the most amazing thing i have never seen in my life?

Question

My work is associated with east African countries, mostly Kenya and Ethiopia. I just got back from Ethiopia with the weirdest encounter of my life, which changed my previous sympathy for the country. It all started with me and my co-worker as we visited the Lake Tana that’s the origin of Nile River in Ethiopia. There on the lake were these poor Ethiopians trying to fish while we sow one man dropping bunch of fishes, crabs, shrimps and lobsters, etc..back to the lake, I asked him why he was doing that, he looked at me with surprise and asked with broken English what else he could do with them. I told him why couldn’t he eat them or give them to other people, he shouted out, how people could eat such things and left immediately. We were both so surprise, imagine how shrimps and crabs can’t be eaten and the weird part is, they are Ethiopians always suffering with hunger and famine. After we encounter this we tried to show to the local people how to eat, shrimps, crabs and different kinds of fish as they only eat one type of fish , we cooked and tried to give them to taste, some of them were actually vomiting for just watching us eat and none of them dare to try, my friend was laughing at their stupidity but I was actually offended and the worst part is not just sea foods that they don’t know how to eat, we found out there are many types vegetables that they don’t know how to eat specially mushroom they call it “ umbrella of hyena” and children play with is everywhere on the street , but no one use them as food, my general encounter is that poverty is both mental and physical in Ethiopia and they are the poorest and the most proudest people I have ever seen. Can you imagine, they think eating pork is disobeying God? Anyway Kenya is relatively better, actually they are growing economically better than Ethiopians, and they know mushrooms, sea foods and pork are for food. My friend and I now working on project to teach Ethiopians what to eat hopefully we can get somewhere, anyone who read this can give me idea to include in the project I am posting this again & again because I haven’t really got good idea for my project

Answer 1

African cultures are so different and authentic (as you've probably concluded yourself). The people there are living their lives the only way they think is right (as you most probably must have seen). Don't you think it would be a bit odd that they 'don't know how to eat sea foods', if we accept the fact that their way of life is much, much more older then ours? I'm a bit surprised that you haven't thought of another option in stead of thinking that those communities, which last for thousands of years, would stay ignorant to some basic ways of survival... As an answer for this, I would have to quote a book most people here don't like to hear quotations from: the Bible. Though, I don't intent on using it for any religious purpose, but only trough a scientific method. In one place (I don't have the book with me, so I don't know exactly where) in the Old testimony, you can find a list of forbidden foods where, along many others, sea foods are listed also. In Hebrew, those foods are not 'kosher', they are unclean. Now, we have seen many examples of older beliefs being reflected on some newer ones and even on historical documents (as the Bible is). I have noticed a long time ago that in these cases, there is no exact explanation. This is the case with forbidden foods also. Therefor, one should conclude that they were tabooed for another reason: if it is prooven that the old Jewish people were residents of Africa, long before the books of the Old testimony were written, and if we know that Africa is considered to be the cradle of humanity, it is likely to presume that the old Jews have encountered many other nations due to their nomadic, migrational way of life. History also prooves that in this encounters there happens the proces of aculturisation - mixing of cultures. So, since we have no explanation of why would some foods be forbidden in the Jewish coulture, could we not assume that this was taken from another people, or at least that the practise of not eating certain foods in the Jewish people and in other African nations has the same, far origin?
What you've witnesed may not be just ignorance, but an ancient religious restriction. Only modern societies do not know of any forbidden foods, but in the old days this was normal. Now I can think of a vaigue example from ancient Greece: the Greeks did not drink pure wine, for it had become a substitution for blood (because of the color) and, generally, a substitution for human sacrifice; they only drank a mixture of wine and water - pure wine was only for their gods. This is a bit remote compared to real foods, but it has the same principe. There are many, more concrete, cases to be found in various ancient, or just old enough cultures...
In many beliefs, sea animals are seen as demonic or as the bearers of souls, and therefor holy (or just the opposite - unholy!). Mushrooms also have a very important role in many (even present-days) cults and magical practises. I have even read a very fine work about the tree of knowledge from the Bible being actually a mushroom of a certain kind!
Basically, we're looking at African coultures from an eurocentric point of wiew. We can't be objective about their beliefs because they are so different from ours, and for this fact we tend to proclaim them 'ignorant' or 'savage' and similar. It could look like, while we think that we're trying to help them, we're actually destroing them, because we're destroing what they believe is right and all their values; just because we can't understand them! Just look at the examples: India, New Zealand, Japan, Ethiopia - when we find something that is so very new and uncomprehensible to us, we end up not helping, but conquering!

So, give all this a thought and try to open up your mind to other possibilities - what you don't know, try to judge rationally and fair!

