"Did I ever tell you about the two Masai girls?"
This was me, trying again to impart what wisdom I think might be useful to my adult son.
"No."
I said, "We were on safari, on the lip of the Great Rift Valley, looking down at a river far below. God it felt good to be on our feet, after days of being stuck in a Land Cruiser punctuated by nights in posh lodges. Oh how we had suffered, right? Just to walk, albeit with guards fore and aft with automatic weapons. There were things around that could eat us.
"Two Masai girls, barefoot but dressed in bright wraps, trundled through the thornscrub up the steep hill out of the river valley, sisters I was guessing. Each carried a spackle bucket full of river water. I'd guess they were ages 7 and 4, the younger weighed maybe 35 pounds. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. You do the math."
If you wonder what this has to do with the way Americans are responding to the coronavirus, the lion has something to say.
["...Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation. . ." - The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication. Eventually, Coronaeducation (© Donald Peter Freiday) will find its way to a platform other than The Freiday Bird Blog. For now, if it's birds and nature that are what you need, I'm with you, and so if that's the case, skip down a blog or more or check "Time Machine" to the right for some of that. With Coronaeducation, it is not my intent to play epidemiologist, scientist, or politician, except when my brand of training and teaching lends itself to that arena. Mainly, this pandemic has set me to wondering, about humans, family, friends, life, the future . . .]
No comments:
Post a Comment