June 23, 2004
Africa and the Cybermaze
I was simply thrilled yesterday to receive a comment from Herman van Bon, creator of Soekershof , the South African maze , in response to my entry on mazes . Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, talks alot about the Law of Attraction . A blog is a little laboratory to experiment with that concept. (For example, look at the crowd that has gathered around Atrios ). Herman was alerted by email from one of his fans who had also read my entry, not by googling himself, a small tribute to the aMAZing connections that are made possible by the internet. Herman and his partners describe themselves as "weird, but passionate" - I am most gratified to be attracting those who describe themselves as "weird but passionate". I hope that means I'm wandering somewhere near that territory.
Actually, Africa has been popping into my consciousness quite alot recently, white people in Africa, that is. There is Soekershof. I am currently listening to Alexandra Fuller's excellent memoir "Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight" about her childhood during the Rhodesian , ( now Zimbabwe ) civil war and my dear friend has just arrived home from four months in Uganda , where she has been working in a program that feeds AIDS orphans.
She is starting a mini FINCA in the Ugandan village where she worked. FINCA is a project that lends money to women to start small businesses in third world countries. The loans are small and there are interesting rules. Five women, each of whom is starting a business iindividually, must work together to support one another, until each of their operations has paid off their loans, thus establishing an automatic old girls' network. It has been noted that, as women become successful, they have more influence in their communities, wife and child abuse diminish, intrastructures are built, and improvements made in living conditions. When loans were given to men, they were found to spend their capital on weapons, alcohol and drugs. Loans were never repaid. FINCA doesn't do that anymore. Although I cannot find the information anywhere on their website, I remember reading that with the loan repayment, comes educational material aimed at empowering women, like birth control information, and the negative consequences of dowries for women. The FINCA experience makes one wonder about our official distribution of foreign aid to third world countries.
Photo note: In my ignorance, I have probably mistaken this this beautiful beaded headdress for African, and it's probably Peruvian. Give me a good enough photo, and I'll use it shamelessly. The headdress was shot on exotic location, at the flea market on the lower east side of Manhattan. It was particularly cute sitting atop a utility box. I couldn't capture the entire thing, and control for beauty, as riff raff kept passing by in aesthetically inadequate costume. We are missing a bird at the top of the hat as well. You will just have to use your imagination, which is a very good thing to do when staring at a screen .
Posted by Dakota at June 23, 2004 06:35 AM