Something about the traditional dances performed at the Youth Day celebrations in Big Bekondo was awfully reminiscent of music videos. While I recognize that the young people of even a remote Cameroonian village are influenced by North American pop culture (e.g. a young man playing Shania Twain music videos non-stop on the television in his tiny one-room abode in Kumba--a room he shares with a brother and sister), I suspect most of what looks familiar is going the other direction. Given how strongly African Americans feature in the genesis of rap and hip-hop music, I figure the moves these village kids make which bring to mind those performed by pop music dancers back home likely originate here in Africa, not in minds on North American soil.
Climate anxiety has entered the lexicon. For the last few years, it’s been talked about more and more in news articles, science discussions and even in spiritual care contexts. I shrugged it off as overly sensitive people, but the shoe has dropped for me now too. Extreme weather or one sort another everywhere all at once for the past few years has brought home what I always acknowledged intellectually but didn’t really synthesized emotionally: climate change is actually coming and it will be bad. I feel so angry and impotent in the face of these massive systems working against my small efforts to reduce waste and burn less carbon. So I went to the climate forum for this provincial election. It felt really important just to be in the room to declare “this subject matters!” The room had a remarkable number of grey hairs in it. This brought up terribly mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, good of them to continue to care about these issues, even as they can anticipate it won’t ...
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