This doesn’t relate directly to eco-topics, but Jennifer Margulis continues to publish excellent accounts of her family’s experiences in Niger. This is her latest from Sunday’s Washington Post.
Writing about the choice to raise her kids in a developing country, she says, “I am doing everything in my power to keep them from harm. But I know that limiting their world to sanitized America is not the right way to protect them.”
It’s worth noting that I first met Jennifer when I was a confused and sheltered undergraduate at UMass-Amherst. Hers was the lone voice that encouraged me to drop out of business school, bike solo through France, and go to West Africa. She’s also the reason that I now compost, live within walking distance of where I work, and never eat fast food. I sometimes despair that we live in a culture that celebrates mediocrity (one of the disadvantages of democracy, I guess), so it reassures me to see work like Jennifer’s in the mainstream media.
You can find it under the following topic(s): Eco Travel, Eco-Chick, Kids' Stuff.
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Not only is travel absolutely excellent for children’s minds, I have a pretty strong feeling that it is really good for building up kids’ immune systems. My parents travelled on extended stays to all sorts of places like Fiji, New Calendonia, and the Phillippenes, all before I was 3. I actually remember some of it, if you can believe it. It is so bizarre to me that Americans are so fearful of travel, but especially travel with children. Go for it! The benefits far outweigh the risks. My favorite passage:
“In Niger, my kids attend a French-speaking school; in 10 months they’ll speak the language fluently and most likely without the accent I’ve always had. They’ve glided in a pirogue down the Niger River and seen a hippo, its wide nostrils floating just above the surface of the murky water. They’ve bumped through the bush on lanky camels and eaten tuwo da mia (pounded millet balls with sauce). They’ve met gracious, hospitable and kind people, the people who cause the least environmental damage in the world, who recycle everything — even though there are no plastic buckets to leave out for garbage collectors.”
January 31st, 2007 at 8:21 amGreat post, Brianne! I assume Jennifer is Lynn Margulis (the world-famous scientist, and ex of Carl Sagan)’s daughter? The post makes it especially depressing that north-central Africa is suffering such a rapid desertification, threatening the way of life for such gracious, kind people. Should be yet another call to take a common sense approach to planning for the future, and hedging our bets against the climate change that threatens to upend so much.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:49 am