Malawi Adventure

Shire River, Majete

“Getting There”

Half the fun of an overland trip in Africa is getting there. On our recent two week adventure to Malawi we spent about as much time driving to and from Malawi as in the country and our experiences along the way are part of the adventure. While entering and exciting countries while flying might be an inconvenience (passport control, customs, etc.), doing it over land in a vehicle in Africa can best be described as…chaotic. When approaching a border your vehicle is immediately inundated with what we like to call “stickies” (due to their adherence and "stick to it" nature) – the crush of humanity that approaches your vehicle like flies on dead meat offering to “help” you through the process. There’s currency to exchange, SIM cards and airtime (for cell phones) to buy, forms to fill out, offices to navigate, etc. If I wasn’t feeling physically assaulted, I might find it interesting to study, as a sociologist. How do they decide who gets “assigned” to you?

There’s an abundance of people who want your US dollars for Mozambican Meticals or Malawian Kwacha. Any one of the “helpers” could charge you three times as much to get you insurance that would cost you a third of the price if you could find your way to the insurance office on your own. Unfortunately,  the people officially in charge aren’t much help as there is little signage telling you where to go first for what (passport stamping, visa getting, temporary import permits and insurance for the vehicle) or how to avoid being ripped off by “the stickies.” It’s as if they silently condone the efforts of their country mates to make a living. It’s a dog eat dog world out there at the border crossings.

We’ve done this a few times so I’m getting smart (Paul likes to call it “scrappy” as I haggle with “stickies” over exchange rates). First, check the exchange rate online before you leave. A guy at the Malawi border offers to sell me Kwacha for 300 to 1 to the US dollar – I know it should be 400 so don’t take his offer (imagine the mathematical gymnastics that go into converting that exchange rate!!). When one of the “helpers” offers to fill out the forms for us (which he will expect to be compensated for in return when it’s time for us to leave), we refuse. When another sprints off to get our needed vehicle insurance, we don’t buy it from him and learn later his “offer to help” is 3 times higher than what we can buy it for on our own. We know something is up when we refuse to buy it and he immediately cuts his asking price in half.

A trip that spans four countries (Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi) requires a dozen entries and exits. It can be exhausting, especially when the rules change and new visas with photos are needed at the Mozambican border which takes more than an hour and a half to get processed (this is evidenced by my “mug shot” the first time through where I look like a pissed off, strung out drug user, ex-con, ax-murderer – it is a REALLY bad picture and I make every effort to smile on the one needed for the way back through and end up looking only slightly psychotic). While we “could” get visas in advance, that would mean a ten hour drive (in the wrong direction) to go to the capital of Botswana to get them processed. We’re probably better off dealing with it at the border, despite the added chaos.

Road Work, Zimbabwe

Once successfully through the borders, we travel in country observing landscapes and livelihoods as we go. Road works, traffic accidents, and street protests occasionally block our way and slow our progress. Products are sold in belts or waves as we put distance between us and home – coal, firewood, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, woven baskets and mats, bird cages, large woven structures that might be chicken houses (?), and small creatures on a stick that we came to describe as “mice kabobs” (we think we saw tails!). Fortunately both of us have a high tolerance for long hours of driving/riding (some days as much as ten hours). By 5 PM each day I start to ask, “Where are we sleeping tonight?”  

Coal sack transporters

Grass carriers on the road

“Hard Work Doesn’t Always Mean Success”

There is much said in the United States about “work ethic” and we are socialized to believe that hard work will result in success. But having driven over 2,900 miles through Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi over the last two weeks, it makes me wonder about this line of goods we’ve been sold. Don’t get me wrong, I think hard work matters but I don’t think I’d say that its presence is any guarantee of success or absence any guarantee of failure. While on the road we witnessed people working far harder than I ever have in my life and what will their payoff be? If they are lucky…survival. Especially in Malawi, a relatively small country with a fairly large population (slightly smaller than Pennsylvania with a population of 17 million; Botswana is the size of Texas with only 2 million! The birthrate in Malawi is 5.66 children born/woman!!), roads serve not only as thoroughfares for vehicle traffic but as highways of human survival.

Here the roadsides are populated with people working hard just to survive. On their bikes or their heads they carry large sacks of coal for heat and cooking, bundles of grass for thatching their roofs, lumber to build their houses or sell to make a meager profit. On our trip back down from Zomba Plateau, on slippery muddy roads that made me nervous in our 4x4 vehicle, we met one man, George, who made an indelible impression on us. As we round the corner he has stopped to wait for his friend to reposition the boards he has balanced on his shoulder. He stands with his bike, both tires flat, weighted down with long boards of “waste lumber.” The top of the plateau is occupied by pine forests that logging companies cut down at certain times of the year. The “waste” they can’t use is left behind for people like George to buy for 200 Kwacha (about 50 cents). He explains to us that if he purchases the boards and carries them down to the village below, he can sell them for an 800 Kwacha profit (about $2 USD). It will take him all day to do it. He wakes up before dawn cracks to make the ascent. Finds a couple of suitable discarded boards at the top of the mountain and spends the rest of the day carefully making his way down the twisty turning wet muddy mountain roads. It looks physically arduous. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

 

Log transport on Zomba Plateau

Transporting lumber off Zomba Plateau

Making "working capital"

The remarkable thing is that George’s enthusiasm is overwhelming. He explains that he is working for four months in order to raise “working capital” because he is an artist. He then asks to give us his website for his work (http://artpapertechnology.weebly.com/) and then proceeds to explain his work (right down to stating “mission” and “background” and rattling off what we assume is a verbatim description of what’s on the web page). He explains how he would like to stop deforestation by using waste papers to make art. We give him our cards and when he sees I am a professor, he literally claps his hands together with excitement bringing an embarrassed smile to my face.

