I'm kicking back this evening, enjoying the cool pre-rain breeze, listening to Colin James, eating a bit of nice French chocolate (dark with mint filling) and tossing around some philosophical thoughts.

In this year's course, we have been talking a lot about epistemology, (the study of knowledge). Why in the world do literacy teachers in the backwoods jungles need to know anything about western philosophy and logic?

Partly because what you believe about the world influences greatly what you believe about how people learn and what literacy should do. And partlybecause they need to interact with an ever-widening group of NGOs, international funding agencies, government education systems and outside experts, all of which have there own underlying reasons for believing what they believe.

Today, I was role playing "Monsieur Toutestbonne" (Mr. Itsallgood), representative of the post-modern view-point. We all had a good laugh as it was a good skit demonstrating how major views have changed. I really hammed up the appeal to cultural differences to prove that there were no universals. Afterwards, I met with a particular group to discuss post-modernism affected them. One of the questions I asked was "What Mr. Toutestbonne would say about God."

They said, "Well since everything is good for him, then God must be good too, and he would validate all cultures". I pressed a little more, saying, but if God is absolute, then that would be very hard for Mr. Toutestbonne to believe. They insisted, that "No, since every culture believes in a single, all-powerful, creating God, then it is up to each culture to decide how to worship or deal with him. It took me a minute but I realized that our experiences about culture and God were very different. In their experience, every culture (Christian, muslim, or animist) does have this understanding of God as it's basic premise. All west-African cultures (that I know-of, have read-of and have heard of) really believe this, but from there, they do many things differently. I had to explain to them about cultures that they had not yet experienced. About cultures where there are multiple gods, none of them being creator, but each dominating part of life. Other cultures where there is no particular God, just a nebulous "force" that is out there. The really hard one for them to believe was that many people believe that there is no God at all!!

The thought was so far-out to them, beyond their experience, that I'm not sure if they really believed me. They did come around to understanding why the current movement of thought that they read about in the news seems to be very permissive in allowing people to think and do whatever they want with very few constraints (also very very far from their cultural experience). Was very interesting.

Tonight I played the infamous "Lili". This is one of West-Africa's most played games and it is, essentially, a version of Parchisi (which I haven't played since I was 11). My friend Moise, from the neighborhood took me to his house for some beans and a good game. Kicked my but, of course, but it was a fun time!

In the words of my favourite philosopher, it is very easy to tell if someone exists...

Quand on veut un mouton, c’est la preuve qu’on existe. (If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists).
-Le petit prince; Antoine de Saint-Exupery