The meeting, listening, questioning, misunderstanding and scandal as well as the learning experiences that are born from the report that the anthropologist is to support when they go on the field. Go is an expression that endlessly fascinates with a splash of romance and fantasy makes those who remain and who should be brought into play. There are many stages before and after, perhaps, sometimes, does not end, certainly does not end with the departure of aircraft. Here is a link between my thesis in Eritrea and the field in Karamoja. A return to East Africa. In previous work I focused on witchcraft and possession, a theme that speaks of a relationship between me and their beliefs, between me and their belief systems that have evolved throughout history and time, which led to new experiences, relationships and transformations, also that the supernatural world and this invisible but not for this. It 's also a relationship between those who are possessed and who is not among those who believe and who is not among the helpers and those who are helped, among Christians and among those who professed a pure form of religion combining Christian faith in God to belief in other entities such as spirits and other figures belonging to the supernatural world. It 's a story of relationships with the past, with colonialism, with its own culture which manifests itself in one piece of syncretic, that the person possessed by a zar spirit who goes to a village d' miraculous water in the hands of priests Orthodox. In the land of
Karimojong I wanted to investigate the multiple relationships syncretic and within this reality that seems a but contains a thousand, thousand ways of being and being seen. Moroto I thought of as a flower, a daisy, a rose or a hibiscus flower with its color and its aroma, composed of petals, and each petal is a relational dimension, is a way of seeing reality and a different way to be seen and heard. The relatedness
covers several levels: that I meet the locals, but before meeting them in person I met them in books, described through the eyes of someone else. Then there are the ones who meet me, not the first white in the land, that land of encounters between whites and blacks do not always gone well. And many whites, each with a different reason but all there, who look with their eyes to the Karamoja and its inhabitants, the voices that emerge are a bit more 'superficial because people describe them as poor, primitive and without the possibility of development, but at the same time people strong and proud that he lives in an environment from which none of us would come out alive, people need some means more because it is not stupid, and then the helpers, thus justifying its presence in Karamoja, a necessary presence to realize that the Karimojong a better life. In this land watched over by the ancestors live in heaven on earth as they lived and where the spirits are often called on me I went with an anthropological approach, to meet its people and see how they look at themselves and use strategies to emerge from the climate of relations in which the eyes of white strangers converge in a single center, Karamoja, and a voice raises his hand, black, to present its point of view.
I've always been fascinated by Africa, I still remember the thrill the first time I went there and when I stared into the eyes of the people on the plane with me, eyes deep and often shiny, sometimes dark, my eyes seemed to ask the allowed to enter their home. When I got off the plane, this time in Entebbe, I felt the warm scent of that air in Africa, difficult to describe, remember the smell of the earth when it rains, but dry, and it certainly brings back all the memories of Eritrea. Another report to be reckoned with is the connection with the previous research. In this second camp are playing very safe and very fearful of displacement and being away from home, waiting for the situations and emotions already experienced or experience a few years before, but it may be helpful to have some 'experience in any context is in itself. I chose the size of the NGO because they are playing alone and it was impossible to find local contacts, can not think of booking a room in a hotel in Karamoja and move independently, primarily for security reasons. Even the spread of major diseases has been consisting of its relevance in the preparation phase: Malaria is endemic and is the principal risk as well as tuberculosis and meningitis. In a country where there is not always the availability of water, obviously not drinking, even the daily hygiene practices are not obvious, so I thought I would not put myself at risk, or at least limit the damage. I was also curious to know closely the work of an NGO, to understand if there is room for a bit 'of anthropology.
The thesis is referred to as relational. Relationships that develop in the field and not just limited to the time of ethnography, but also with those who have left their mark in me, relations arising from the meeting, which mark the history and determine the future.
I chose to return to Africa because I am fascinated and why I believe that this land and its people can convey a lot. It 'difficult to explain a propensity, a passion, an interest not easily be expressed without the risk of falling into the rhetoric, but I feel that every time I go back to Africa I find new relationships and feelings. By the historical events it captures how the Karimojong have been underestimated or exiled from a country's development, unfortunately because of ignorance, the unwillingness of subordinates to meet them because of economic interests and needs of Europe expansionist settler.
