NEWS FOR END OF AUGUST 2007

I was carrying a pastor friend on my bicycle near Ngiya, when he said the following. I wish I would have had a tape recorder (my translation from Dholuo):

"You don't seem to realise that we worship Whites, and have been taught to do so for many years? We are taught from childhood that everything that comes from a White man - his clothes, his language, his habits, his things are all far superior to anything that we have or that we are. Hence we despise our own things. And that is why we are encouraged from a young age not to use the language that we know, but rather the language that we don't know. We are beaten for using our language [in schools]. 'You shouldn't use the language you know, but you should learn the language you don't know' we are told. Progressive people are unlikely to participate in theological classes unless they are in English! People have no interest in participating in things that aren't creating links with Europe and America. The only things that we value around here are foreign things. "

This is what we are up against. A whole people who are constantly told that they are inferior, and who are rewarded financially (through aid funds etc.) for accepting the truth of the same.

Jim