After meeting him, he keeps returning to our thoughts. We should have given him some money. We should have loaded him and his lumber on our vehicle and taken him down the hill. We didn’t think quickly enough, we were overwhelmed by his determination. As was the case with George and an unknown number of other people we saw everyday out our vehicle window, we were humbled by their hard work. We talked a lot about our cultural espousal of a “hard work ethic” and how it is sometimes used to explain why some people are poor and others aren’t (i.e. if you just worked harder you could succeed). While we admired George’s hard work to accumulate “working capital” so he could get back to his art, we feared he was navigating a very heavily load down a very steep hill that would probably lead to survival but may not lead to “success”.

View from Zomba Plateau

“Pleasant surprises along the way”

Throughout our travels we encounter pleasant surprises along the way. One example is buying fresh berries at the top of Zomba Plateau. We purchase strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries from sellers as we climb our way to the top of the mountain. When traveling, fresh produce is the first thing to go, so this find is a pleasant surprise midway into our trip. Similarly, on our return trip through Mozambique we find ourselves with some extra Metical and I keep my eyes peeled for a bakery. As a former Portuguese colony they make the best Prego rolls and our purchase keeps us in a bread wonderland for days. At the gate to Liwonde National Park we buy homemade peanut butter and baobab jam (baobab trees bear large fuzzy pod shaped fruit filled with sweet tart like Styrofoam textured chunks – which make a great jam, by the way). While refilling at a fuel station in Kariba, Zimbabwe two zebras walk by the vehicle as Paul washes the windscreen after they graze on the lawn outside the station. Only in Africa!

Berries from the top of Zomba Plateau

Paul washing windscreen as zebras walk by

We also have the opportunity to snorkel with the cichlids in Lake Malawi on a kayak trip from Cape Maclear. Cichlids are small multicolored fish in blues, purples, and yellows and the experience is like swimming in an aquarium. The amazing array makes the “death paddle” from the mainland to the island worth it (OK…so it wasn’t really a “death paddle” but I did have a bit of a panic trying to get Paul to steer our two-man kayak into the side swiping rolling waves I was convinced were going to capsize us thus creating an impossible in water return to the safety of the kayak. Obviously, I’m here to tell the story, so we didn’t die, but I did have to do the bulk of the paddling on the way back as Paul’s back (which he broke when he was 28 years old in a Tanzanian bus accident) didn’t really like the rolling action of the wind inspired waves. I proudly referred to this as my “water rescue” for the rest of the trip and I (partially) redeemed myself for the hissy fit I had on the way out ;o)

All along our way we see new and interesting trees (giant candelabras, an abundance of baobabs, totally cool strangler vines, some unidentifiably strange “ball" tree), birds and wildlife (including many Nyala, which we don't have in Botswana). Waterbuck and warthogs are in abundance in both Majete and Liwonde. We see more (HUGE) crocodiles and hippos on the Shire River than I’ve seen anywhere else in Africa (we’ve been reading about David Livingstone’s Zambezi Exposition and all those killers on the river make his efforts even more impressive). The elephants, only fairly recently reintroduced at Majete after being poached to extinction, are a little twitchy (acting tough as they pass behind our vehicle with ears flared) but eventually settling down as we sit with them for some time. We enjoy watching them peel the bark off of branches like getting corn off the cob – something we’ve not seen before. Each night we enjoy the ever present African sunset, that just can’t be beat!

Giant Candelabra

Strangler vines in Liwonde

Strangler vines at Liwonde

Unidentified "ball" tree

Water buck at Majete

Hippos in the Shire River, Majete

Croc on the Shire River, Majete

Elephants eating bark in Majete

Cheeky ellies outside the back window, Majete

Nyala at Majete

Sunset from atop a mountain in Majete

Sunset, Liwonde

Sunset Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi

Sunset Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi

Campsite and "Richard Parker", Majete

“Night Visitors: All things great and small”

Our evenings involve setting up camp, cooking dinner on our two gas canisters (we are canister cookers not campfire cookers, more ecofriendly), and sundowners, of course (the African tradition of drinks at sunset). At times we have night visitors, or creatures that come into camp at night. Our first night at Majete WildlifeReserve, for example, I hear the iconic sawing sound of a leopard (it is a bizarre but instantly recognizable sound which best approximates sawing wood – strange but true).  On our second night at Liwonde National Park, between the cheering and gasping of the staff over the final game of the World Cup, we hear the crunching of a herd of elephants making their way through camp.  For this, I wake up Paul, as they are mighty close and we watch them in the light of the full moon sneak through camp, gently navigating through tents, careful not to step on anything. Their shadows, cast on a reed wall by the security light, make them appear as if they are burglars tiptoeing their way through camp. Shortly after we lose sight of them we hear a loud “CRUNCH!” and in the morning learn that they failed to navigate the narrow passage way by the pool and inadvertently destroy part of the reed wall around the pool. Oops!

In Kariba, all night we hear the large flapping wings of fruit bats. We have inadvertently positioned our tent under a giant fig tree and they eat, and poop, all night long. Our tent looks like it’s gotten caught in a brown rain storm. That’s not going to be fun to clean!

Cape Maclear "campsite" at Ecolodge

We are also visited at night by tiny creatures which, ironically, end up causing us more of headache than the larger ones. At our “campsite” at Cape Maclear (I put that in quotes because we are basically camping on the lawn of the Ecolodge which is not really a campsite – but that’s another long story for another time…), at 4 AM, we are invaded by ants. Sadly our luxurious lawn location is right on top of a hidden ant hill and it takes them until the middle of the night to find their way through the Velcro sealing off the small vent at the lower side of our tent (it allows the air out of the tent as you are folding it up and while it is “closed” they manage to get in). Paul announces that he is being bitten by something and when we turn on our headlamps we find our bedroll is loaded with tiny ants and they are pouring in through the air vent (they haven’t made it to my flesh yet… there are some advantages to flipping around so much in bed at night that you get rolled up in the sheets like a burrito! Paul calls it my “crocodile roll”). In any case, we quickly get up,take the entire bedroll outside the tent, vigorously shaking out all of the blankets and sheets, sweeping up the survivors in the tent and then spraying the inside and outside of the tent with DEET. That seems to do the trick!

