“Next time you are out on the plains and see a whistling thorn bush, get close to it and listen to its whistling sounds. When you hear a special tune, you will know that is me singing my song to you.”
Thus was the beautiful farewell greeting one of my students bid to his host family in Nyichoka village in the Serengeti region of Tanzania. There, the student had seen the Whistling Thorn Acacia and had heard the story about how it got its name. His stay among the kind-hearted Ikoma people inspired him to use the imagery of the sound-producing tree as a metaphor of continued friendship.
The Serengeti plains are dotted with the Whistling Thorn. This brush is full of long thorns, some of which grow out of bulbous swellings about an inch in diameter. These “balls” are home to small ants that pierce them with tiny holes. When it blows, wind presses through the pierced holes producing soft, flute-like sounds. Hence the name.
If you listen carefully, you will hear different sounds coming from the tree. This is because the tiny tunnels made by the ants vary in length, direction, and in width.
For a foreign visitor, staying in an African village can be challenging. The cultural shock gets to you. At first, things are new, fascinating and exotic, but continued exposure to them over a few days may turn some of those things into disgusting ones. It is likewise for the hosts. To receive foreigners into one’s home may be a terrifying experience; the guests are seemingly so particular about tastes, hygiene, everything.
Why should one react, - with fear, even - to something just because it is different? Cultural theory classes can explain that. Each of us; both foreigner and local host, have been thoroughly habituated within the socio-cultural contexts in which we have been socialized. We have appropriated what our environment takes to be good, normal, credible etc. ways of living and making sense of the world. So thoroughly, in fact, that we react with our whole being; sometimes to the point of becoming physically ill, when confronted with something that unsettles us.
There is nothing, however, like experiencing this in the classroom of real life. When you stare that strangeness in its face and realize you are “boxed in” and bounded by cultural categories. When you realize that you are addicted to culture – your culture. Your host is likewise dependent on his or her culture.
After a while, something very significant starts to happen. The realization that you are not drowning after all despite having been thrown into this sea of strangeness starts to work on you. The “if”-questions start to appear, such as; what if you had been born in this village. You start to think about the relativity of culture, of the historic coincidences in life, about all those things all that lie beyond choice. All of us make sense of life by using whatever is available to us from the contexts in which we have been socialized. It could have been you immersing yourself with passion, sincerity, and trust in that rainmaking dance in Nyichoka.
At this mellowed point you start to truly comprehend the inner dimensions of culture, which sets you on the path of transcending the socialized boundaries. You start reaching out to the human being on the other side. Your village host emerges more and more as someone you recognize only too well – yourself.
Like you, he/she depends on making sense of existence by construction cultural explanations. The specific explanations are contingent, depending on the specific circumstances and availabilities in which we find ourselves, but the need to find meaning in life, for love, for belonging, for feeling secure amidst all the uncertainties in this world; the list goes on and on, is the same.
The village stay is a good moment to reflect on the intercultural condition of the world. Some of the many conflicts are due to naïve misunderstandings between people who do not realize that they see things through their cultural filters. The more dramatic ones take place when one party insists on possessing the right and pure understanding and practice, and tries to impose it on the other. History is too full already of tragic and even dangerous situations when one party feels disgraced and overrun by the other.
In its own small way, the interaction with the villagers points to an alternative path for dealing with cultural differences: the best place to start is with the humble realization of the fact that your ways are as coincidental as theirs are. Nobody has any reason to brag about cultural superiority at the expense of the other. Instead, the realization that we are all the same trying to make the best of life within the means available to us has good potential for creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding. It opens up for curiosity and willingness to learn from each other.
When you get close to the Other you will undoubtedly notice the many “thorns and spines” of his his/her way of life. Many strange and uncomfortable things indeed. However, as you get even closer, you start hearing that soft music coming from the shrub. And then you realize that you have heard those sweet sounds before.
Asle Jossang, November 2014.