Even though this is early on in the story, it reached out to me because it made me think about the things we take for granted. To find something as boring to us as going to the grocery store so amazing, it defines the difference of our two cultures. We are used to the life where we can go to a beautifully lit store with thousands of items that never run out of stock and think nothing of it. While they, they find it extraordinary and enticing. This perfectly describes the modern consumerist culture vs. the culture that the Lost Boys grew up in. In the consumerist culture, we are used to endless factory farmed products and the giant availability of things. But when they are in awe of such a thing we find so boring, it makes me think that in their culture, people spend more time on their products. This probably makes them more valuable. An example of this in What is the What, is when Valentino is describing his early days in Marial Bai. He tells us about a dream day that he thought of before sleeping when he was on his journey to Ethiopia. The day begins with him leaning against his sister as she is grinding grain. He then goes to the compound of a girl he is in love with, Amath. Amath is winnowing shorghum. After Amath asks him for a bucket of water, Valentino runs to a washerwoman and asks to quickly borrow her bucket. These three women put an enormous amount of time and hours into something Americans in a consumerist country don't even think about. The two Lost Boys were probably amazed that not only was a product so beautiful, but there were many copies of it. It probably takes ages to make a beautiful thing in the Sudan, while in America, millions of them are created in five minutes. This is also because the United States is a wealthier country than Sudan, so Sudanese are probably not used to so many products that are all a variety of colors and styles. An example of this is when there is a bicycle that a shopkeeper traded for in Marial Bai.Valentino, and his friends William K and moses are in awe of the commercial beauty. This shows that Sudan is not a consumerist country, and poorer because a fairly average object to us is priceless to them. They also did not know what to do with the plastic, so they are not used to consumerist packaging. Below is a picture of a shopping center in Khartoum that I found from a tourist website. Then is a picture of the interior of a Safeway.
The difference in cultures portrayed by just these two pictures is amazing. Most of the products in the Khartoum shopping center picture is handmade and very beautiful, but also very unlike the products in the second photo. If you are used to one and then see the other, you would probably find something that others would find silly to be in awe of, like a tampon box, extremely beautiful
Another cultural clash that goes along with the huge markets that we have in the US is the fact that many Sudanese people eat one meal a day. This might have changed recently, but I have my doubts. I know that I eat enough food a day to feed around seven people in other countries; I wanted to know which. While people in the US, for example, eat way more than the healthy number of calories per day, people in places like Ethiopia, Zambia, Haiti eat way less than they should. The families in starving countries also happen to spend the most of their income on food, compared to other places. This is just another fact to make both 1st and 3rd world people sad- but both because of the waste of food over here.
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Hey Erin! I totally agree with your post on culture clash. That segment of the book was small yet completely eye opening. I try my hardest not to waste food, and sometimes telling myself I should finish all of what is left on my plate. In the past, I didn't realize the simple solution; take less food. Myself and I believe many other Americans do not realize the immense size of the portions of food we eat. It is not only that we can eat whenever we want, but when we do, the amount of the food is exponentially larger than most possibly all the food Achak will eat in a whole day. I recall in the book Achak and the other boys going days without food and only digging up, picking, and eating what they could find. This brings me to my next point, in America we have such a variety and surplus of foods. In Sudan, Achak can only eat what is growing in the earth in front of him. But here, at least in Marin, I find myself eating cherries in December and according to cues.org (a food website) cherries thrive and are in season only from April to July. Not only cherries but thousand of other modified or shipped products are right at our finger tips, for us to enjoy all year round. When sadly, some don't even get a meal. "More than 18 million people across West Africa are in the grip of a growing hunger crisis. Crop shortages, rising food prices and insecurity have left more than 1 million children facing starvation" (savethechildren.org) Even if the teens of Drake high become more aware of the starvation in other parts of the world and address America's over eating habits, we can slowly make a difference. It will be hard to entirely reverse the overly consumerist culture in America, especially when thousands are to blinded by their plates of food to even notice the issue of world starvation.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Izzy. You're so right, there are a lot of things we take for granted. I'm sitting on my bed as I write this, and that made me wonder what people in Sudan sleep on. The hard truth and answer is usually the floor. Homes in Sudan, as Achak has described, are rural and constructed with the resources people can find there. As we've seen with the pictures of the grocery stores, resources aren't plentiful. They build homes from cloth and branches, and sometimes cardboard if they can find it. Most of them look like our idea of a treehouse; built from the earth. I advise you look them up on the internet, as they will give you a better idea of how much we have! We live in extreme luxury, where Achak lived in extreme poverty and destructive times. According to the Guardian (online newspaper) the problems in Sudan don't stop merely at living conditions. Right here right now the Sudanese are trying to build their country practically from scratch so they can be stable and help their people. An organization called Save the Children is putting a tremendous effort into this, so maybe Sudan can move forward.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was an excellent comparison. Showing the black and white between a 1st world country and poverty ridden country. I think the tampons was a great example just to show how something so small could be so much to a person in need. I have thought about this and when I went to the grocery store I started to notice all sorts of photos on packaging (sometimes it has nothing to do with the product). I understand how something so obsolete could be so appreciated by someone in need. This got me think about how much those boys must have endured to find value in a picture on a box of tampons. It opened my eyes to what must be like to live like that, and out of all the bad things there is something you gain. That thing is appreciation, its something a lot of us need but don't have. So even though the sudanese children don't have most great things we have, they learn to like what they've got and when they get new thing they love them, where as we wouldn't even care enough to give a second glance. There is a very valuable lesson to be learned here.
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