“It’s Gone Better”

For the final leg of our return trip we decide to take the Kariba Ferry down Lake Kariba as an alternative to driving the whole way. Paul has always wanted to make this trip and it’s our wedding anniversary so we decide to splurge and take the ferry (it takes 22 hours overnight and includes meals and “accomodation”). We’re not sure of departure times so we stop at the Zimbabwean Tourism Office in Harare and ask. We’re assured that it leaves every day at 8 AM but when she tries to call the office in Kariba, no one answers. She mentions there are other ferries, if for some reason that doesn’t work. So we say, “why not”, withdraw the needed cash for the trip (ATMs are few and far between so we need to get the money in the big city) and hit the road (several hours out of our way North). By the time we arrive that evening the gates are locked but the night watchmen assures us the ferry leaves in the morning and shows us the boat (not quite as glamorous as we had hoped (“accommodations” = cushions on the floor in a common room) but we’ve driven all this way, so we’ll make the best of it). He gives us the owner’s cell number but when we try to call, first, we can’t get a signal on the satellite phone because there are so many trees at the campsite we’re in and then, with the assistance of the campsite manager who offers to use his cell phone, no one answers. We’ll plan to be at the dock at 7 AM (an early morning after a long day of driving) and hope for the best. Sadly, as we’re finishing dinner the camp manager comes over with the ferry owner on his cell who informs us that the ferry only goes once per week and not until Monday (it is now Thursday night). Tragic!

Kariba Dam, Zimbabwe

The next morning we find the Kariba Tourism Office and confirm that there are no other options. On the way, we see a sign that reads, “It’s gone better” as the slogan for a company (who came up with this marketing tool??). We repeatedly use it to describe our Kariba debacle.

Dust love notes on the dashboard

We spend the next full day and half geographically recovering from this misinformation from the tourism office in Harare on a road best described as “unfriendly” by the Tourism Office in Kariba. It is so dusty, everything we own, is covered in red dust including us (Paul looks like a red head with his white hair coated in red dust, I am best described as "strawberry blond"). We can only laugh and try to see this as a metaphor for life or marriage (the dusty travel day is our anniversary). Things may not always go as planned, and sometimes the road can be rough (and dusty), but in the end, you’ve got to laugh and enjoy the adventure! We spend all day waving at small kids along the road who probably have never seen two white people covered in dust in a striped safari vehicle (I call it “Richard Parker” after the tiger in “Life of Pi”) barrel through their small village. We are quite the spectacle! People come running.

In the end we both agree that our favorite campsite was the unofficial one we found at the top of a mountain outside Chizarira National Park in Zimbabwe on our anniversary night. While it wasn’t on the ferry traveling down Lake Kariba as we had planned, it was quiet, without a person in sight or hearing distance, and under a blanket of stars and a stunning view of the Milky Way. 

Anniversary Night Bush Camp

“Returning Home”

Our last night of camping is spent in Botswana. We are pleasantly reminded of how lucky we are here when we see an abundance of animals on our drive back into the country grazing on the side of the road (impala, kudu, and warthogs) and bigger elephants at the watering hole at our campground than we’ve seen during our travels out of the country. At night we are serenaded by the call of male lions all around camp. The parks in Malawi have few, if any, predators (they are often close to villages which means they get killed by locals if they stray too far). A park without predators feels like a meal without pepper (assuming you’re a pepper lover, something is just “missing”). Malawi is a beautiful country with a stunning diversity in landscape – rivers, mountains, plateaus, lakes; definitely worth the miles, dust and border chaos to visit.

Sabe Star

 

Water buck on the Shire River, Liwonde

Me - Lake Malawi Sunset

Paul and his GoPro

What Really Matters - November 7, 2013

Last fall I was asked to do a presentation on campus for the L.D. Johnson, "What Really Matters" lecture series. You'll see below that this was not the first time I was asked but this time I decided to accept the invitation and give the talk. Below is a transcript of the talk. While friends had recorded it (so Paul could watch it since we wasn't in Greenville when it happened) and I had hoped to upload the video somewhere for those interested in seeing it (as opposed to reading it), we couldn't find a way to do that (the talk was an hour long). Anyway, for those of you interested, the text is below. If you're a regular reader of the Muddy Hyena, you might recognize some of the stories. I hope you enjoy!

I was first asked to do this talk back in 1996. When asked…I panicked! I was in my third year of teaching at Furman and there was no way, at that point in my career, that I could stand up in front of my colleagues, friends, and students and tackle the incredibly challenging question of “What Really Matters?” I turned down the offer. So when Vaughn asked me again last May…I panicked…but ultimately decided I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to tackle this difficult question again. I, like speakers before me, would like to acknowledge the wisdom of L.D. Johnson for inspiring this lecture series that has been in place since 1982 and I would also like to thank all of you in the audience for coming out tonight to hear my talk.

As many of you know, I currently live my life on two continents. When I’m not here teaching at Furman, I live in Botswana with my husband Paul (during our summer break and over the Christmas holiday). In fact, over the last several years, when I’ve been directing Furman’s Southern Africa Study Away program, I’ve actually spent less time in the Unites States (about five months of the year) than I have on the African continent. In light of this, I’ve decided to honor the African tradition of storytelling and as such have organized my presentation into several sections that begin with a title and a story and then offer some explanation of how these relate to what really matters to me.

1.  Find your way – The Southern Cross

Paul and his telescope

The Southern Cross is an iconic constellation of the Southern hemisphere. Four stars in the shape of a “cross” or kite along with two additional stars for its tale or pointers make up this well-known constellation. This first story is about the Southern Cross.

