit more humain. You can help an individual around you, but you can't change the world."
(David Horowitz. Rubin Report interview Video. March 2017)
"True communication between cultures is a chancy thing especially where money is involved."
(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Jorney On Two Rivers.)
"Totally exhausted, sweating onto my notebook so much that my pen won’t work, and longing for a nice cool shower, we round up the afternoon by all meeting together in the main room again. It’s all I can do to muster up the energy to thank them. They are thankful too and – all things considered – the final recordings are pretty decent, with a good variety of styles and instrumentation. Then it happens: one of them pipes up with, “It was good, but we wish the workshop had been better organized!”
I’m defensive: “Better organized? What do you mean?”
“Well, so that we would receive some money from you.” Money?
They want money from me! This is a never-ending issue for the expatriate working in Africa: all too often, the issue of money rears its ugly head! To be fair, it does vary depending on location; the Bogo over in Sassanou never asked me for a penny and – in fact – gave me several gifts as a token of their appreciation! My theory is that the closer to the coast and/or to a big city you get, the worse it becomes.
“Money! What for?”
“For participating in the workshop!”
I pause for a moment, then continue:
“Let me ask you some questions.
Firstly, Ifè participants, did you pay for your transport here?”
“No, it was free,” they reply.
“And, everybody, how much have you had to pay for your accommodation during this workshop?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. And your meals?”
“They were provided free of charge.”
“And what about the hours of technical work I’ve put in to record your songs? Do I get paid for that? And my travel from Cotonou – it cost me 40,000 CFA. Nobody is paying me for that! Furthermore, I will go home from here and spend several days editing all your songs and making the cassettes so that you can benefit from them. You will then each receive a cassette of your songs, also free of charge. And still you ask me for money?”
The issue of per diems as they are called is still a contentious one. You see, I just spoke as a Westerner, from a Western viewpoint (and a particularly worn-out, fed up Westerner at that!) Now, the African viewpoint is very different: they’ve given up time to come and take part in this workshop, so should be ‘rewarded’ for this. They’ll also have lost several days’ income, which is not going to appear out of thin air, and they need to feed their families somehow. Finally, in Africa, if you have a friend who is richer than you, then it would be completely normal for the rich friend to give some money to the poorer friend. In the West, we try not to mix friendship with money, in case it spoils it; in Africa, friendship and exchange of cash often go hand in hand, almost as a way of cementing a friendship.
“That’s all I have to say on the matter.” I add. And we end the workshop. Just like that. I’m way too exhausted to continue debating this with them.........
Culture is a massive thing, and cultural differences – or misunderstandings – are at the heart of most friction and stress for an expatriate overseas. I’ve seen perfectly lovely people (Germans, Americans, French and – I have to add – Brits) losing their rag with Africans, because things didn’t happen ‘just so’. We are conditioned to seeking perfection, creating a world where everything is clear cut and runs according to certain rules (and woe betide you, should you veer from those!) Africa is not like that. Sure, there are rules, but things are often more fluid, negotiable, adaptable; and this is not a bad thing, it’s just how things are done here."
(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture : Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)
"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"
(Karen Blixen)
"We first became friends probably out of an almost identical sense of pity for one another. Any American can, I suppose, imagine my pity for Ramon. It was grounded in the contemplation of an intelligent and ambitious youth chained by circumstances to crushing and lifelong poverty in a poor country that offered no future to its ineptly educated citizens. Ramon's pity for me was just as basic as he watched me moving about, confused and frightened in his strange world. I was unable to communicate with anyone about anything but the most animal needs of survival. Except for bananas, and I didn’t know the Spanish word for them, I was unable to identify a single fruit or plant. I couldn’t catch a fish or paddle a canoe or net a shrimp or weave a piece of rope out of a vine or find my way on a jungle trail or even walk on one for more than fifty feet without sinking up to my knees in mud. I couldn‘t machete out a patch of weeds or fix a leaking roof. I couldn’t even cook a pot of rice that didn‘t come out like a great mass of glue. Jesus, I couldn’t even walk a hundred feet without shoes. Ramon found my ignorance so overwhelming that he could hardly bear it; he was confused between tears, depression, and anger. Chances are when I macheted down a tree it would fall on me, hopelessly entangling me in its spiny branches; paddling across the river I was almost inevitably swept out into the rip tides where the ocean breakers crashed onto the sandbar. In the middle of all this, to hear me speak of my four years at university filled Ramon with an incredulous impatience, and about the third time I mentioned my educational qualifications for arriving to overturn his life, he asked me if, in view of my obvious ignorance of everything that he had taken for granted since he was three years old, I would please
lay off the higher education bullshit."
(Moritz Thomsen.The Farm On The River of Emeralds)
Has it's advantages too........
"Living in Rio Verde was in a very real sense like living in another world. The “real” world of change - of riots; revolutions, politics, and business - only began to begin in Esmeraldas at the end of that twenty-five miles of bench and ocean that separated the two places. It was, for me at any rate, in many ways a profound experience to be isolated from that world that we had been taught to believe was the real one and to be absorbed into a world every bit as complicated but whose main realities were the tides, the planting seasons, the winter storms, the betrayals of neighbors, and the fight to stay alive."
(Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen)
"In the summer of 1984, I had an unforgettable conversation with one of my Congolese friends. I had been in the Congo for only six months at the time, and my Swahili could only handle simple conversations. My friend had been listening to shortwave radio broadcasts describing the political events in America. He heard a news report about the presidential re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan and wanted me to clarify something for him. He calmly asked me in Swahili, “If Walter Mondale goes on to win the election and defeat Reagan, who would then kill Reagan?”
