Newspapers / St. Andrews University Student … / March 3, 1988, edition 1 / Page 6
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page 6 THE LANCE March 3,19U Tnternational Term in Kenya Illustrates Cultural Differences Dave Snyder Jambo! That means hello in Swahili, Kenya’s national language. They relished the opportunity to put a European through their language tests. One park warden we met was obviously upset when he discovered we hadn’t learned “how are you?” after two weeks of travel there. It goes like this, “Jambo! ” “Jambo! Habari? (how are you?)” “Mzuri sana, (very well)”. I was in Kenya during January enjoying the journey with Neal Bushoven and a former St. Android, Dave Saunier. Our first adventure was to rent a car from Polay’s Car Hire. Driving on the smooth roads of Nairobi, we were unprepared for the hazards to confront us outside of the city. In the back of our car, I bounced ground like popcorn in a popcorn popper. Avoiding the potholes was not the issue; they had expanded so much that our task was to avoid the bits of road that were left. It only makes sense: all the bureaucrats who decide what gets paved live in Nai robi. One of our first destinations was the Masai Mara National Game Reserve, adja cent to Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains. Once a famous hunting park, it is now a Mecca for shutterbugs. It’s obvious why. We stopped and watched a herd of elephants saunter by our jeep. Old males ahead and behind, the rest determinedly, gracefully, ripped through the small trees that dotted the savannah. Mothers nursed their babies without slowing down. Occasionally one would turn toward us and check us out. We just stared ahead, awed. Later we discovered a lion. We spotted it by looking among a posse of white tourist vans corralled around a bush, where lions get shade from the midday equatorial sun. We noticed one of the lions was stalking. In her sights about 250 feet away were two unsuspecting zebra. She stalked closer, using the vans as a shield. Power coiled in her legs. Haunched low, closer still. Eyes dead ahead. Body unmoving. Van pulled between her and the zebra. What?! We couldn’t believe it either, but the tourists wanted a better pic ture. Nature got pre-empted. A major controversy surrounds, literally, these reserves. Masai Mara is in the territory of the Maasai, the famous no madic people of East Africa about whom many a documentary has been fantasized. They earn their livelihood through drink ing the milk and blood of the cattle they maintain. They were appalled to learn the Europeans kiU their catUe, which is just one thing they learned not to like about the Europeans, who are called in their lan guage as “the people who hold their farts in their clothes.” But the Maasai are being crunched by an economic system expand ing into their territory. To the north Kenyan farmers are encroaching with their barbed-wire fields. To the south they are prohibited on the game reserve in order to preserve the habitat for the wild animals. Imagine a federal official com ing down to St. Andrews from Washington and deciding that Lake Ansley C. Moore is a unique geological phenomenon which must be preserved in its natural state. Therefore, we must destroy the causewalk and the entire residential side of the lake and let it become swamp again. Then, two or three of us can become tourguides for visiting geologists. This is the condition of the Maasai; their means of earning iheir livelihood are being taken away from them for the sake of tourist income. Like most of the native Americans centuries ago, their way of life is coming to an end. As we camped just outside the park’s boundaries, we heard a bunch of people celebrating life inside the park guard’s residence. Singing these rhyth mic, circular, eternal tunes, their jubilation was intense. Our plane left Nairobi at 1:30 a.m. Super Bowl Sunday. Twenty hours later, we landed in New York at 3:30 p.m. But I had a breakfast riding on the Redskins and Dave had an invitation to a Super Bowl party with some friends of his. What culture shock! To re-enter the U.S. on our National Holiday of Over-Indul- gence. After four relatively austere weeks in East Africa, I found my self immersed in an orgy of consumption: a table of food, bathtub full of beer, apartment crammed with technology and people all watching this electronic spectacle with rapt attention. Ode to a Grecian Experience Christopher Wood This is a good time for us to ex plore some of the rest of the world. After we leave college, it may be awhile before we again have sufficient time to spend away from responsibilities. And you almost cer tainly won’t be able to do it as cheaply as you can now. These two factors create a third; you may not have the chance to be part of a good group of people to travel with. This, I believe, was the case when nearly thirty students, accompanied by Professor Dick Prust, flew from New York to Athens, Greece, in early January, at which point we met up with the course’s other professor, Anne Woodson. Athens was the city in which we spent roughly half of our four-week excur sion, gracing its busy streets. There were times when the atmosphere in Athens, whose prominence included crowds and occasinally some natives whose scruples were on that day slightly anemic, made us want to find a different place to spend our time. However, it seemed that whenever the general feeling of the group came to this, along came the time to scurry out of the Hermes, the hotel which served as our home base. We found refreshing experi ences to be had in Delphi, Olympia, and Crete (an island), to name a few. We tended to fmd these more laid-back parts of Greece greater cause for relaxation, due in part to some'wonderful scenery and some good people we came in contact with-not that we didn’t come in contact with plenty in Athens as well. To experience a ride through another culture, seeing some of how it evolved, some of how it remains today, and how it compares to cultures one is more familar with, was in this case both benefi cial and enjoyable. Having this, with help ful, undomineering guidance, was as good an experience as I will have during a Saint Andrew’s WinterTerm. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to most others who have a similar option. Voter Registration for the November G^eneral Election will be held Friday, March 4 from 4:30 - 5:30 p.m. In the Main I^ounge of Mecklenbu rg Hall Register and Vote -VmuilM HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR . • • Join individuals and organizations who are helping nearly one million people with their tax returns. The people being helped are low-income, elderly, handicapped or have difficulty with English. The IRS will train you. The program is called VITA- Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. For details, call the nearest IRS office listed in your local telephone directory. CtfTVlC* of
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