She stands tall, authoritative yet unassuming. She is gentle in her manner, always curious, never threatening. Her feet are firmly anchored over the Southern pole as she travels among the stars. She appears just when the Sun of the day has slipped away. She’s with us all night, rotating ever so slightly until practically standing on her head. Travelers of the Southern hemisphere use her to find true South. Four stars make up her kite shaped head and two her long neck. An imaginary line from the back of her head to the tip of her nose intersects with one that runs perpendicular to the middle of her long neck dropping unabashedly to the earth at precisely true South. No matter what time of the night or angle of her head and neck, it never fails.

The bushmen of the Kalahari say that she was placed there as a reward for her selfless good deed. During the time when man and animals talked, the Sun behaved in such erratic and unpredictable ways. He would rise sometimes in the East, other times in the West. He would set North or South with a force from a gust wind. There was no pattern. No plan. He would stay up at times for minutes and others for days. The uncertainty of it caused great chaos. All living things were bewildered. That is, until, Giraffe offered to stand up and show Sun the way.

She pointed to her height as the key to the dilemma. With confidence she claimed that she would guide Sun to rise in the East and set in the West. Tall, helpful, with the patience of a guiding parent, she invited Sun to join her in her journey across the sky. She reached with her long neck to show Sun the way. Smooth. Well-paced. Predictable. The world rejoiced. All living things benefited from her diligence. Day after day until Sun understood.

With the routine in place, Sun rising and setting daily with utter certainty, Giraffe’s job was finished. And for her efforts she was placed in the sky to guide others who might need help finding their way. She was quite pleased.

         

My husband is an avid astronomy buff and I have heard many stories of the Southern skies over my seven years of traveling back and forth to Africa. He draws on his experiences with the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari to incorporate their stories about the stars into astronomy shows he offers clients traveling to Africa on safari. I use this story of the Southern Cross, a constellation visible only in the Southern hemisphere that people use for navigation purposes, to talk about the importance of finding your way: to discovering your calling, passion or vocation.

I was the first person in my family to complete a college degree. I had no idea what I was doing when I chose to go to St. Michael’s College outside of Burlington, Vermont. My parents and I had visited colleges and went on tours but I think ultimately the reason I chose St. Mike’s was because I had a nice weekend visit there during the fall of my Senior year in high school.

          Fortunately for me it was a transformative decision that introduced me to life on a liberal arts campus. I had always enjoyed school (or at least since my fourth grade teacher told me I was smart and I stopped crying and started studying) but I loved college! I thrived in immersion Spanish courses, was challenged by philosophy courses on the history of intellectual thought, blossomed on my winter break month-long trip to study migrant workers from Northern Africa in Paris, embraced the wisdom of the Sociological imagination and grew in ways I never thought possible during my summer in Venezuela working in underprivileged neighborhoods of Caracas with the sister parish of my small Catholic college in Vermont. I met people who challenged my world view and changed my life forever. With the guidance of an invaluable mentor, I decided I would pursue a career in academia at a liberal arts college. So off to graduate school I went and my five years at Yale only confirmed my initial desire to teach at a small liberal arts college.

2.  Don’t be afraid to make a mid-course correction – Elephant Chase

Elephant and vehicle (just to give you a sense of the size)

On Saturday morning we head up to Zwezwe Pan in northern Botswana in Savute National Park to find some elephants. We’ve seen impala, giraffe, warthogs, wildebeest, an amazing array of birds (lilac breasted rollers, horn bills, bee-eaters, tawny eagles) but no elephants, so we go looking. We come across a herd and my excitement turns to panic within seconds as the large matriarch of the breeding herd takes one look at us, shakes her head in an aggressive way sending her large ears flapping, trumpets to signal her attack and starts running full out, right for us. I should note that this was my first experience driving in the bush.

Paul says, “Put it in reverse and go, go, go”. After one false shift into low gear, I quickly correct and put it into reverse and I am driving as fast as I can backwards down a two tracked dirt spoor. All I can hear is the trumpeting and Paul’s continuing “go, go, go, go” so I punch it and keep navigating backwards through the bush hoping not to run into a tree or stump or get stuck in the sand. The incident seemed to last a long time until Paul final signals it is OK to stop at which point I realize my heart is racing and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t even get to see her charging us since I was looking in the other direction, attempting to see where I was going behind us. Paul reports that she came to within about three feet of the front left bumper…trunk tucked, ears back, head down with full intention of ramming us. Later that night, when I asked him how scary the incident was on the “scary meter” (a scale of 1-10 with 10 meaning terrifying!) he said it was hard to say, as he was already making a plan of what to do when she hit us and flipped the vehicle, as he was sure she was going to do that. He claims that’s about as close as you can get to actually being hit without being hit! He put it at about an 8 ½. That’s pretty scary!! The good news is I didn’t panic and I’m apparently a pretty good driver when going backwards in the bush being chased by an elephant.

I would imagine that, in some ways, I am very similar to many of you in the audience.  I’m a hard worker, at times a perfectionist and, once I figured out I was pretty good at school (if I studied and spent lots of time preparing for things), I had a plan. I would finish my graduate degree (as quickly as possible), go on the market, find a job, work as hard as I could to get tenure and promotion and live happily ever after. And for the most part that worked pretty well, until I got there and realized that might not be all there is to being happy.

Graduate school had the unfortunate consequence of narrowing my focus, and my life, to almost exclusively school. While as an undergraduate I played two musical instruments (clarinet since fourth grade and the alto sax which I took up in college to play in the jazz band), fluently spoke Spanish and enjoyed traveling to new and interesting places, graduate school crushed me into a fragment of myself and when I wasn’t taking classes, studying for comprehensive exams or working on my dissertation I was teaching classes at a variety of universities in the New Haven area and catering in order to survive financially.

