The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

This young lass to the left is Tsehai, a giraffe who is the focal point of the Amharic-language program Tsehai Loves Learning. We have a DVD--it has English subtitles--of which I try to watch a little each day with the Queen Bee. She really likes the songs, but overall, I'd say I'm more into the program than she is. I'm a little fascinated, I guess, to see the differences and similarities between the children's educational programming in the States and in Ethiopia. One thing I really like about Tsehai Loves Learning is that the lessons are really about how we treat other people, as opposed to colors, numbers or letters. For example, here are the titles of the episodes on the DVD we own (click here to watch short previews of each episode): Truthfulness, Patience, Caring, Kindness, Love. Perhaps it's stereotypical, but I wonder if the reason isn't because Africa tends to be more community oriented (i.e., more tribal) whereas the U.S. tends to be more individual?

In any event, I recently had a memorable interaction with a family member while the episode on Patience was playing on the television. Tsehai is hungry and her father uses this opportunity to teach her a lesson on patience. She sings a little song: "I am hungry. Smile and Wait. Smile and Wait." Eventually, when it's appropriate, she will be able to eat. Watching the show from my discourse-analysis-clashing-cultures perspective, I said something like: "I think that song is a really interesting way to talk about patience."

Family Member: "What do you mean?"

Me: "Well, I just don't know that hunger would be a teaching situation in the U.S. But, here is the little giraffe singing, 'Smile and wait'."

Family Member: "Yeah, there seems to be bit of a communist slant to it: just smile and wait and someone will get food for me."

Me: [hangs head in amazement]

That was an incredibly sad stretch of the imagination in order distort this episode on patience into communist propaganda!

This wasn't a big part of the program, but it was there. It wasn't a whole program about hunger, but hunger came up and it was a small part of the lesson. In the States, most of us just assume food is going to be there. If it's not, we have ways of getting it (legal or otherwise). I really don't think, as I attempt to insert myself into the Ethiopian matrix, that an unholy, lazy work ethic was the lesson, but rather sometimes there isn't food and during those times you have to be patient.

I knew that this communism trope had really reheated since the last presidential election and, particularly, the recent health care debates, but I really had no idea how pervasive this shortcut-to-thinking had become!