Weekend Recap

[Apologies for the late post. Our electricity was out much of yesterday (Monday), and so I wrote my post offline and I'm posting it this morning. As a further apology, there will be two posts today, one of words and one of pictures.]

Shaggy hair really isn't the style here. Part of the problem is that most of the locals have nice hair that looks good either cropped close or grown out into a short afro. I was born with a different hair style, and when I don't cut my hair for a while, it falls into a shaggy mop. So yesterday at church, a few of the guys tried to make it look good. It's part of their "Make Ben cool" campaign that also includes encouraging me to untuck my shirts and put gel in my hair (similar campaigns have failed for years; I'm a nerd). They figure I'll need to look good to attract a Swazi wife (I don't know why they think this is my goal). It all involves a lot of laughing and good-natured fun.

My point in writing this isn't to convey my hopeless lack of fashion sense (although that would be a truth). My point is that people around the world don't view Americans as unconditionally fantastic. They're well aware that we don't burp rainbows and we put our pants on one leg at a time. There are definitely exceptions, but they're few and far between. So next time you wear a fanny pack on a mission trip, know that a few people are probably chuckling at you (I'm not saying that you should dress based on what others will think).

So I'm always a bit puzzled when Americans act like they're shepherding Africans. One guy I know bought a car and was told it was actually a few years newer than it really was. When he found out, he went back to the dealer and told him he was disappointed in him.

Now, the right thing to do probably wouldn't have been to chew the guy out. But it seems awfully patronizing to tell someone you're "disappointed" when something like that happens. I mean, the guy didn't cheat him because he wasn't sure what the right thing to do was. Had that been the case, it might have been appropriate to be disappointed that the man had chosen incorrectly.

So I encourage everyone, next time they think about Africans or developing nations in general, compare your reaction to how you would react if they were Americans. We probably need to improve our reactions on both fronts, but I think it's important to remember that one isn't superior to the other.

-Ben

"The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another."

-George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion