No internet has meant more reading, which is a good thing. I've been reading some essays in a book entitled Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, a book that I've had for over a year. I'd read some essays but not all of them.
One of the general themes is the growth in the emphasis on the individual in the modern era, especially "Lockean" individualism, with its stress on ownership.
What has this to do with a blog about living and learning in Tanzania? Everything. You see, Swahili has no verb "to have." That's right. You cannot say, for instance, "Tomorrow, I will have a chair." Instead you say, "I will be with a chair" -- Kesho nitakawa na kiti.
In some ways a challenge to some of the notions in late modern industrial society about what it means, how one is, human.
Look for a bevy of posts in the next days -- everyone is asleep right now, so I'm able to get a bit of an internet fix tonight. I have been writing posts, as mentioned earlier; I'll see about getting them up on this site in the coming days, day. (That word kesho above -- tomorrow -- is the favorite answer to questions like "when will the fundi --repair person [actually a billion occupations are covered by the term] fix the computer Internet connection?")
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