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Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology
On-line version ISSN 1445-7377
Print version ISSN 2079-7222
Indo-Pac. j. phenomenol. (Online) vol.13 n.1 Grahamstown Jan. 2013
Of spirituality and poverty: A Zimbabwean cultural perspective
Oliver Mtapuri; Pudurai Justin Mazengwa
This article, based on a desk study, connects African spirituality to the phenomenon of poverty and argues that mundane poverty alleviation strategies that ignore the cultural perspective of a people are doomed to fail, especially in the African context. Within this context, a domain such as transcendence is as 'real' to the people as the material world. This article delves into the alchemy of the traditions of African people from a Zimbabwean perspective in an attempt to understand some of the causes of poverty. The authors aver that development practitioners stand to gain if they take into account such (African) worldviews. The article shows that there is a disconnect between western culture and indigenous cultural beliefs and suggests that it is necessary to use phenomenological methods to unpack this disconnect because the spiritual world can support or limit the extent to which poverty alleviation programmes are effective. This means that the notion of development rooted in western knowledge frames may require opening discourses that imagine different social ontologies to find solutions in an (African) context. Thus, the challenge for phenomenologists is to research culturally-appropriate approaches to development using phenomenology.
Although some domains (such as friendship and transcendence) are not usually considered relevant to poverty reduction and may not be amenable to measurement, in some cases it may be crucial to acknowledge these domains because resistance to poverty reduction initiatives may stem from perceptions of a trade-off between poverty reduction and such social and cultural values (Alkire, 2007, p. 93)
This article attempts to unveil a perspective of poverty that hitherto has not been explored in current discourses on poverty. This dimension may confound the debate. If that turns out to be the outcome, it was unintended. This article challenges current thinking and extends a perspective that many Africans in Zimbabwe, as in many other African countries, may still hold dearly in the alchemy of their traditions and understanding of the causes of poverty. By shedding light on these African traditional religious beliefs using phenomenological methods, the researchers are of the view that this understanding could be a precursor to the adoption of appropriate policies and programmes useful for poverty alleviation. This paper debunks the notion that conventional interventions, which are usually project based for income generation, training and so forth, advocated by such agencies as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) would be unhelpful in circumstances of poverty supposedly caused by other supernatural phenomena such as evil spirits, avenging spirits, and ancestral spirits or the Creator. The article is based essentially on a desk study and reviewed literature on phenomenology and African belief systems in Zimbabwe. By virtue of its anthropological slant, the article locates itself in phenomenology, and within the article phenomenology is used "to its fullest as a means of better understanding aspects of what it means to be human" (Stones, 2009, p. 1).
Theoretical framework
This article, like phenomenology, is interested in understanding social life. Aspers (2009, p. 1) rightly argued that the "social world is socially constructed". This work is steeped in the ideas and traditions that make up the philosophy of phenomenology as postulated by Husserl, Heidegger, Schutz, Merleau-Ponty, Berger, Derrida, Habermas and others. Aspers (2009) noted that descriptions of how people feel, think and perceive things are central to the phenomenological approach. In addition, this author noted that the understanding that science reaches "is based on the practice and knowledge of the everyday lifeworld ... and meaning is understood in a context, and understanding can only emerge in a process" (p. 2). Schutz (cited in Aspers, 2009, p. 3) stated that "the starting point of social sciences has to be the ordinary life of people". Schutz (as cited in Willis, 2001, p. 3) defined life-world as "... the whole sphere of everyday experiences, orientations and actions through which individuals pursue their interests and affairs by manipulating objects, dealing with people, conceiving plans and carrying them out".
Embree (2010a, p. 3) argued that "the lifeworld is originally and concretely not only natural but also socio-cultural". "For naturalism, everything is physical nature, and what is not physical does not count; and this excludes, above all culture and mental life (Embree, 2010a, p. 2-3). Geoffrey Lloyd (as cited in Embree, 2010a, p. 3) claimed that "the West is different from other cultures because it has learned to abstract from culture and mind in order to focus on physical nature so that it can develop naturalistic science and naturalistic-scientific technology and power over everything". Within this article, the adoption of naturalistic science in relation to illness and disease is discussed in relation to subjective experiences.