While in graduate school I met my first husband who, many of you know, taught at Furman for a number of years until we divorced. This was a sad and difficult period of my life. Even more focused and dedicated than me, my first husband was very driven and as a consequence, we both bled Furman purple for years and while I think the university and our students benefitted from this dedication, our marriage and personal lives did not. When we were both promoted and earned tenure I thought, “Now we can have a life. Now we can breathe and enjoy this,” but I realized our visions for what that meant were quite different.  Much like the elephant charge, that turned a routine day in the bush into a quick mid-course correction and, in that case, a backward retreat, I realized I had to do something to “save myself.” I had to be willing to make a mid-course correction.

This was probably the most difficult decision I’ve ever made and it felt like the ultimate failure. For someone who likes to “do things right” it was especially difficult to leave what looked like, from the outside, a “perfect relationship” where two academic Sociologists had found work at the same university, but it had to be done.

Around the same time in my life, I feel fortunate to have participated in one of the Lilly sponsored “Theological Exploration of Vocation” workshops which helped me put some deep thought into what really mattered to me and how I wanted to rethink my life after this mid-course correction. As such, in addition to making major changes in my personal life I also decided that I was going to make major changes in my career.

Early in the seminar, we discussed the work of Parker Palmer and read his book Let Your Life Speak.  Palmer, quoting Friedrich Buechner, describes one’s calling as that place where “one’s great joy meets the world’s great need.”  This notion of matching individual desire, motivation and skill with society’s need truly resonated with me.  The notion became particularly salient when I was completing one of the seminar’s writing exercises, which involved drafting our own obituaries.  While it might sound a bit morbid, this very challenging exercise caused me to reflect on actions I had engaged in or tasks I had completed over the course of my life (projecting also into my yet unlived future) that I would most want to be remembered for.  In reflecting on my life and career, I realized that the moments when I was most excited about my work were when I was conducting research and using my knowledge and skills to effect a positive change in the community.

I decided I was going to do research that, while it may not lead to publication, it might have an impact in the real world. I started “practicing sociology as a vocation.” While I had done some “applied sociological research” in the past, which means using sociological research methodologies to advocate for real world changes (e.g. needs assessment for the hospital system examining the needs of the growing Hispanic population), from that point on I decided to use my sociological skills to work with local organizations to do evaluation research asking difficult questions about whether their programs worked or not. Did they accomplish what they set out to do?

For the next several years I did lots of work with local agencies in the Greenville Community including the United Way, Greenville Free Medical Clinic, the March of Dimes and a program called “Healthy Connections” which placed workers in low income schools to try to get eligible students signed up for Medicaid. All of this involved using sociological research techniques (e.g. survey construction, interviewing, field research and observation) to assess the effectiveness of programs and make recommendations for improvements.

To this day, I continue to try to do research with this goal in mind. Most recently, I’ve been working with an organization in the village of Maun that we live in, in Botswana, called Women Against Rape to explore issues of defilement (sex with a minor) and to work to craft programs to reduce its incidence.

For me, then, practicing sociology as a vocation means using my expertise as a sociologist, as a medical sociologist, and as a researcher and statistician to better the community I live in.  By using my skills as a sociologist, I not only work to improve the lives of people in the community, but this mid-course correction in both my personal life and career allowed me to better focus on what really mattered to me.

3.  Do what’s right and have integrity, even in the face of adversity - Lion in camp

We had just finished dinner at a camp site in Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Fifteen clients from Spain were sitting around the fire chatting in Spanish when one of them, looking over my shoulder says, “Que es eso?” Meaning “what is that?” in Spanish. In the light of an almost full moon, I turn to see a large female lion walking around behind us, her sister following in short order as they circle around to where we are seated at the fire. Paul calmly says, everyone stand up and get closer to the fire. Without a second thought, I position myself between the lions and the clients. Somehow I recall a variety of Spanish commands, “be calm,” “come over here,” “be quiet,” “be careful,” etc. I’m not sure what it says about my personality that I remember the commands best?! But they do come in handy when a lion approaches your camp when you’re on a five-day trans-Kalahari safari with Spaniards. Who knew I’d ever need my Spanish for that scenario?

We all quietly draw closer to the fire and Paul instructs one of the other guides to start the vehicle so as to intimidate them out of camp. We had suspected they might be coming to visit when we saw them just at dusk as we were driving to our campsite. One male and two females strolled down the road in front of us settling in at the junction of two dirt tracks to make their long guttural moans marking this territory as clearly theirs. If only I had had the presence of mind to audio tape their call but I was so awestruck by the depth of the tones and the vibration of my own chest that all I could do was manage to involuntarily get the hair to stand up on the back of my neck.

Unfortunately, the younger of the two sisters is looking a bit “cheeky” – kind of like my mother’s old cat Delilah used to look right before she pounced out from underneath a chair to attack your leg as you walked by. My niece Becca described her as “cute but fresh,” and that’s one thing in an 8 pound house cat and quite another in a full grown female lion. Her tail flicking a bit, eyes staring right through you, head down, ears slightly back…she seemed to be sizing us up as a potential appetizer.

Paul instructs, “Slowly make your way to the vehicles. Nobody run. Just back away.” We move as fast as “slowly” will allow and pile into the vehicle. It seems like an eternity as we wait for Paul to join us and I’m thinking, “I should have driven this vehicle more often and learned how to use the satellite phone.” My brain going to “worst case scenario” if, heaven forbid, something were to happen to him. Fortunately, Paul joins us in short order and we are on the move to “push” the lions out of camp. While one vehicle has already gone out to do this, when they turned back towards camp the lions just followed them back. We decide we need to “drive” them off farther.