At first I thought I had heard him wrong and it was just my poor Swahili. He then repeated his question slowly, “Nani ataua Reagan?” Who will kill Reagan? I suddenly realized I was in a place that did not understand peaceful transfer of power. President Mobutu ruled the Congo as an iron-fisted dictator for thirty-two years (1965 to 1997). He had no intentions of having a peaceful transfer of power or grooming a younger person to take over. The only thing he could see in a young, potential successor was “threat” with a capital “T.”
"In another part of Africa, a church service went on and on without regard to the lateness of the hour14 The missionary looked again and again at his watch as his level of irritation soared. The service continued on into the night as more people than usual wanted to testify of the work of God in their lives. When the African pastor stood to preach, it was nearly midnight. The missionary was so upset that he stormed out of the church and went to his home nearby. When the service showed no signs of ending, he switched off the main electricity supply, causing the church to plunge into immediate darkness. Usually the lights at the mission station were switched off at ten o’clock, so the missionary felt he had been more than reasonable. When the African pastor realized what had happened, he broke down and cried. The missionary was highly time-oriented in a Western sense, whereas the national church was event- oriented. They were enjoying themselves immensely and had planned to stay on, without regard to time, until the event ceased to be meaningful."
"Because they do not understand how nationals socialize, some short- term missionaries have labeled them as “lazy.” A pastor’s wife was shocked when one missionary commented, “People here don’t like to study the Bible; they prefer to dance” and ‘Your lifestyle is not good. Your songs are not good. This is the way to sing.” This experience gives credibility to the wife’s claim that “they don’t seem to appreciate the way we do things and that it has meaning for us.” The issues she raised illustrate the priority of relationships while going about one’s tasks or chores. In her context, relationships are so critical that a person is considered antisocial for neglecting to take time to interact with others."(The Trendy Giant Wounds: Some Lessons from the Church in Africa, David Ngaruiya. EMQ, January 2008, p.60)
It parts of
The problem arises when an American meets an Arab and arranges a meeting for
Stan Guthrie, Missions in The Third Millennium, pg 86. 2000, paternoster Press, )
"The selfless zeal of many of these missionaries often overshadowed the mistakes they made. Adlai Stevenson visited
(Stan Guthrie, Missions in The Third Millennium, pg 136. 2000, paternoster Press, )
Stan Guthrie Quoting Andrew Atkins of Emmanuel International
"Another time, Atkins says, a team went to
It’s extremely difficult for settlers to understanding Reverse Culture Shock. However, I will try to explain.
The shock we receive upon returning home from places like Africa, is more complex and difficult than the culture shock we first experienced moving to Africa. Yep, it’s harder to come home than go. It has taken me six years to crawl out from under my reverse culture shock.
The more deeply we bond and identify with the people of another culture, the more difficult it is for us when we get home. Why is that? Well our culture, our view of the world, has been inextricably and forever altered. We no longer think or view the world like the “folks at home”.
As a result we often feel like an alien in our own home town. I have never experienced a greater sensation of “alienness” than when I retured to Prince Edward Island. We have become what anthropologists and missiologists refer to as bi-cultural, meaning comfortable and at ease in more than one culture. In fact, liking some things about other cultures better than our own.
I have been returning to Africa each winter for the last 3 years to work with my old village friends in Church planting and leadership training. When I arrive in Ivory Coast, within 3 or 4 short hours, a tremendous sense of peace settles, and it feels like I have never left. There isn't any disorientation or need to slowly get my feet under me. However, when I return to Canada, that is quite a different story.
After returning from 6.5 weeks of village work, Lynn referred to me as a basket case.
I could not follow complete sentences well, because my mind was on information overload trying to process a wealth of African experiences & conversations.
Lynn has since made the policy that I’m not permitted to be around people for at least 2 weeks after my return. We have found it takes one month before I can even begin to process what happened while overseas. People anxiously ask questions, but I find it almost impossible to say much as my mind is overloaded with images, impressions, feelings and thoughts that are to hard to explain. I feel my words are inadequate to vividly explain what “really” happened, my words seem like a watered down version of “real life” and it frustrates me terribly to write or speak about it early on.
One year I was in the village doing a church plant with Prosper (See phote). As we ate, talked, and slept together in the village, over 4 weeks I lost 20 lbs, as we just did not eat much. Times were hard economically for the village people in Ivory Coast because of the coup and the rebel situation. Anyway, I did not see much volume, nor variety of food that whole month.
My second evening back home, my Lynn had to rescue me. I guess Lynn heard me saying, “Wow!” over and over again in the kitchen. She was concerned at the sound of my voice and she could hear me pacing around; she came out to see if I was Ok. Lynn peaked around the corner and watched. Apparently, I had been looking for a snack to eat. I opened the fridge and was so thoroughly overwhelmed by the shear volume of food in there, that I was stunned and saying; “wow!” I shut the fridge door and went to the cupboard and the same overwhelming experience happened again, then off to the pantry- same thing. I was on my 3rd round, and I did not even realize what I was doing. Lynn realized what was happening and she grabbed me by the hand saying; “Come with me”, and she led me like a little child to the bedroom and tucked me in bed.
Anyway, I don’t understand why, but coming home is much more difficult than going. I have had time to contemplate why this might be so. I think our mission minded Jesus wants it to be this way. He wants us to be less shocked about going, and more shocked about returning, from the needy fields of the world.
Maybe, just maybe, this was how Jesus felt as he left home and went from village to village?
