| | Mark Watson touches a crocodile during his trip to Africa. (Photo submitted) | |
Some life experiences are not meant to fade away in a photograph album, forever forgotten. Rather, they are meant to become the makings of a future goal, a part of a person’s life journey. A reason for living. A journey to Africa this past month, presented through an intercultural studies course at Messiah College, in Grantham, Pa., may fall into that category for Richfield Springs Central School 2004 graduate Mark Watson. “It’s not the beautiful scenery or exotic animals,” explained Watson. “That isn’t why I want to go back. It’s the people and the culture that makes you want to go back.” For 19 days, Watson and 16 of his classmates traveled Africa, with the main part of their journey in Zambia. “Its the stereotypical village you see on television,” he said, describing how there is little technology and how, “people still live in grass huts. The women still walk five miles to carry water back to their villages.” Only 30 percent of the population live in the more advanced part of the city, the other 70 percent lives in these types of villages, he explained. “Ten miles outside a modernized city you see villages filled with these brick and grass huts.” As many as 10 family members live in one of these huts, he explained. As part of his intercultural studies class, Watson journeyed, expecting to learn, and he did. The life lessons he took home far exceeded anything found in a textbook. In a land filled with poverty, hunger, illness and death – the average person won’t live to see 40 – Watson noticed two things the majority of people possessed there that is often hard to find back home in the states. Happiness and appreciation. “It was shocking how happy people are there, regardless of the lack of luxuries and basic necessities,” Watson said. “I perceived them to be more happier than many people I’ve ever met.” Much empathy and sympathy was felt by Watson and his friends for the people they met, he said, due to their quality of life, but it was easy to see that “they had what a lot of people search their whole life for, happiness.” That happiness comes despite the harsh reality of dealing with AIDS, which is a major part of life there. Orphanages are filled with abandoned babies infected with the disease. “Infants are just dropped on the side of the road, abandoned because of HIV or some sort of deformity. Since 1993, 500 children have passed through the orphanage (for that area). Only three have been adopted.” An ad campaign promoting virginity and encouraging young women to abstain is displayed on billboards regularly in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. “There is a rumor that if you have sex with a virgin it will cure AIDS, so men are having sex with girls as young as 3 years old,” Watson said. “No one likes to talk about it, so a lot of people won’t be tested.” The culture shock became evident one afternoon after switching locations from the village homes they were staying in to what Watson described as the nicest home in the area. Upon arriving, Watson said he and his peers could do little but laugh, unable to verbalize what they had experienced. They went from taking bucket showers and sleeping in huts filled with spiders and ants, to enjoying queen sized beds draped with mosquito netting and eating specially prepared (Americanized) meals. During their stay outside the village, rather than eat with their hands, as is the custom among villagers, they ate an Americanized meal of chicken and roasted potatoes, even though potatoes are not a customary food in Africa. In addition to a dish called “enshima” one of the most unusual food experiences they had was actually, voluntarily, eating fried caterpillars. “It’s hard to find a taste comparable to caterpillar,” Watson said. “We were able to eat four each,” he said with a shake of his head, laughing. “It wasn’t horrendous, but I’ll never eat it again.” Despite living conditions, the threat of disease and cultural differences, Watson is determined to return. “If anything, you can learn to be appreciative of things here in America, things you normally take for granted,” he said. “The attitudes of people and how happy they are is a statement or representation that happiness is not determined by material things. It’s not brought about by material items, but by community and relatives. Life there centers more on family and relationships. Maybe this is the reason why they appear more joyful,” he said. Flipping through a photograph album filled with snapshots of those African sunsets where the horizon is ablaze with vibrant hues of yellows, reds and oranges; of elephants and crocodiles and lions; of the foods they tasted, Watson kept returning to the pictures taken at the orphanage, where the biggest impact had obviously been made. There, along with a picture of a mural of a black Jesus surrounded by small black children that adorns one of the orphanage walls, were photographs of Watson and his friends, kneeling and sitting, playing and cuddling with the orphans. Rather tentative at first, the children soon warmed up to the young Americans, their dark small fingers and hands playing over the pale contrast of Watson’s hand. “We were the minority,” he explained, and possibly the first white person some of these kids had ever seen. “Can I change Zambia,” he asked. “That’s not a goal you should go in with. If I can make the difference for one person, that is reason to go back.” Then after a moment of reflection, he added, “They live a life of simplicity. Just being around that is part of what makes you want to go back.”
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