It is believed that animals see a vehicle as a large object (not a vessel carrying small objects that can be eaten) so the idea is that we will “intimidate them” by approaching them and flashing our high beams at them. The male lion seems uninterested and makes his way off down the road not even looking back. The younger of the two sisters, the cheeky one that came within three feet of the circle of chairs around the fire, is undeterred. She strays off into the grass hiding behind a bush until her more responsible older sister waits for her in the road, spots her, then crouched down like a house cat and springs on her. She grudgingly gets back on the dirt track and starts walking. When we’ve hit a stalemate and they won’t go any further, we turn back.

Fortunately, they don’t return to camp and when the sun comes up in the morning we all have an amazing story to tell our friends that they will find unbelievable. Not many people can say they had three full grown lions come into camp in the Kalahari! 

I never would have guessed, in a crisis moment like this, I would have placed myself strategically between clients and an oncoming threat. But, without thinking, I did. I feel this story parallels my efforts in my day-to-day life, to do the right thing and have integrity, even in the face of adversity.

If asked, I hope my students would say that I am tough but fair. In all the courses I teach, whether it is on campus in an Introduction to Sociology course or traveling around Southern Africa directing a study away program, I try to hold my students to high academic standards. I do this, despite the fact that my life would be easier if I required less of them. I do this because I think it’s the right thing to do. By challenging my students I feel they get more out of their education than if I simply let them coast by, if I lowered my standards.

Prioritizing integrity also means, at times, I rock the boat. If I see an issue that I feel strongly about that needs to be addressed, I step into the fray, sometimes in the face of adversity and challenge it. If I cared less about my work, about Furman, about my department, about my students’ education, I would find it easier to be less passionate. But I care a lot and it matters to me that I maintain integrity and do what’s right when it comes to teaching and being a responsible department member and university citizen.

In terms of teaching, one of my priorities is showing how the sociological imagination can cause a change in perspective for the people that embrace it. Sociology, for those of you who don’t know, examines the social causes and consequences of human behavior. We want to know why people do what they do but we move beyond individualistic explanations for human behavior and explore the importance of context (time, place, situation, and status) to explain the choices they may make. In doing this, all Sociologists may face resistance to viewing the world this way, especially in light of our very individualistic American way of seeing things. Culturally, it is a challenge for us to see beyond our own individual efforts. We have been raised in a climate that sings the praises of a cultural narrative where we are the captains of our own destiny, where our success or failure is based solely on our own efforts. But the story is often much more complicated than that. And while I certainly don’t want to deny the role personal responsibility and effort play, as C. Wright Mills explained, our lives are an “intersection of history and our own personal biography.”

In my own story, for example, while my efforts in undergraduate and graduate school certainly contributed to what successes I may have achieved, they would not have been possible if I had been born in Botswana or if the arrival of Staples office supply store in the next town over from my hometown had put my father’s small family run office supply store out of business ten years earlier. If not for a unique set of circumstances, the path of my life could have been very different (despite my best efforts). 

 

4.  Enjoy what comes - Mangos, tomatoes and giant mushrooms

Me and Giant Mushroom on trip to Tanzania

My husband and I love to travel. Both of us can drive for days and days without fatigue or boredom, simply absorbing the scenery and landscape. We’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to make several “overland” trips in the last few years. This involves packing everything you might need into a Toyota Land Cruiser – tent, bedroll, gas canisters for cooking, fuel, water, cooking equipment, food, toiletries, toilet tent, bucket shower, sun screen, bug spray, malaria treatment…you name it, we’ve got it. We’ve been to Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique; we’ve traveled extensively over much of Southern and into East Africa. Beyond a general direction that we plan to head in and some sense of the date we need to be back, we head off without much additional planning. On trips like these I set my wrist watch alarm for 5 PM because that’s usually about the time when I start to worry that we need to find a place to sleep for the night. My husband never worries. He is famous for “making a plan”, which is an African phrase used to explain one’s ability to adapt to whatever situation may arise.

One of my favorite things about this type of travel is the diversity of landscape, people and products that you encounter. For example, on one three week long trip from Botswana to Tanzania and back we drove through “belts” of “bands” of different produce. First, we encountered mangos, miles and miles of people selling mangos stacked in tiny pyramids on handmade rickety tables on the side of the road. Next, we moved on to tomatoes, shifting to teetering stacks of lush red tomatoes for sale. Finally, as we wiz down the road small children run to the side of the road carrying mushrooms the size of large pizzas, hosting them up as we approach to try to entice us to buy from them. We stop along the way and hunt and gather from what’s available. On that trip to Tanzania on New Year’s Eve, we cook up one of these giant mushrooms with garlic and butter and feed an entire restaurant of guests!

          People sometimes ask me what I miss most about the States when I’m in Africa, or about Africa when I’m in the States, and I respond by explaining that I really try to enjoy what comes where I am when I’m there. Like these long overland trips, if you worried about getting tomatoes when you are in the mango zone you might miss the amazing thing right in front of you. While my life on two continents has its drawbacks, it certainly has afforded me a unique perspective on both worlds.  The ability to step outside the familiar helps you see things differently when you return. No longer do I find myself as caught up in the micro-politics of things. Having one foot in each world creates a certain perspective that I find very valuable.

          It has also helped me to see how little I actually need to be happy. Our American cultural focus on consumerism and materialism seems quite misplaced when living in another world where people struggle to meet their basic needs. The role of the media in shaping these needs becomes quite transparent when returning to the States from a place where I’ve persisted for months quite happily without anything they are trying to sell me. And while I still struggle with the heat of a Botswana summer during the Christmas holidays and long for a cold white New England Christmas, there is something to be said for swinging in a hammock between acacia trees watching a zebra migration through the Mkgadikgadi pans on Christmas morning. Ultimately a cherished lesson I’ve learned about what really matters from my life on two continents is to enjoy what comes. 