Aspers (2009, p. 4) argued that "if we understand the social world and meet the demands of phenomenology, we must produce explanations that are grounded in the subjective experiences of real people. Social science must understand why and how things happen, and this must refer to the way people understand and relate to these phenomena". Patton (as cited in Basson & Mawson, 2011, p. 5) proposed that when collecting phenomenological data it is imperative for the researcher to "capture and describe how people experience a phenomenon - how they perceive, describe, feel, remember, and make sense of the particular phenomenon". To that end, Embree (2010b, p. 2), suggested that, within the ambit of reflective phenomenology, it is possible to observe "how there are various types of experiencing, various modes of believing, valuing and willing ... and things-as-experienced, as-believed-in, as-valued and as-willed in manifold ways". He further suggested that there are two types of reflection, 'self-observation' and 'reflection on others', and concluded that "phenomenology is more than mere self-observation and description". Phenomenology is culture appreciative and thus reflection, description and culture appreciation are the three generic properties of the phenomenological approach (Embree, 2010b, p. 2-3). This article, which draws on the lived experiences of others, lends itself to the phenomenological tradition. Furthermore, if this article is to be parceled into some discipline, it would belong to what Embree (2010b) called "sociological phenomenology" (p. 1).
The fault lines: Western and African culture
To understand phenomena requires a diagnosis that goes beyond the physical to the spiritual domains of life. For example, Matshidze and Mabogo (2009), in explaining illness, observed that Western medicine does not make a distinction between illness and disease and actually uses these two terms interchangeably. They argued that it is prudent to make a distinction between these concepts, especially in a non-Western cultural context. According to these authors "disease is an objectively measurable pathological condition of the body, for example, tooth decay, measles, or a broken bone whereas illness may, in fact, be due to a disease and represents not being normal or healthy but may also be due to a feeling of psychological or spiritual imbalance" (Matshidze & Mabogo, 2009, p. 2). Matshidze and Mabogo (2009) also argued that it is imperative to understand the other (African) worldview with respect to illnesses and their treatment given the different explanations that are possible as a result of the diversities in culture prevailing in African and Western contexts. They argued that these schisms can be generalized via what they termed two explanatory traditions, labeled 'naturalistic' and 'personalistic' causes of illnesses. They claimed that Westerners rely on a naturalistic explanation of illness, which presupposes that illness is a consequence of impersonal, mechanistic causes. Based on that premise Western medicine embraces:
- organic breakdown or deterioration (tooth decay, heart failure, senility);
- obstruction (kidney stones, arterial blockage due to plaque build-up);
- injury (broken bones, bullet wounds);
- imbalance (too much or too little of specific hormones and salts in the blood);
- malnutrition (too much or too little food, not enough proteins, vitamins, or minerals);
- parasites (bacteria, viruses, amoebas, worms).
This is different from the personalistic explanation embraced in African culture as well as other cultures. In this tradition, illness is a consequence of acts or wishes of other people or supernatural beings and forces. Adherents to personalistic medical systems believe that the causes and cures of illness are not to be found only in the natural world. As such, traditional healers usually use supernatural means to understand what is wrong with their patients in order to restore their health. Thus, typical causes of illness in personalistic medical systems include spirit possession, spirit loss, spirit damage and bewitching (Matshidze & Mabogo, 2009). These are issues suited to investigation using phenomenological methods and treatment.
