FROM ADELAIDE TO DETROIT TO ZAMBIA...WE ALL FEEL THE SAME

I have a very soft spot for Thulasi, out there doing what must be done, while I just sit here and talk about it. Here is an update from Zambia.

....."I was down and out and in desperate need of a pick-me-up, and there’s no better place for that than in the village. In the village, you say? Yes, in the village.

Whyson, my co-worker, says that when outsiders see images of village life or drive through in roaring white land-cruisers, they say, “Oh, these people are suffering.” Yes, one cannot deny that there is a fair bit of suffering in rural Zambia. But what visitors fail to see, Whyson says, “is that these people are living.”There are a lot of lessons to be learned in the village, many of which fall into those “habits of mind” the author described in the Times article. Waking when the sun rose, sweeping the ground, harvesting the maize crop, milking the cows (and making tea with it 5 minutes later), watering the garden, bicycling to see the relatives, greeting everyone we passed, heating water for a bath, and sleeping when the sun set.

I worked very hard alongside my hosts, trying my best to keep up and realizing all along that not only have my muscles atrophied from under-use but so has my mind. The abundant world in which I was raised has actually limited my ability to conceive of what is possible, of what my body is capable of, of the elegance in simplicity...."

"Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will."

Read the rest...

.