Answer 2

i'm afraid you're barking up the incorrect tree the following. you at the on the spot are not getting any sturdy enter because you won't be able to undo thousands of years of cultural indoctrination between uneducated human beings in one day. The old Jewish rule is: no longer something from the water till it has scales and fins, and no meat till it comes from an animal that has cloven hooves and chews its cud. One regulation is overlaid on yet another, so it is also forbidden to practice dinner an animal in its mom's milk. This replaced into prolonged so as that separate dishes opt to be kept for cooking and eating both dairy products or meat, that could not in any respect be eaten at the same time. those rules were followed by technique of the Muslims and handed on to cultures which includes you encountered. It led to them to look on those protein resources with the disgust you talked about. have you ever relished the idea of eating a dogs? How do you view chowing down on a youthful roast of horse? Ever listen the funny tale about the shortcoming of stray cats round chinese eating places? we've our personal nutrition prejudices, you recognize. There are not many human beings in the U.S. that eat groundhog or possum, and a slew of ignorant human beings against turning Bambi into stew. we've rules that forbid overseas slaughterhouses that procedure horses from exporting any meat processed interior of an identical facility to the U.S. There are both rules, or rules being pushed, to limit surplus horses from the U.S. from being exported to Canada, the position they're despatched to Europe as meat. How a lot experience does that make? they could't understand our squeamishness because eating horse is particularly perfect in a lot of ecu international locations. i'm assuming you're from the U.S., which will be incorrect, yet attempt taking position to the humane society for a pair of dogs to fish fry. Be honest about why you want them. Get massive ones; all of them fee an identical. See what occurs.

Answer 3

Congratulations on asking good questions that consider the culture of the people you want to help. Understanding the culture is the first step to bridging it. Some books that might help you do this are "The Peace Child," "Eternity in their Hearts," and others by Don Richardson.
As far as dietary laws from the Old Testament. There was much commerce in old testament times between Israel and Africa, particularly Egypt and Ethiopia. David and Solomon, as recorded in the Books of the Kings (I Kings, II Kings) traded with their neighboring countries. Sheba, queen of Ethiopia, visited Solomon and found him extremely wise and took back what she learned to her people. Some crosscultural practices may have been picked up during that time period without really understanding their purpose. The first time these dietary laws come up on biblical history is during the Exodus. Contextually, the Jews had been on a forced diet for generations. Perhaps certain immunities had developed along with certain defects that would have been exploited by a sudden change in food. Also, following the turning of the Nile river into blood, which if you take this as a red tide, would have polluted the primary source of seafood for the area and so the prohibitions may have had a purpose beyond just theological--in other words there were practical reasons for not eating seafood--like a proclivity for allergies to the iodine in seafood. As far as the pigs are concerned, the Egyptians used them in sacrifices and symbolically, to the Jews, they represented things that stay dirty (aka wallow in the mud). So, representatively, pigs symbolize those who come out of the filth, are ceremonially forgiven of their sins, and then go right back to doing things the way they did before. So, for those people, they represent folks who never truly turn away from sin. I find it interesting that archaelogists are pursuing the cataloging of ancient cross-shaped baptismal pools that stretch the length of Africa. To day I read that over 2,000 such pools have been found and date to the period prior to the Islamic invasion (about 250 years ago) in which possibly Christian tribes were attacked, captured, and then sold into slavery--some of whom ended up in America. Now, wouldn't that be an irony if some of those "slaves" were actually Christians who could trace their faith back to the Ethiopian eunuch who in the book of Acts, in the 1st century A.D., became a believer in Jesus Christ and took the message home with him? (Acts 8:27-39) If this is the case, he was already familiar with Jewish dietary laws (he had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship, but was turned away because he was a eunuch, a gentile or the wrong color, or whatever excuse they used at the time to exclude others from worshipping God). Yet, you also find in the books of Acts that God, in a vision given to Peter the Apostle, we told to stop turning up his nose at things offered to him to eat, including pigs! This was of course symbolic in that Peter was no longer to snub anyone who truly wanted to follow God, no matter their background, former beliefs, or former dietary practices. I believe this may be the "cultural key" that will unlock the Ethiopian people. Ask them about their stories, where they came from, look, listen and investigate what is the practical thing behind their practice.
You heard about the guy who one thanksgiving noticed his wife always cut the ends of the ham before she cooked it in the oven. When he asked why she did that, she said her mother taught her to do it. Well, he mother and grandmother were guests that day, so he asked the mother. She said, "my mother taught me to do that." He asked the grandmother and she laughed and said, "I can't believe you are still doing that. Silly things, when I was growing up and raising you kids, we had a woodburning stove that was very small. I had to cut the ham up to get it all in and I cooked it in separate pans." This is an example of practices that originally had a perfectly good, sound reason for doing so, but were elevated to theological levels! Seek the Truth, you will find it already among the people with whom you work. Talk to their story tellers and their elders and their healers and you will gain much with which to help them. Keep in touch.

Answer 4

Good for you for doing such selfless work, and for trying to teach about edible foods.

Perhaps go to the leaders or spiritual advisers of the groups and attempt to give them the info you know re the nourishment and good taste of those foods. If you can convince them, perhaps they can then re-teach the new values.

Lots of luck.

Answer 5

first of all , u need to ask ur self a couple of questions:
is this included in the project as an example or as an introduction to the project?
should u include it as detailed as u just written it?
then , if it was an introduction - which i recommend - try to summarize it a bit ,not because it is boring, but because a good introduction is characterized as short. if u are willing to include it in the project as an example.....u can probably give ur statement - i think it is different food cultures- then mention the incident as a supporting detail and even as an example....here i think u can detail it a bit more than the introduction.....

wish u all the best with ur project :)
don't worry ...be happy

Answer 6

oh my god... i just realize that.. thank god for posting this question... i didnt know that such thing occured there..
maybe they were not being taught on how to eat..
basically wat u mentioned is probably right.. maybe it the pyschology thing... they are paranoid perhaps they thought that seafood are poisonous and they did not have the right tools to cut them or cook them.. its like.. when you are so used to not eating something.. you just can;t eat them...isnt it rite?

Answer 7

Just think about it for a while. It'll come to you.