NGO

While interning I was at the amazing school of Battle Creek Lakeview High School, I am sorry Western thinks you should teach only in the inner city, you will not be able to intern there. When I was there one of the teachers had a program that had all the history classes collect money for numerous causes like nets for kids in Africa, buying people animals, things of that nature. It was great because each block could choose what exactly they wanted to raise money for. Some did nets, some bought a pig, it worked really well. That is neither here nor there. I guess it shows that this is a way to really get your students thinking about helping global issues.

While I was in Florida, I ran across a Newsweek article that peaked my interest, in the same lines as my time at Lakeview did. There is a group of people who are trying to make it possible for all children to own, or at least have access, to a laptop. I know this isn't as noble as feeding them or malaria nets, but it starts helping developing country's from the ground up. The process of change isn't one block at a time, it is many working together.

Ok, so these like guys run on solar power, can withstand heat and humidity. They even thought of little things that would prove difficult for users, like making sure the screen won't glare in the sun. Just because they are giving them to third world countries doesn't mean they can't have nice things! The software is great too, the computers are so children can learn how to use them, how many of us learned computers from a class? No, we sat down and played around with it. The Computers will have useful software as it's educational device, like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. In my eyes, those are the big three when it comes to being needed in the world.

What I really love about this was that you can give a laptop and get a laptop. It costs $399. Think of it this way, there are always fund raisers for charity, well this charity gives back to your school. They aren't great laptops, but it has word processing which is really the key, especially if you are working in a poor American school. It is a fund raiser most people should get behind since it not only helps out others but they can help out their students in the process. Though, $400 is a lot of money.
You don't have to get a laptop in return, for half the price you can simply give them. I know the makers want to give them to all developing countries but right now they are focusing on Africa.

The fact that these men have made a computer for under $200 is an amazing feat, it almost didn't happen. They had some problems with the getting the prices of processors down, but somehow they found someone who could make them cheap enough to make it worth while. Sadly, it was probably made possible because of some sort of horror in mining happening in Africa.

"You think you tough now? Come to Africa."

I did my library exploration on child soldiers so I got most of my ranting and done when I sent that e-mail out. I guess, to take the least looked at route I could talk a little bit on how ingenious it is of the leaders. Most people, adults and teenagers, never want to go to war. It isn't like the old days where war was given a glamorous look and everyone thought they could improve or prove themselves through it. Ever since the 60's and Vietnam when images were splayed over the news every night of the horrors of war it has lost the romantic appeal. But not when you are a child, you still view it as full of heroes. Wars are where the heroes and the movie stars come from so why not be a part of it. Think back to your history lessons, who is talked about more, people who were around during wars or peacetime figures?

So you are a leader or potential leader of a nation so you can exploit for money, the adults won't fight for you because they know you will be just as corrupt as the last guy. You go out and get kids to do it. Their psyche is easily broken, they are young so will still feel dependent on an adult figure for guidance and necessities, plus the next year there will be more of them growing up, perfect, child soldiers it is!

Genius for the leaders to show the child soldiers action movies too. Ishmael Beah wrote that they saw Rambo so often that one time while raiding a village one of his friends acted like Rambo, he put a big knife in his teeth and snuck into the village trying to silently eliminate guards. It might sound sick and twisted but for a child to reenact a movie (especially one who has been brainwashed and possibly given drugs) it would pretty sweet. It is like you are your favorite character, a more extreme version of what happened this summer for the Sex in the City movie when girls flocked to NYC, bought cosmos and traipsed around Manhattan.

I always find it interesting that the child soldiers have power fetishes. This isn't anything that is new, Native American's did the ghost dance that they thought would make bullets go through them. At points though, it seems like charms of this nature, thinking you can be invincible, would be disproved. I cannot fully say that because they are younger children, or on drugs, or overtaken by the horrors of war that they convince themselves of these charms powers. More often than not groups that are underdogs look to fetishes to pump themselves up against the odds.