5.  Do something that matters - Ducking Rescue

 It was a sunny spring day in May in Greenville, South Carolina. I decided to bring my husband Paul and his son, Nikolaj, and daughter-in-law, Trine, visiting from Copenhagen down to the Reedy River to see the town. Walking across the pedestrian suspension bridge we stopped to look at the waterfall of the Reedy that used to power the textile mills that sustained Greenville for decades. Now, the area has turned into a local attraction for tourists and locals alike to come and enjoy the views.

As we’re standing on the bridge looking down at the waterfall Paul notices one, two, three tiny little ducklings at the base of the falls struggling to make their way to safe ground. Initially we thought they might actually live up under the rock they were swimming to for safety but then, when the third one got washed further down and tried to go back up the waterfall, we realized they might not be there on purpose.

Just then a woman approached us and pointed out the mother and six struggling ducklings at the top of the falls. They were being pulled down closer to the top of the falls by the current and then swimming with all their might to safety for a moment of reprieve only to be washed down again to repeat the cycle over and over. She mentioned that this had been going on for well over an hour. Oh no…something must be done!

I get on my cell phone and dial 411 to ask for the animal control but sadly when I call I’m informed that they close at 5:30 pm (it’s now after 6 pm) and I’m instructed to call the State Department of Natural Resources for “after hours wildlife concerns.” Back to 411 but unfortunately when I get the number, no one answers. It just rings and rings. Now I’m desperate. I dial 911 and blurt out, “this is not a human emergency but a duck emergency…there are ducklings being washed over the top of the Reedy River Falls.” To which the 911 operate gasps, “Oh no!” I explain to her who I’ve already tried to call and she struggles to think of another option.

She mentions that she could send some officers but they would be no help and then remembers a volunteer organization for wildlife rescue and rehab. She gives me that number. I dial it and encounter the most bizarre automated phone system that I’ve ever heard. “Please listen carefully to this message as it will direct you to the volunteer who can help you with your particular wild life emergency. If you’ve found an opossum dial 27. If you have a bird emergency, dial 40. If it has a sharp beak, dial 42. For a rounded beak, 47.” OK, those aren’t the real numbers but you get the idea. I finally get to the duck lady and explain the situation and she says she’ll be there in 20 minutes…with nets.

I rush back to the others and explain what has transpired. Paul says, “They’ll never make it that long. They are getting fatigued. Let’s go Nikolaj. We have to do something.” This is just one of the many reasons I love this man. I don’t think I know anyone else who would jump into the Reedy River to save distressed ducklings.

We cross the bridge, jump over the wall leading to the grassy area near the river and wade in. The next thing I know, Paul is at the ducklings. The mom is squawking like mad and Paul is catching ducklings as they scatter to get away from him. He’s downstream from them so as they lose the battle against the current he scoops them up and puts them into a green plastic shopping bag that Nikolaj had. He fills it with the ducklings he’s snatched. Nikolaj is behind him catching those he misses and Trine has scaled the 25 foot rock face to get down to the bottom of the falls in order to get to the ones that have already gone over. I’m standing on the banks…dumbfounded. I’ve re-arranged the contents of my purse for duckling carrying (Paul always laughs at my fascination with bags…I like to think of them as “gear” and this one is perfect for duck rescues as it is lined with some sort of waterproof lining).

Next, I see Paul about mid-stream chasing a stray that is making its way towards the middle of the river. At one point, he slips and falls at the very top of the falls and I think…oh my god, after all he’s been through in his life, he’s going to die in the Reedy River. Feet up, green bag held high so as not to squish the ducklings, and bam! He slams onto his rear end and elbow into the rocks to break his fall. Undeterred he drags himself up with the stray duckling safely in the bag and makes his way to the other bank.

I rush back across the pedestrian bridge. A stranger helps me get Paul’s attention by whistling and we make the transfer from the green shopping bag to my purse so he can go to the lower level of the falls and see if he can find any others. In the meantime, Trine has managed to rescue one from the bottom of the falls and scale back up the rock face using one hand. Nikolaj is up to his neck in the Reedy River trying to go to the location at the bottom of the falls we originally saw them and Paul is headed back out to help.

By this time, the wild life rescue and rehab people have arrived with a box and two nets. I dump the contents of my purse into the box. 1,2,3,4,5 and a 6^th one that doesn’t belong with the others (it’s a different species!). The lower falls retrieval produces 3 more. A total of 7 from the original group with the mom and two of the second species are saved. We load the siblings into the box and head back up to the top of the river. I made sure to take a close look at the mom so I’d be able to return them to her if we caught them. I see her across the river on the other bank. She is squawking at the top of her little duck lungs, I’m sure she is in complete dismay about what has just happened. Her ducklings are peeping like crazy. I’m sure trying to find their mom.

I crouch near the bank of the river, tilt the box in the direction of the river, hoping to angle the sound across the expanse. She is going “squawk, squawk, squawk”…they are going “peep, peep, peep.” This goes on for what seems like an eternity. We are so close to a reunion but yet so far. Finally… she hears them. I see her head turn and she dives in the water and starts to paddle. “Squawk, Squawk, Squawk!” In unison they desperately reply, “Peep, peep, peep.” She paddles like mad. When she gets close to the bank and makes her way up the side, I slowly dump the contents of my box, her family, onto the bank and they waddle their way over to her.  Success! I almost cry. OK, maybe I cry a little.

The whole time, as the events are unfolding, we’ve been watched and assisted by a variety of onlookers. Some are pointing out where ducklings are from the bridge. Others are peaking in my purse to see the tiny ducklings all hovered together. One group of teenagers has been here from the beginning. They were actually there before we arrived and saw the first few go over the falls. They’re the type of teens you might turn your nose up at if you saw them walking down the street. Their bangs are a bit too long and eye-liner a bit too thick. They look like trouble or at least like non-contributing members of society that you hope will someday “grow out” of this phase that they’re currently in. As I retreat from the scene of the duck family reunion one of them says to me a bit choked up, “Man, we were watching it all happen but we didn’t do anything. We just watched. We need more people in the world like you.” Perhaps we did more than just save some ducklings that day.

