Zen and the Art of Animal Hunting

I'm pretty sure I've encountered the best stereotype: "Oh, you're from America, you spell "center" C-E-N-T-E-R and you say "water" "wah-ter".
Yes. Yes we do.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain Halloween to my family here. I'll just bring candy for the kids. Ah, America.

I still get a little upset when children stop and stare at me on the street of Shorobe. I had a brilliant conversation with Leah (North Carolina, Vassar College, demi-Jew, dancer) about the natural inability to ignore an instinctive reaction. I'm different from them. Very different. They've never seen a lekgoa. I know I"ve had less-than-rational thoughts of my own lately, i.e.
-One day I thought I had Malaria.
-Mokogi woke coughing the other night and I convinced myself he had TB and HIV and I was worried I might catch it from sleeping in the same room as him
-Spiders.

"Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven't got it there's no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there's absolutely no way in this whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. It's bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption."

I'm gonna do this ISP, no matter who says I can't. Just try and stop me.

Leah and I were also discussing what it's gonna be like to "settle down" in life. I know that life never ceases to be new, exciting, challenging (at least according to Waking Life). No matter how hard I tryu to deny it, one day I'm probably going to decide to get married, move to Long Island, and raise children. I can't imagine it now. I still have nightmares about Roslyn High School and don't have the attention span to marry anybody and I think children are too sticky and muddy for me. I think I'll play in the great sandboxes of the world (Kalahari, Serengeti, etc.) for now and figure out the rest another time.

I've been amused to discover how accurate the Lion King is in describing traditional African culture (ancestor worship, family loyalty) as well as intraspecific lion interactions (competition, effects of drought, etc.). Hakuna Matata.

I was told the other day that I'm beautiful because I'm white like Jesus Christ. I find it interesting that there's no Jesus-is-black/white debate here. Maybe they've never seen Avenue Q.

Monday we received a lecture on hunting. This lecture was given so defensively, it was clear that it has been given to animal rights activists before. Fortunately, I've already learned the reality of the hunting situation here. The lecture was at this place that handles all hunting trophies that come from Botswana. They measure the animals, to make sure the level of hunting is sustainable. (If the trophies keep getting smaller, it means there isn't enough time for the animal to grow, so it must be hunted less.)

One point that was repeatedly made is that one can personally dislike hunting, but doesn't have to hinder the hunting industry. Though it hurts a little to say, the hunting industry in Botswana seems to be a win-win for all. Animal populations are controlled or unaffected, except elephats, which will be explained later. The community that sells hunting rights on its land is given an alternate source of income so it doesn't need to unsustainably raise cattle. The Botswana government can easily regulate hunting with quotas. Americans/Europeans can prove their masculinity by shooting big things. The only things I didn't like about the hunting lecture were the kudu, buffalo, and gemsbok that were staring at me from the trophies on the wall.

As of today, Botswana has enacted a lion hunting ban, I think as a response to international pressures. Last time they did this, in 2000, the results were disastrous. When too many lions need food, they turn to cattle. Lions eat cows, people poison lions, everyone loses. Yay politics.

Elephants. The elephant population in the Kalahari cycles over time, like the climate and levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and is therefore a heated topic of debate. Though other places on the African continent are elephant-deficient, Botswana has too many elephants. They are destroying trees, ruining crops, and grazing/browsing at the expense of many other herbivorous species. It's also really cool to watch a herd of several hundred elephants.

Since, according to Americans, Africa is only a country, not 54 countries, elephants are just plain endangered. Therefore, elephant hunting and ivory importing is bad, very bad. U.S. animal rights groups constantly fight the use of hunting as a method of controlling elephant populations in the country of Africa, possibly at the expense of other species. Let's see who's laughing when elephants take over the world. (Planet of the Apes 2: Empire of Elephants)

Then we had a lecture about the San bushmen, the stereotypical lioncloth-wearing, clicking, hunting, gathering indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. I found the lecture very condescending, both to us and to the San. That seems to be the general attitude around here: "You know nothing about these people, I'm going to study them and convince them to preserve their culture for our own interest."

What I found most interesting was the video about San hunting. It's amazing. They are so adept at tracking wildlife and taking them down with spears and bows-and-arrows. If anyone deserves to hunt wildlife, it's them. It makes me realize how silly America is with the cattle farms that are all about quantity. I don't really need to eat meat, so I'm not gonna.