Johnny Mad Dog

Those child soldiers came up with some creative war names! Giap, Ibi Amin, I had to look up some of these people who I forgot about, and they are coming up with these names through their blood and drug hazed minds! Here is a fun activity, try and think of a really bad ass name that wouldn't sound stupid to use in war, I'll wait.......harder than you think isn't it.

I really respect how the novel was written, in the aspect that the story bounced from one character to the next. I liked even more that sometimes they met up, even though toward the end I thought it a little too coincidental that they were always crossing paths, as if the Roaring Tigers were the only relevant militia force in the city. And the ending was a little too "tied with a bow" for me, it didn't fit with the rest of the book.
Sidebar: I wonder if city sectors are really called Sarajevo, Kandahar and so on, at first I thought they were the cool war nicknames given by the militiamen to different parts of the city.
Ok, back. What I liked even more was the amount of detail each character gave to sections of the novel. For instance, when both our character are on the road and Laokole almost gets hit by Mad Dog in his vehicle, they both had different views on the situation. At one point Mad Dog acted that if the people would get out of their way and stop running then they wouldn't have to kill them, possibly a cooping mechanism for the atrocities that they enact. Another scene that they described differently was at the Aid station midway through the novel. Each person thought that different parts of the story was more important than the other. Mad Dog focused on the event, the woman, his feelings; Laokole focused on not knowing what was happening, her fear and the cheering of the crowd when the soldiers left. Laokole also missed that troops positioned themselves in position to take out the militia...or Mad Dog made it up to make himself seem like a capable leader, we really don't know.

Something cool Emmanuel Dongala touched on slightly that I feel is often left out in talks about child soldiers, or perhaps my mind is just simply too male oriented, but Lovelita being a child soldier and female was great. There are female child soldiers, one even has a book out there I need to order and read, but when pictures are taken of child soldiers it is generally of boys carrying weapons and outfitted ridiculously. I feel the media gives a bias when it comes to child soldiers, but at the end of the day, girls, as well as boys, can kill people.

The ceremony with the new president giving hand picked children food reminded me of a part of Blood Diamonds when I listened tot he book on cd. There are now ceremonies where child soldiers are disarmed and to hear it described it is a big farce used to give them positive media attention. For the disarming children are picked at random and told they are going to stop being soldiers, they are usually separated from their unit long before the ceremony to make sure nothing rash happens. During the ceremony the child soldiers are stripped of their military things, almost like a discharge. It is suppose to be happy to see but the Africans watching know it is staged and the children are normally confused and distraught that they are losing their rank and power, so it is only for the foreign media.

Environmental Issue

I chose to look at the Mountain Gorilla's not because I care about the environment or particularly endangered species. When this course first started I saw a headline about the Mountain Gorilla's being in danger since rebels had taken over their reserve in the DRC. First of all, I thought the DRC was at peace at the moment so that was a shocker to me, I thought the rebellions there had subsided for a while. Second, I couldn't truly understand what the rebels controlling the gorilla sanctuary had to do with their survival. Why would rebels want to go out and kill animals, people sure I can understand that but to slaughter animals has nothing to do with controlling land.

The most important thing about the Mountain Gorilla, in my mind, is that it is located only in Uganda, Rwanda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Well, it comes around to two things, Mountain Gorillas are endangered so that opens a market for their pelts by collectors. What is more likely is that the gorillas are sold as meat, commonly known as bushmeat.

Bushmeat is any animal hunted in the wild and killed to eat their meat. Sounds suitable, there are starving people in Africa so why not allow them to hunt animals so they won't starve. However, killing animals, like gorillas, can have negative effects aside from the depopulation of endangered species. There could be links between gorilla meat and spreading of the Ebola virus, since the virus is also an epidemic among primates. Also, there are hypothesis that this is a possible way that HIV has spread. The butchering of gorilla's leads to prolonged exposure and it is possible that this contact, through skin or mucous membrane, could lead to contracting HIV.