I still remember the feeling I had when I sat on the dunes of the desert and looked toward a horizon of immense and monotonous, and the clear vision to where the sand and the sky did not meet made me think of an earth boring and without substance, but wished to be able to return again and again, to discover how people live, and so each time when I came to observe the savanna Karimojong, the end of the desert before beginning Massawa in the sea or the sun setting between the dunes of Tunisia. Immersed in a sea of \u200b\u200bAfrican sand surfaces in my mind a feeling that Leopardi had been able to express and describe transmit those sensations.
[...]
But as I sit and gaze,
boundless spaces beyond that, and superhuman
silences, and deepest quiet
I thought in me pretend, for just
where the heart is not alarmed. And as I hear the wind rustling through the
plants, I
that infinite silence to this entry
comparing vo: and I am reminded of the eternal, and death
seasons and this
and alive, and the sound of it. So in this
immensity my thought is drowned:
and sweet to shipwreck in this sea.
Tapac is a small town outside of Mt Moroto to Kenya. It is located within a large valley with a village perched the mountains. The center is in the valley, with the earth houses, small shops, a small school, dispensary and a football field, obviously the church. On the mountains there are the traditional villages, but no fence around it, and women running up and down along a path fraught to go for water supply and everything else.
recall with nostalgia the visit to Tapac, perhaps because it was the only night I went outside of my hotel reception. There is a large area of \u200b\u200bthe White Fathers, enclosed with the network and is located within their home, separated from the girls' service, offices, kitchen, pantry, dining room and three small rooms to welcome the guests. We were five, two bedrooms, two and one single. Before dark day, a young priest to spend the night, so I have to leave my room at the top of the hill and she gives me his service in a small house at the foot of the hill but still within the network, warns me not to be late because they are near the fence and the soldiers are around drunk in the evening. Night falls and I lock myself inside. The house is very small, the door is right, I am now in a first environment with only a table against the wall with a small cloth stretched, placed over two cups and two bottles, two chairs and two doors on either side of the table. I understand that Girl Dorchas, would stay there with me and it reassured me, but the silence tells me that I'm alone, my room is on the left. By. An oil lamp emits a dim light and warm, the wind is cold outside. The bed is made with a wool blanket, a small table with two earrings and a closed trunk. Do I have my stuff on the carpet and get ready for sleep. Down with the flame of oil lamps until the darkness covers me completely and listen to the sounds of the night.
would have been better if I had fallen asleep immediately, the lock of the door keeps slamming, I feel even pings the windows, it scares me, I know I'm locked in, but they are isolated and the fact of knowing the soldiers there I am not reassured about.
Finally I understand: the wind became so strong as to move the lock exterior sheet metal and other things on the door and windows. I'm going to enjoy the moment before sleep until I hear a knock at the door. E 'already morning but I do not know who it is, then I recognize the voice of Dorchas and open, she had forgotten the keys to the kitchen.
After breakfast we go to visit the mountain villages with Mark, a boy Tapac that acts as a guide to the translator. Within the village on top of a man and immediately asked me to marry him, but I have to thank you refuse, I must return to Italy, but is part of another guy who jokingly asked how many cows worth. Percent the answer. It is indeed a good price and I think about it, but he says he will begin to pay them only when I will return to Italy. How can I be sure that if I come back here again he really wants to marry me? I want to undertake to keep the promise, I must have certainty.
comes forward a little lady, very old with white hair and a little 'hump, puts his hands around his neck, has many strings of beads and other objects hanging from these drags a metal and puts me in the neck, it's my future mother-in-law! By Mark
me assure you that we're all joking, because the metal necklace belongs only to women already married and I never want to take her away to someone. Not I feel it to accept, but the little lady insists fun, and I say thank you at least let me know his name.
Sara.
I got off to the country, I bought a little 'beans, sugar and soap, and I took them to Sara, to reciprocate the gift. After that we gathered in the living room hut with a little 'of them to celebrate the meeting with a little' of local beer.
This story talks about marriage, gift, exchange, and meeting report. Reception, which was given to me by the Karimojong of the mountain.
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