Where to Start?Do you ever feel like this? This happens to me a lot when I'm meant to clean a room, a table, a small animal. Where to start? So here's what I do: I choose a place to start; a wall, a side, a leg. Then I draw a line and start making my way from that point. Anything the line touches has to be taken care of. It's like a rugby game, you gotta just hold the line. It is also like war I suppose. Hold the line, don't get flanked, we don't need another Battle of the Bulge situation. OK, you've waited a long time for a post right? I'll level with you. You want to know how I really think about this? In my mind, I imagine a Baryon Sweep. OK! That's all you're getting. If you want to think less of me then google that! But seriously?, I recommend NOT googling it.
My POINT is when you are overwhelmed with so much to do, you just have to start somewhere and then work at it. Take into account priorities of course (Need to sleep sometime soon? Clear off the bed. Does part of your small animal stink more than others [you know where I'm talking about here]? Maybe start there), but in the end, you just gotta work at it dooni, dooni. Beats doing nothing right (assuming you would be happier getting the task done over just leaving it)?
What a mess I've gotten myself into, eh? NEVER, since the beginning of my blogging days, have I missed two consecutive months of blogging. Well, there it is. Here I am. I am what I've done. How do I ever start blogging again (oh, the shame!)? I just gotta start with something little and stupid. Let's get this Baryon Sweep going.
Good Cop, Bad CopOr
"Hold me back, I'm gonna punch him. Hold me. You're not holding me. Dude, I said hold me. Hold me back!"
There is an aspect of Malian culture that I have almost wholly failed at embracing and participating in. This is not because I disapprove, or have been unaware of it, but it is just such a foreign concept that even as I see it happening it is too hard to jump into action. When it happens I feel unable to leave my American-ness behind and participate in the little play that goes down.
Let me give you an example. This actually happened to me.
I am at a family's house. When I say house I mean courtyard (concession). There are two main indoor housing areas connected to the courtyard, one for each wife. I rarely go into the actual houses. In Mali (like many warmer-climate developing nations) most of life takes place outside. Women cook outside. People sit in chairs outside. Visitors are received outside. Few things actually happen inside (unless it is currently raining... hard).
One of the teenage daughters comes home. Her mother starts grumbling at her. This is a common occurrence at this home. I am talking to the other co-wife at the time, so I don't pay much attention to what she is mad about. I assume she came home late or didn't do a chore or something. The grumbling continues and escalates into yelling. I still don't really pay attention. This isn't really as awkward as it may be elsewhere in the world. They are coming in and out of the house and the daughter is sweeping the floor, then not sweeping, then yelling, then sweeping. Very soon you hear the daughter scream. Her mother is yelling at her and her daughter is yelping. Now I am disturbed but unsure as to what is going on. I look to the other co-wife for some guidance as to how I should react. She just sits there so I'm unsure what to do.
She reluctantly gets up and says "that's enough." Soon neighbors are showing up. An old man arrives and enters the house and tells them to stop, that's enough. The fight is over and the daughter is crying while the mother fumes. The co-wife I was talking to comes back to me and asks "why didn't you go defend the daughter?" or something to that effect.
As a member of the community within earshot, I was expected to intercede.
In fact, disciplinary action is based on this assumption.
Basically--from what I can tell--a parent or other disciplining party has no responsibility for controlling their anger. It is left up to others to intercede. In order for a mother to convince a child they are in real trouble, they let themselves lose control. But the mother relies on others to keep them from hurting their child more than they would ACTUALLY want to.
I guess this is more of an extreme case. I mean, there is a precedent in the States for intervening when there is abuse going on. But this method is used all the time in really, everyday cases. An adult breaks a branch to use as a switch and any adult around will block the child from being hit/spanked. If an adult is yelling at a child other adults will let it go for a minute then tell them it is enough.
Could you imagine though? You are at a friend's house and they start to discipline their child for not cleaning the room. After the point seems across you feel free to jump in. "OK Steve, that's enough. Let it go." Ok so maybe even that might happen. Um, you are angry and yelling at a family member and a neighbor comes over to get you to stop. Not because you are making noise but because they seem to be questioning how you are disciplining your child.
I seem to be doing a really terrible job of describing this huh? I'll try again later.
It works the other way too, though. Random adults can discipline other people's children. This one I like. Could you imagine in the states if you were at the grocery store and a stranger told your child to stop whining? If only.
