An old fish and lots of Europeans (then and now)

Malindi is a Swahili city.  Like the other cities (Lamu, Mombasa, Zanzibar) of the Swahili Coast, there is a rich history of interaction with the Indian Ocean.  You can see the Arabic, Islamic, and Indian influences in the architecture and the food.  But Malindi seems to be a bit more European than the others.

The main museum is called the House of Columns, and it's a great example of Swahili architecture.

When you first walk enter the museum, there is an exhibit the coelacanth that was found in the harbor in the early twentieth century.  I had never heard of the coelacanth until yesterday, but I now know a lot more.  Instead of simply narrating the story of finding a coelacanth, the exhibit is set up with signs that pretend to be  a talking fish asking you to guess what he/she/it is.  The exhibit was a bit weird because it felt like an exhibit designed for a five year old, but it lacked the other sorts of things exhibits for kids have.

On the upper level, there were rooms full of an exhibit on Vasco da Gama.  But instead of having any artifacts or items, there were simply about twenty posters narrating the story of Vasco da Gama being the first European to sail directly to India.  The odd thing about the posters is that they were written from an Eurocentric perspective.  Da Gama "discovered" the route to Europe - despite non-Europeans sailing across the Indian Ocean for over a thousand years in 1498.  Da Gama also got around the "Muslim stranglehold" to reach India, which seemed an especially odd description in a museum in a Muslim town.  Not a single poster looked at da Gama's voyage from a non-Eurocentric perspective, other than to mention briefly the help that Ahmad ibn Majid, an Arab navigator, provided him in sailing across the Indian Ocean to reach India.

There is also a Vasco da Gama pilar that he set up at the southern edge of the harbor in the early sixteenth century, so Portuguese sailors could find Malindi again.  Other than a few busloads of school children who quickly visited and left, I was the only person at the pillar.  It was the same experience at the beautiful little Portuguese chapel, which was also built in the early sixteenth century.

But despite the prehistoric fish and Vasco da Gama, the main attraction in Malindi seems to be the beach.  The town has been overrun by Italians.  Most of them seem to shuttle between the beach, the tasty Italian restaurants, the mozzarella cheese shop, and the gelateria.  The history of Malindi may seem to be ancient to most of its visitors, but you can still get a good espresso.

When donkeys bray

The first thing I noticed about Lamu is the incredible beauty of the old town.  As the boat approached the shore, an amazing city straddled the shore.

I stepped out of the boat, and the sound of donkeys braying filled my ears.  There are no cars or buses, so donkeys become the main means of transportation.  And like the persistent honking of New York City taxi cabs, the braying of donkeys is everywhere in Lamu.  It was a bit odd at first, but I quickly became used to it. Everywhere I turned, there were donkeys.  They wander around the streets of Lamu like cows in Indian cities.  They stop in the middle of the road.  They wander up to restaurants.  And often they are loaded down with bricks, food, or other assorted items.

The lack of cars and donkeys wandering all over the place make for a slow pace of life in Lamu.  No one seems to be rushing to get anywhere.  Instead, everywhere I turn I see people relaxing and talking with each other. This is a city made for wandering about.

Expectations

Today I woke up in Nairobi, and the first thing I heard was Denise Williams' "Let's Hear it for the Boy." it wasn't what I was expecting, but traveling is often not what one expects.

Over the next three weeks I'll be traveling down the Swahili Coast. I plan to be blogging more and posting lots of photos. You can expect to read, but probably not much about Denise Williams.

Teaching about Economic Inequality

It's been well over a year since I last posted, but it's about time to resume....

I was struck by an article in the Guardian's Comment is Free about economic inequality.  It doesn't seem like a surprising topic for a paper such as the Guardian.  What grabbed my attention is the author of the article: Kenneth Rogoff.  I don't usually associate Rogoff with leftist economics or columns in the Guardian.  (Although after checking, he has published a few other articles in the Guardian.)  

Rogoff's arguments are not remarkable or unique.  In fact, he says a lot of things about the global economy that many people would agree with as being problematic:

Within countries, inequality of income, wealth and opportunity is arguably greater than at any time in the last century. Across Europe, Asia and the Americas, corporations are bulging with cash as their relentless drive for efficiency continues to yield huge profits. Yet workers' share of the pie is falling, thanks to high unemployment, shortened working hours and stagnant wages.

This trend is one that is a major part of my modern world history course.  In teaching tenth graders about world history, I'm less concerned in discussing the battles of the World War or the details about the lives of famous people.  Helping students to understand how the world has become so economically and politically integrated and the consequences of that integration seems far more important.  From day one of the class, I encourage students to think about the world they live in and how it functions and to ask questions about how this world came to be.

One of the key steps in helping students understand the modern world is analyzing the effects of the Industrial Revolution.  Trying to teach a sixteen year old about the global nature of industrialization is not the easiest task.  And few topics are more challenging to teach than Karl Marx and the origins of Communism.  Students have lots of preconceived ideas about Marx and Communism.  Most of those ideas are wrong, but that just reflects the broader American understanding of Marx.  Despite the generally negative American stereotype of Communism, most students are still excited to learn something about Marx.  That excitement disappears after a couple of pages of excerpts from the Communist Manifesto.  Imagine what goes through the head of that sixteen year old when she or he reads:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes.

Still, I know that I need to teach Marx.  You can only imagine my pleasure when I read Rogoff actually highlighting the importance of Marx:

Writing in the 19th century, Karl Marx famously observed inequality trends in his day and concluded that capitalism could not indefinitely sustain itself politically: eventually, workers would rise up and overthrow the system. Outside Cuba, North Korea and a few leftwing universities around the world, no one takes Marx seriously anymore. Contrary to his predictions, capitalism spawned ever-higher standards of living for more than a century, while attempts to implement radically different systems have fallen spectacularly short.   

Yet, with inequality reaching levels similar to 100 years ago, the status quo has to be vulnerable. Instability can express itself anywhere. It was just over four decades ago that urban riots and mass demonstrations rocked the developed world, ultimately catalysing far-reaching social and political reforms.

Reading Rogoff has reminded me about the importance of challenging students to look closely at the world we live in and to ask difficult questions about why the world is the way it is.  And hopefully, those students might try to change things.