December 2008
8 posts
Très Dynamique
There are many wonderful things about speaking French, and among them are the terms we either have in English but don’t use, or simply don’t have. These words express cultural values that don’t exist in English speaking societies.
Take, for example, the word dynamique. Yes, we have it in English, along with cadre, austerity, and other sophisticated Latinate words that have...
Crazy People without Borders
I never finished telling the story of that night at the Paroisse St. Aloys. (I have since been to another Paroisse, it was cold, wet, full of mosquitoes, and had an uncomfortable feel of being below sea level, stuck as it was in a flat, dark, totally unspectacular jungle. It occurred to me as I toasted the priests at dinner each night that I was living a “Lord of the Rings” type adventure,...
Here's Your Movie Character
On a recent day I was in Rutshuru, a town in North Kivu, the wartorn state in eastern DR Congo. We stayed in the Paroisse St. Aloys, a Jesuit mission with a lovely guest house. It reminded me of the old days of Sacred Heart, my elementary school in Atherton, Calif., before the earthquake forced us out of the red brick building into gray one story classrooms and the administration was seized by...
Why street kids may not go to school, even if you...
AH : So I met this little boy the other day who fishes every morning in Lake Kivu [eastern Democratic Republic of Congo] with his little brother. I really admire them because they work very early and long, and the little brother strings little talapia and sardines they catch onto a reed of grass through the fish's gills. I think they give the fish to their family because their father is unemployed and extremely poor. Last weekend the oldest brother, who is probably 12, invited me to his house. It's a shack on the lot of a large house currently in construction, on a bed of hard lava rock. They are squatters. The boy is amazingly smart, and speaks French perfectly, some English, Kiswahili, and his tribal language probably. He asked me for money to pay for school, because he said it was too expensive at $10 per term. But then the father indicated to me that he pays for the boy to go to school, $6 a month. I don't know if I should give him tuition -- I mean I would be happy to help, but will it really go to the school or will the boy just take it and keep fishing to feed his family? He has five siblings.
Franc: If he speaks those languages it means he has probably spoken with a lot of tourists to get money. He knows what stories to tell to get people's sympathy and money. Those children are very difficult cases, because usually if you pay for them to go to school they will not even go, they don't want to. Because they want to spend the money on themselves and keep fishing.
AH: So is there any way to help them?
Franc: What we usually do with those cases is to help the children make more money. Maybe to change from fishing to some other business and better organize themselves.
AH: What!? So, like, you just accept that they are determined to be little business people and help them to become more successful at it?
Franc: Yes.
Heroism, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Military Attitude of the Soul
Towards all external evil, the man within the breast assumes a warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints...