2005/05/27

Friday Night at the Movies in Namungoona

Decided to try out the dvd player on my laptop with the guys in the seminary tonight. So I went to see my friend Simon at Makerere University this morning, and he showed me some adequate video rental places, and picked up The Gods Must Be Crazy and Star Wars II for 50 cents each. After vespers, I sent Andrew and Mambo out for 25 bags of popcorn (5 cents apiece) and 25 cokes (50 cents apiece) from Nicolette across the street, and after dinner offered to play whichever movie they preferred.

Well, that was kind of interesting. The choice was clearly Gods for most of them. Most of these guys are farm kids who may even own some cows or goats, pigs or chickens of their own, "deep in the village". And because Gods opens with a bunch of stock footage of colorful African animals, they were instantly interested in that. A few people found Star Wars interesting (though personally I'd sure like to roast that idiot rabbit character over a slow fire!), but the rest seemed to find all the technology alienating and inconceivable. Yet at least they were able to identify the telescope in Gods when they saw it, after our little star party the other night. From some of the comments, I gathered that a lot of the kids weren't really clear that robots really don't exist. And they found Yoda and all those other feral-looking characters impossible to take seriously. Well, who has ever had any exposure to zen masters here? So, this movie must show what people are like in Buzungu, land of the Muzungu.

Another thing: they talked and joked with each other throughout the whole thing. I don't know whether any but a handful or fewer could understand enough english to follow the dialogue, so they didn't.

Amazing, the things we take for granted in the First World— the level of sophistication even of our small children. You can't assume any previous knowledge here.

posted by john at 15:04

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5 Comments:

Blogger rob said...

The irony, the irony. My earliest exposure to Africa came from PBS specials on wildebeest-killin' lions, and The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Did anyone get real serious, look right at you, and say, "I don't have to see this movie; I lived it."(quote from pee wee herman)

Sat May 28, 07:28:00 AM MDT  
Blogger john said...

No, actually the kind of life lived by the hunter-gatherers in Gods is quite different from anything people have direct familiarity with here. These guys are all subsistence farmers, with maybe a hectare of land and a couple of goats and a cow or something. One or two are from small towns, but not far from those rural roots; they all have many relatives "deep in the village". One seminarian in fact didn't show up for a couple of days for class. When he came back I asked him where he'd been, and he told me he'd gone home to sell his maize. Made 1.8 million shillings on it, too— that's about $850, enough to get by on for the better part of a year. First thing he did was buy himself a cellphone, of course.

One of these days I'm going to make a trip with all of the seminarians to the National Zoo at Ntebbe— most of them have never seen any of the local big wildlife that used to live here. (That's about the only place you can see it— I understand Idi Amin's army killed off what the British had left of it by the 1970's.) So even just as tourists, they're pretty far from the world of Gods. But I would say they're a lot closer to the hunter-gatherers of that movie than they are to the toy-wielders of Star Wars.

That's the biggest challenge, I face, actually. I can say all kinds of things, but no one even glimpses the implications of them, because their experience is so very narrow, and their exposure even to reading has been so limited!

Sat May 28, 03:40:00 PM MDT  
Blogger rob said...

I've been puzzling over this dilemma of yours ever since you remarked on your students' inability to graps even comic book philosophy.

I thought of an answer, though depending on how you look at it, its not very encouraging: the solution is generational. That is, it takes generations to build up a culture such that it can embrace, in its own culturally unique way, the insights and capacities of another culture. So you might have 2-4 students who "get it," and then the task is to invest most heavily in them, and support them throughout their lives, and watch as they move a few others, etc., etc. down through the years.

That, or get 'em while they're as young as possible (like, first grade is MUCH better than 5th), and structure their curriculum to prepare them for the TYPE (not content) of thought you wish to introduce later.

You've probably thought of all this b/f. I was relating it in my mind to some of the educational problems in the inner city. I remember hearing a lecuture by an educator talking about how there's no quick fix; it's the work of generations. Maybe keeping that in mind can help you overcome the immediate frustration, and perhaps it can also inform your strategy. I'll see if I can find that lecture in print and email it to you.

Sat May 28, 05:36:00 PM MDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why not try some less intellectual movies such as "The Lion King" or "Tarzan?"

Just curious if they might relate to those even though they don't understand what is being said.

Jyn

Mon Jul 18, 11:43:00 AM MDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also some older movies, such as "Clarence the Lion."

Sorry for the double post.

Jyn

Mon Jul 18, 11:45:00 AM MDT  

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