Yesterday I came back from a 3 day clinic tour in Loliondo and lake Natron areas. Flying Medical Service operates 12 airstrips on this medical tour.
We meet all kind of people out there, and this time we had some lovely Austrian medical visitors in Loliondo hospital. They were organising a walking safari between Loliondo and lake Natron and so had hired 2 Masai guides. We got to share our meals and laughed a lot. These guys are highly educated, vivid story tellers, fluent in English, have traveled in Europe and so explained their experiences and amongst many laughs I’ve learnt a few things.
They admitted they enjoyed the encounters and visits in Europe but couldn’t live there. They found Europeans shut off to foreigners, living in a cold selfish environment. Well, they used more euphemism than me to explain this.
We have to admit that quite often most of us will react defensively when an utmost stranger greets you for no apparent reason or tries to start conversation, that we look at our shoe tips in the elevator, that we don’t care for our sick parents at home, we call long ahead our friends to organise a social visit… Spontaneity is not our main characteristic, let’s face it.
All of this is quite un-African. Africans value their family above anything else. Even a friend or colleague’s family. This is explained by the fact that parents have produced you, so they matter and meeting them is thus important. Every year for my annual trip home I’m told to greet my parents by colleagues or friends. They’ve never seen my family and still they insist on passing their greetings. And if family members happen to visit here, you’d better make sure you pay a visit to everybody. They found it puzzling that we don’t rush to meet our new parents-in-law as soon as a relationship starts. I had upset a dear friend like that because I hadn’t introduced my Mom to her, sorry Valentina, I was just plain ignorant.
Then there was the funny description of a farm visit in Switzerland. Imagine the Masai herder…his experience with cows consists of usually skinny cows roaming the vast and dry savannah, producing 3 to 5 lt of milk a day. Now he meets some 700 kg cows, producing up to 40 lt of milk everyday. An army of cows, producing 1000’s of liters at once, “a river of milk flowing in a big vat” said my friend with large gestures and big eyes.
But he didn’t like the taste of that abundant milk. The bush milk tastes much better.
Talking about our mutual women and rules of marriage was quite interesting too. We came to the conclusion that white women seem usually quite complex creatures to handle…
And today, Karine (who’s not a difficult creature) and I are busy packing for a one-week trip in Kenya, starting tomorrow. I’ve scheduled some posts on this blog for the coming week, enjoy.
Comments