Feel-good-press
Did you follow the news these last days? I do not know when you will read this text, but I can be quite sure that something terrible has happened again. The news on television or in the newspapers is in general negative. They are oriented completely towards the “negative” and the “exceptions”. It is hard to find any positive news. You would become totally depressed of it.
That is why I would like to tell you two positive stories to lighten up these dark days. Two positive stories that bring some counter weight to e.g. the negative image the media is creating on many remote foreign countries or regions. If you would only look at the news items you find from e.g. Africa in the last 10 years, you would have to believe that all people over there are hostile and mean, all small reincarnations of the devil itself. But this image is in strong contrast with the hospitality and integrity that I have encountered myself in some of these beautiful countries.
Without words and without expensive gifts, these successors of ferocious Dzjengis Khan showed us what real hospitality was.
My first story takes Inge and me back to a continental remote area: the astonishing steppes in Mongolia. “Continental”, because during the day the thermometer went up to 30 degrees, while during the night of the same day it could be minus 25 degrees; “remote” as you could drive for hours and not seeing a single person, not a single sign of humans, only grass, a lot of grass. Budget travelers as we were, we searched for a cheap driver to guide us around in this vast area. The first one we met told us he knew the way, and he would find some place to sleep on the spot. Not very convincing, but still we gave it a try. After a long day of driving in such an old Russian minivan, he stopped at some “ger”. A “ger” or “yurt” is this typical and beautiful portable Mongolian tent. “I will try here”, he said. And yes, a few moments later we were standing in the middle of a big Mongolian herding family, with in our one hand a glass of “Airag”, a fermented horse milk and in the other, “Aaruul”, cheese on the basis of “Airag”. We couldn’t communicate a word, but the Mongolian family compensated that completely by showing us in abundance their teeth through a magnificent smile. Well teeth, probably we had more teeth than the whole big family together. In the meantime a few of them were moving the belongings of the complete family to a smaller tent. It took a while before we understood what was going on, but they insisted that we, as guests, would have the big and beautiful “ger”. The family itself would all gather that night in a smaller “ger”, together with their cattle! Not so much later, some guys fetched a sheep and slaughtered it to prepare a special meal for this occasion. Both not liking sheep meat at all, we got the honour, as special guests, to eat the best part of the sheep: the kidneys, the heart and the liver. Yummy. But without words and without expensive gifts, these successors of ferocious Dzjengis Khan showed us what real hospitality was!
My second story is situated in the heart of Africa, a few hundred meters away from the Congo river. I am sweating as hell in a way too little ATM in Brazzaville. And this even becomes worse when I am reading the message on the screen of this ATM: “Cannot accept this type of card”. My face is turning pale now. I tried it over and over again, but the damn machine did not accept “VISA”. Now it was official: I — was — in — trouble! I had a big problem, as it turned out that today is also an exceptional banking holiday and the only other ATM in the whole dawn city that except “VISA” was broken since this morning. The difficulty of the situation became to strike me. My plane was leaving in exact 3 hours and I still had to pay my hotel expenses and taxi to the airport, etc. The hotel had my passport, and only accepted cash… . But then, out of the blew, a total stranger, a Congolese, standing behind me at the ATM, probably saw that my face was very pale even for a white-guy and asked me what was going on. Without any request from my side he offered me to lend me this money. We were talking about a few hundred euros, a huge amount in local standards. He went to the ATM, gave me the money and a paper where he wrote his banking account on. He said: “Pay me back when you are back in Belgium”. I walked back to my hotel. The first feeling that stroke me was: this cannot be, there must be something wrong with this? Only after a while, it hit me that this person did not know anything from me: he did not know my name, he did not know my hotel, address, nothing! It was pure trust in a wild stranger! How many complete strangers/foreigners would you lend a few thousands euros? Impressive, no? By the way, I paid it back. :)
If we truly want to understand how people really are, wouldn’t it be better to just switch off the news?
With these two positive stories I tried to bring some good news in these days of negativism. We need that once in a while, no? The news we are looking at or the papers we are reading are almost completely filled with incidents, problems and wars. They are oriented completely towards the “negative” and the “exceptions”. They do not bring the “normal”. They do not depict the “standard”, the simple normal things, or these small things that make people laugh. Looking at it this way, you could even wander: if we want to learn the world like it really is, wouldn’t it be better to stop reading the newspapers? If we truly want to understand how people really are, wouldn’t it be better to just switch off the news? Probably our view on the world would be more realistic.
About Nicolas
Nicolas is a socially committed mapping expert and map enthusiast. He is convinced that map applications can play a positive role in this transitioning world. It is not by coincidence that the true opposite of “SPAM” is “MAPS”.
He is co-founder of nazka mapps. nazka is focused on maps that matter, adding value to society. Check for sure also aircheckr.