         

My final story and remarks this evening center on doing something that matters. It recognizes that sometimes it is the experiences you have that matter most. I love my work. From the beginning of my career at Furman I have been doing what the University has come to call “Engaged Learning,” that is connecting academic materials to real world experiences. In the early days of my career, a colleague in the Philosophy department, Doug MacDonald and I developed what we call “The Medicine Program.” This unique program combines my Medical Sociology course with Medical Ethics and real world observations in the Greenville Health System. This is an exciting and invigorating way to teach. When observing with my students in the hospital, I am learning right alongside them. While we never know what interesting cases we will see, we always see interesting cases. From brain surgery to babies being born, we get an insider’s view of health care delivery with all its successes and challenges. It is my hope that this program may make future doctors better doctors, more aware of the role social factors have in shaping health outcomes (e.g. social class, race/ethnicity and insurance coverage). I hope that it will make all of my students better patients or caregivers for patients; roles all of us will likely face at some point in our lives. By better understanding the social causes and consequences of health and illness, we are all better able to see the impact of our culture and the unequal distribution of resources on individual health outcomes.

          Similarly, directing study away programs to Southern Africa, and participating in programs in Cuba, provides me with an opportunity to engage with the real world and open up my students’ perspective on global issues. Building off a long tradition at Furman of study away programs in developing countries that try to move beyond a touristy understanding of the areas we are traveling to, I work to create opportunities for students to be “close to the ground”  in order to have authentic experiences in these areas. And while I could certainly explain to students, from within the four walls of a Furman classroom, how cultural factors affect the spread of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa or caution them about the downsides of offering aid to developing countries infused with Western values that make this aid less effective, it means so much more to bring them there and create opportunities for them to engage with locals.

By staying in the homes of locals made of mud and dung without running water or electricity during their rural homestay, playing with children who have lost their parents due to the AIDS epidemic at an AIDS orphanage, or carrying water from a central tap to shacks in an informal settlement, students see and experience these things firsthand. While reading about struggling health care systems in developing countries and activist nongovernmental organizations is one thing, touring a state run facility in Northern Namibia and talking with workers at local NGOs creates a far more powerful impact.

          Since 2009 I have poured myself into directing high quality study away programs to Southern Africa. The preparation for such trips often begins well over a year in advance, and when the trip happens I am with the students 24 hours/day, 7 days/week for the nine weeks that we travel together. And at times, not always, but occasionally, I see a student’s worldview transform, like mine did that summer so long ago that I spent in Venezuela, and that makes all that effort worth it.

People sometimes ask me why I didn’t have children and this is a difficult question to answer. I was never one of those people who thought they would have children, but there are ways in which perhaps one of the most important things about parenting is shaping the next generation. I hope that, through my teaching and directing of study away programs, I play a small but meaningful role in the shaping of other people’s children (students on these trips sometimes call me “Mama K” so I guess in some ways I have 20 children at a time for a period of time).

One of the most important things I hope comes from students’ study away experiences is a better understanding of their place in the world and what it means to be a good global citizen. It is the recognition of how all of us here, at a place like Furman, have won the “womb lottery.” Simply by the accident of our birth we have had privileges many in the rest of the world will never know. We live and study on this beautiful campus. We are afforded the privilege of the “life of the mind” for at least a period of time. Most of us do not need to worry about where we will sleep tonight or if we have enough money to feed ourselves or our families. In my opinion, with this privilege comes great responsibility. It is our job to work to make the world a better more humane place. In order for this to happen, people must first understand the world outside of themselves. This is what I hope my study away programs, and all of my classes, help students to see. This, in my opinion, is the first step to bettering the world. You have to understand in order to want to change. In that way, I hope the work I do when directing study away and teaching students at Furman constitutes doing something that matters.

The other lesson of this duck rescue story involves sharing your life with people you love because, in the end, that is an essential part of what really matters.  I have been fortunate enough to find a partner with an adventurous spirit, inquisitive mind and warm heart. And like most academics, I am far away from my hometown and family, but I feel especially fortunate to have created a community of friends here who have become my family.

In conclusion, as I was preparing for this talk and going over it with my husband Paul, who unfortunately is not able to be here tonight because he is back in Botswana, he pointed out that the talk was “so like me” – internally contradictory and challenging. On the one hand, I started by suggesting one must, “find your path” and in the next breath say, “don’t be afraid to make a mid-course correction.”  He reminded me of the two very strong and, at times, contradictory sides of my personality which perhaps helps explain how living this life on two continents seems to suit me so well. On the one hand, I embrace order in my life at Furman (some may say too much with spread sheets, to do lists and five year plans). On the other, I love the chaos and spontaneity of living in Africa. On trips in the bush, as you can tell from some of these stories, you literally never know what you’ll encounter next.

So perhaps some of what brings me a sense of peace with the structure of my current life is that it honors both of the sides of my personality. It does not attempt to conform to societal standards that say, “You should do this or that” but rather allows me the freedom to find a different way that best suites me. In the end, allowing one self the freedom to find one’s own way to contribute to a meaningful life (even if that choice may raise some eyebrows) may be what really matters.

In sum, I believe it is important to find your way (like the Southern Cross guides its viewers to true South), but not be afraid to make a mid-course correction (like we did when retreating away from a charging elephant in the bush). From my perspective, having integrity and doing what’s right even in the face of adversity (like positioning myself between the oncoming lions in camp and the clients around the campfire), enjoying what comes (like we do when traveling and enjoying mangos, tomatoes and giant mushrooms), and doing something meaningful (like rescuing some ducklings from the Reedy River Falls) is what really what matters to me.