Fluffy Mane and All
Posted on November 15, 2013 | posted by:Globalization is a funny thing. The last three years that I spent in Peace Corps Lesotho highlighted globalization’s ability to seemingly increase random series of coincidences and the role of chance in life. By creating massive amounts of interactions on the macro level, globalization creates more dots to be connected. Arjun Appadurai wrote in Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, “It takes only the merest acquaintance with the facts of the modern world to note that it is now an interactive system in a sense that is strikingly new.” The recent connections that were made in my life were a direct product of globalization’s evolution.
Take for instance my life in Lesotho, sub-Saharan Africa. As a Peace Corps applicant, one finds themselves at the mercy of the recruitment officer. They have full control on your placement and program position; all determined by the applicant’s qualifications and work experience. I had absolutely no say as to the region and country I was to be sent to. So, having shipped off to Lesotho (out of 76 possible countries where Peace Corps serves) was nothing but an event without personal meaning – I had no prior knowledge or connection to the small Mountain Kingdom.
Eventually I would end up being placed in a small rural village alongside the border of South Africa. Since the local chief was considered the most important person, my first stop was to meet him. The chief and his relatives were to become my host family, and thereby ordaining a local name onto me. The Professor, as everyone called him, was not only the chief, but a strong figurehead in all aspects of village life; and he would become my mentor. His last name, Moletsane, was reminiscent of the old tradition of royal family clans. I found myself thereby belonging to the Lion clan, and the village was informally referred to as Taung (the place of Lions ).
The Professor (named for his teaching positions in South African universities) was globally educated – his Masters in Education was gained at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He would tell me he knew Connecticut well, my home state; he would regularly travel in and out of Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, while a student in 1970s Amherst. Coincidentally, the airport shares its border fence with the company my mother has been working at for decades, as well as me sporadically. He recognized the name of it.
He was the most respected, wise, patient, and amiable person of our community. He was the personified figure of education; the one whom everyone consulted and sought out information. He was stoic and a philosopher. He stood guard of the village’s innovation and development. His laughed boomed and his chuckle echoed throughout the valley of Taung. I extended my two year Peace Corps contract an extra year because of him. He would later go on and receive a parliamentary seat through the national election.
Unfortunately, he contracted pancreatic cancer and passed quickly. He was memorialized in village with the most proper and formal of funerals. Heads of States and international Ambassadors attended. The Lesotho National Army’s brass band played. Families traveled hundreds of miles to attend. It was a sobering experience for most people – he was thought of as invincible. And, coincidentally, as if he knew people needed a moment to laugh, one of the weirdest things I ever saw happened – in the middle of a speech given by Lesotho’s prime minister, an inappropriately loud pickup truck drove into the middle of the thousands of attendees carrying a real taxidermied lion – fluffy mane included. Imagine it. Where did they even get a taxidermied lion in one of Africa’s most rural nations?!
My Peace Corps service ended July 12, 2013, whereby I almost immediately moved to New York City (with my now girlfriend that I also coincidentally met in Peace Corps Lesotho) to attend the Transdisciplinary Design program here at Parsons. After a day of showing her around in NYC (she has never been), we ended up at the New York Public Library. What stopped us both dead in our tracks were, of course, the famous marble lions that adorn the entrance at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Appropriately named Patience and Fortitude, I couldn’t shake the lions’ literal and metaphorical connections to The Professor. Both act as majestic pillars of strength and education. Both have been memorialized and captured in the hearts of their travelers. Both encompass the imagination of the young student.
What are the chances that I would end up in Lesotho, ordained in the Lion clan, with The Professor who had simultaneously flown in the same airport adjacent to where my mother works, then end up in New York City with Patience and Fortitude? I don’t believe in fate, and I don’t believe in serendipity. I do, however, believe in globalization’s remarkable power to increase meaningful and lasting coincidences.