More over, the Western world is not helping the bushmeat situation. Being prized as a delicacy bushmeat si smuggled into places and put on restaurant menus. Many species of animals, not just the Mountain Gorilla, are put in danger with this large trade, that for the most part goes unchecked. More than 150 rangers have been killed in the eastern DRC area over the past 10 years. That number is astounding, I'm not sure the last time a DNR ranger was killed on the job or if it is even reported if they do!

I have this video done by the BBC on bush meat, but being the BBC they won't allow me to embed it, so you must click the link.

I need to read more novels with Muslim's in it

It seems fairly clear to me that the wadden represent, say desert resources, and the Bedouin the way of life that did not disrupt what nature had in place. The two visitors, especially Masoud seem hell bent on tracking down a wadden and killing, or if you prefer, the end a little piece of the old way, the way that did not totally change and rape the environment. Masoud appetite is so insatiable I cannot help but think he represents the new modern world, because every time we read more the modern world is doing something else harmful to the old way of living and usually in turn to the environment as a cost of modernization. A cost many do not think twice about putting on credit to be paid later.

Kat has inspired me to do some research for this blog. Masoud, the name of one of the men who come to the Wadi is Arabic, which first interests me because he is with a man named Cain Adam, I assume him to be European of decent. In Arabic, Masoud means fortunate, prosperous or happy. The character in the book does not seem to be any of that, he is pushy, rude and hungry for meat. Or, one could say, Masoud is prosperous which has lead him on all these hunts and is only happy when he has eaten his fill of meat; taken something from the land that cannot be replaced, because naturally death is permanent.
As for the name Cain Adam, I had to do religious research, my least favorite kind of research, ever...ever. In all three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Cain is a descendant of Adam, I am assuming hence the last name Adam. In the Koran and Torah, Cain kills his brother Abel because of Allah/God's rejection of his offering. I leave it at that, since this is already way over my head.



With the mention of the Bedouin I cannot help but think back to this summer when I was watching Lawrence of Arabia, near the beginning of the movie Lawrence's guide is shot by another Arab because he was from the wrong tribe or something of that nature. I thought I remember the term Bedouin being thrown around at one point. It almost makes me want to sit through the three hours of movie again to connect the words with the book.

It is fair to say that Waiting for an Angel looks at protests, or at least the story centers itself around two different protests. In class we have been reading and hearing quite a bit about the oil that Nigeria has and that the government steals a large portion of the profits. We also know that the people do not take this lying down, in the National Geographic article we even saw that there are militia's who organize and mobilize against the various oil firms. I cannot say for certain, without much more research (which maybe Kat will do again), but I think, in the case of militia's, this would be an extreme. The vast majority of people do not go from angry to violent revolt overnight, think the American Civil rights movement.

Much like our guest speaker Dr. Ogbomo told us, the majority of press about Nigeria was slanted toward the negative. There are more pieces written about the militants and their leader who was accused of treason. This really works for the companies that are in Africa. The world sees the Nigerian protesters as all militants and feels sorry that the companies are not able to conduct their capitalist business. Rarely do we see the public masses cheer for a group labeled "militants" or "terrorists" who "disrupt" production. Word with negative connotations, I am sure Ashley being better at journalism and words than me could explain that better.

There is a interesting correlation between the Nigerian police and the oil companies. Just like what we see in Waiting for an Angel, the police force uses just that, force, when it comes to protesters. What we have are protesters, not armed, simply holding a rally in protest of the drilling in Nigeria. Instead of letting the protest happen the oil company calls in the military who in turn kills five people. This isn't any ordinary military though, Mobile oil has their own police force that works in conjunction with the national police. The Mobile police are called "kill'em and go", I think the title is self explanatory. The companies, trough bribes I am sure, is allowed to have it's own police force and can conduct themselves in any way they please. Why not kill protesters? If you can get away with killing them, it sends a strong message that rallies and not to be held!