Balance. It is a lot like oxygen; necessary for sustainable
life, but taken for granted unless threat of deprivation is impending. Due to
the nature of our program, we have had many conversations pertaining to
perceptions of balance and discussions of hypothetical ways to achieve it. At
face value, balance seems so simple; however its appearance is quite deceiving.
To give you my imagery of perfect balance, you must first start by imaging a
color scale with black on one end and white on the other. They are polar
opposites, both physically and abstractly, but can also be seamlessly harmonious.
For the sake of my description, the numeric value Ive given to black is 0 and
white is 100. Now picture every color that would fall in-between the two, and
don’t just think of 98 other colors, think of a color for every possible
decimal point between 0 and 100. In my mind, perfect balance would be shade
that falls exactly at 50.00. Would this color be what we call grey? Would it be
something else completely? Would it be light or dark? To me, answering these
questions is nearly impossible, solely because there are so many possibilities.
The range of possibilities is another essential thing to consider in this
situation, is perfect balance one thing, or made up of many things? Every
person may choose a different shade of one color, due to the fact that people
actually perceive color differently. So what seems absolute to you, may appear
utterly wrong to me; yet another obstacle to declaring true balance. At the end
of the day, creating perfect balance may be a task we have to accept is not
humanly possible.
One of the first things that struck me (after I’d settled
into Zanzibar to the extent that I could make somewhat accurate subjective
observations, that is) is that people here are much closer. Interpersonal
relationships are notably stronger and immediate social networks have a very
wide span, typically across all of Unguja island and in most cases over to
Pemba island. (These are the 2 islands that Zanzibar is made up of.) This
strength can be attributed to cultural ideas about family and community, both
from a religious and Zanzibari standpoint. The other main factor it can be
attributed does stem from culture, but is also something in and of itself different;
the value Zanzibari people place on technology.
The inspiration to compile all these thoughts in a post came
to me in a dream, as it just so happens. Recently, I’ve been spending lots of
time applying for various summer internships at different aquariums across the United
States. On a day that I turned 3 applications in, I had a dream I scored an
interview for an education position at one in California. When I walked in
there were children everywhere, but they were all looking at real-time tanks on
MacBooks. I think it was somewhat of a futuristic dream because the computers
could bend; but the point is that even though they were in a building filled
with marine exhibits the children were still totally hypnotized by the
computers. None of the kids could take their focus away from the screens long
enough to interact with me at all, even to the point of returning a hello. In
my heart of hearts, I believe one of the driving reasons I became interested in
working at an aquarium in the first place is their beauty, obviously. But more than that, their power to
detach people from their virtual world and make them want to live in the
present. Living in the moment and being present among other things, helps you
to form deep-rooted bonds with those around you.
In high school, I was glued to my phone constantly. When I
started college that all changed, allowing me to truly expand my view of the
world and really start to develop opinions about things bigger than myself. I
generally don’t like to take hard stances on things because I think the world
is ever-changing. To me, hard stances are a breeding grounded for close-minded-ness.
Something I do feel quite strongly about however, is the ever-increasing trend
of children being introduced to (and getting hooked on) smart products so early
in their development. I have seen babies who do not know how to talk or walk be
able to use an iPad better than I can. Comparing my childhood with the
childhood youth these days have honestly makes me sad. My childhood is filled
with memories of playing outside from dawn to dusk, creating games from random
outside objects, and long conversations with imaginary friends. I know not
everyone from my generation had this same experience, but a childhood similar
to this among people my age seems to be more of a rule rather than an
exception. Whereas today, it appears the opposite is true.
I realize it is taking me awhile to get back to the point of
balance but bear with me!
In my Zanzibari family, I have a 6 year old and a 2 year old
brother. The family owns a smart tablet; I saw it one time through out the course
of a month for the sole purpose of looking at an old picture. Everyday when I
got home from school I played with my brothers until they went to bed. Even
though I don’t understand much of what the little guys are saying most of the
time, they would always tell me long elaborate stories (and include
illustrations in my journal whenever I let them get their hands on it.) My
Zanzibari family is extremely close and tight knit. When I am at home, all my
time is spent with them, both because I really love them and constant together-ness
is the norm here.
Depending on the reader, either situation above might seem
more ideal than the other. Ideality is another topic altogether, so to get back
to balance, there must be consideration of the pros and cons for each. In what
has become the norm in America, meaning people being so deeply invested in
their virtual worlds, they are sacrificing lots of interpersonal bonds. We
often are not attached to our communities in any way, I would venture to say a
lot of you have never had an actual conversation with your neighbors. Our
nations youth place more value on the amount of instagram followers they have
than getting to know their aunts and uncles. On the other hand, being so
technologically savvy can be invaluably beneficial. It gives us grand
opportunities to be global citizens from the comfort of our own homes, to
become aware of small scale (but important) crises going on all over the world,
to be connected to people at opposite sides of the country/world, to learn about
political unrest oceans away, to keep entire parts of our personalities hidden,
etc.
To contrast, Zanzibari people are connected to the point they
do not typically mail letters or packages domestically. The main form of public
transportation here is called Dala-Dala, They are fundamentally like a transit
bus. Anyways, if some one in Stonetown (Central West coast) needed to get a
parcel to someone in Paje, (East Coast) the sender could give it to a dala-Dala
driver in the morning and it would for sure get to the receiver by noon.
Another intriguing product of the tight-kittedness of the community is informal
crime watch. Homes here are rarely broken into because it’s common knowledge
that some one will always be watching. Anecdotal stories Ive heard around town
also make it seem like in the rare case of theft, things are reclaimed within a
day.
People on the island grow up with a strong network, giving
them lots of familial and communal support. They value family relationships,
and usually maintain very close relationships with their parents through out
their entire lives. A possible con of the tight knitted-ness is strict parental
obedience, I have talked to so many women here who despise their husbands but
are essentially stuck with them because doing anything else would be
disrespectful to their parents. Such strong relationships through out the
island also perpetuate a very local viewpont, which indirectly make
conservation efforts somewhat of a challenge. Family, by nature has a tendency
to force unconditional love between incompatible people; the unspoken mandatory
together-ness norms can cause potentially toxic relationships. Introverted
personalities here, do not really exist or at least function well because
individuals are constantly surrounded by people.
Lets refer to them as “extremes”, either side has a wide
skew of pros and cons. A perfect balance would need to contain elements from
each situation, but in this case, various elements from one place are not
feasible in another. For example, the internet’s potential to enable people to
become global citizens simply is not possible in Zanzibar due to bad
connection. Shifting the values of young people in America away from being so
technologically centered would require a massive compliance and all around
total change in culture. More often than not, when balance comes into question,
it is when a problem has breached the point of being controlled. When a
large-scale problem becomes apparent, things have often gone too far to restore
even a semi-balanced state. If balance could be a state of being that people
strived for on a daily basis, I feel it would keep a wide variety of things
from being “problems” in the first place.
This post was quite challenging for me to write. As I wrote
it, a continuum of perspectives about this dynamic idea flowed into my mind. In
addition, there are a multitude of situations I wanted to write about to help
illustrate my point, but I did not expect this seemingly small point to
necessitate so many words. Now that I have gotten this post done however, I
hope to write about my other observations and thoughts in reference to this
post! I strongly welcome any feedback and further conversation :]
~Until Next Time~
