That's What It's All About
In March, I went to Tanzania for 3 weeks with a group older men from the West; our purpose was to meet with elders from indigenous African tribes to learn about being elders in our own communities. It was a profound experience; I was awed by the African landscape, amazed by the flora and fauna, but most moved by interactions with people, both natives and those I traveled with.
The high point of the trip was doing the hokey-pokey with hunter-gatherers.
We had spent the day with a group of Hadza tribespeople in the Yaida Valley, a sea of acacia and baobob trees extending for miles to an immense shallow lake bounded by the sheer cliffs of the Yaida escarpment, where the earth rises straight up to form endless canyon walls. The Hadza are one of the last extant hunter-gatherer peoples on the planet; they live essentially as they have—and where they have—for the last 30 thousand years.
At sunset, our group gathered with a handful of Hadza elders, led by a wizened imp of a man named Kampala, reputed to be 94 years old, but ageless as an elf.
The Hadza, through our translator, told us their creation story, a tale of a man-eating giant and his daughter. We then shared ours, a cobbled-together version of the big bang.
As darkness fell, the Hadza sang some of their traditional songs—beautiful, haunting call-and-response pieces, like old-time Southern spirituals; a few had dance components, as well.
They asked that we sing some of our songs; we did “If I Had a Hammer,” and then, to demonstrate a dance piece, performed the “Hokey-Pokey.”
When we got to “You put your whole self in,” Kampala leapt in and out with the rest of us, and we all collapsed in laughter that filled our beings and carried us away to our tents, connected by a bond as old as time itself: the hokey-pokey, that’s what it’s all about.
The high point of the trip was doing the hokey-pokey with hunter-gatherers.
We had spent the day with a group of Hadza tribespeople in the Yaida Valley, a sea of acacia and baobob trees extending for miles to an immense shallow lake bounded by the sheer cliffs of the Yaida escarpment, where the earth rises straight up to form endless canyon walls. The Hadza are one of the last extant hunter-gatherer peoples on the planet; they live essentially as they have—and where they have—for the last 30 thousand years.
At sunset, our group gathered with a handful of Hadza elders, led by a wizened imp of a man named Kampala, reputed to be 94 years old, but ageless as an elf.
The Hadza, through our translator, told us their creation story, a tale of a man-eating giant and his daughter. We then shared ours, a cobbled-together version of the big bang.
As darkness fell, the Hadza sang some of their traditional songs—beautiful, haunting call-and-response pieces, like old-time Southern spirituals; a few had dance components, as well.
They asked that we sing some of our songs; we did “If I Had a Hammer,” and then, to demonstrate a dance piece, performed the “Hokey-Pokey.”
When we got to “You put your whole self in,” Kampala leapt in and out with the rest of us, and we all collapsed in laughter that filled our beings and carried us away to our tents, connected by a bond as old as time itself: the hokey-pokey, that’s what it’s all about.
posted by Professor Dave at 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
This retrospective describes what was an amazing adventure with an amazing group of albeit "older" men.
Our finale was an almost perfect rendition of Amazing Grace as we all sat around watching the embers of a dying camp fire... elderhood at its best!
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