African spirituality and belief systems
To understand the role of supernatural powers as a cause of poverty, the spirituality of the African people should be addressed first. The Shona African people in Zimbabwe have certain conservative or traditional belief systems that have defied Western influence and/or destruction. These beliefs include belief in Mwari (God), whom they believe is the uncaused Cause; Vadzimu (ancestors); Ngozi (avenging spirits) and Varoyi (witchcraft). The Shona people of Zimbabwe are made up of Vakaranga, VaZezuru, VaManyika, VaKorekore, and VaNdau linguistic groups who occupy the greater part of Zimbabwe (Asante, 2000, p. 20). There are other minority ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, including the Ndebele, Shangani, Tshivenda and Xhosa. Although this paper is not primarily concerned with delving into the Shona African religion, it is important that this belief system is discussed in order to investigate the ways in which it informs Shona (and Zimbabwean) understandings of the causes of poverty.
At the apex of the belief systems is Mwari (God) or Musikavanhu (Creator), an omnipotent spirit, which creates bad and good (Gelfand, 1970, p. 1). Mwari is the Creator of all the things on earth, human and non-human, including the good and bad spirits. The Shona people do not approach Mwari directly but instead do so through an intermediary or intermediaries, in the first instance to Vadzimu spirits, then to Mhondoro spirits for onward transmission to Mwari. These spirits relay everything to Mwari for their protection (Gelfand, 1970). The Mhondoro spirits or 'tutelary spirits' and family spirits (Vadzimu) both originate from the death of people (Gelfand, 1970). The Mhondoro spirit is concerned with the welfare of the whole community including such things as "succession to chieftainship, rain, drought, epidemic diseases, incest and bestiality ... whilst the vadzimu is for the protection of the family lineages, immediate and extended" (Gelfand, 1970, pp. 1-2). There is a strict moral code required to satisfy these spirits. For instance, there is a sacred day set aside once a week called chisi in honour of the area spirits (Bourdillon 1987, p. 70ff). On this day, the code dictates that land should not be tilled. It is an equivalent of the Sabbath Day in Christianity. The code, inter alia, includes respect for fellow beings, care and respect for the vulnerable in society such as orphans, children and the elderly, and a prohibition on killing (Gelfand, 1970). The consequences of breaching this code can result in poverty when the spiritual forces withdraw their protection and/or provision.
There is another form of spirits that also need to be explained; these are the ngozi, the angry spirit or avenging spirit. At the heart of the ngozi spiritual belief is the belief that a person has a metaphysical realm of life after death suggesting that a person's spirituality exists immortally and eternally long after their death. In other words, a person's spirit does not die but it departs to the spiritual world, known as Nyikadzimu. For the Shona people, death is a rite of passage in which the dead person spiritually acquires a permanent, supernatural, pure and incorrigible form of existence that commands respect from the living. Ngozi is the spirit of a person who has been angered, murdered or killed unlawfully, this spirit then comes back to exact revenge unless the murderer or his family members pay restitution. The spirit kills anyone who is blood related until they pay compensation in the form of cattle or, more recently, money and a female. Bourdillon (1976, p. 233), for example, argued that "ngozi is fearsome and terrifying because it attacks suddenly and very harshly". For the Shona people, life is a gift from Mwari, it is a man's greatest asset, and hence ngozi is a forceful deterrent against wanton destruction of human life. This avenging spirit can be said to cause poverty among the Shona people. This happens when people die mysteriously or lose their symbols of wealth such land, cattle and food. As such, the problems associated with avenging spirits cannot be addressed by conventional methods of poverty alleviation.
Spirituality and poverty nexus
To further understand alternative understandings of the causes of poverty, it is also necessary to explain the shave spirit. The shave spirit is believed to be the spirit of a person who is not related to the family. The person's spirit is thought to be wandering because he was not properly buried. For Gelfand (1970), the spirit is obliged to wander until it finds a medium or host through which it reveals itself. When a medium accepts a particular shave spirit s/he becomes endowed with the talent once possessed by the 'foreigner'. This is done so that the host family can benefit from the skills of hunting, of entrepreneurship or of whatever talent s/he once possessed. The modern expression of this spirit could manifest in being a successful medical doctor, musician or business person. This suggests that a successful harnessing of this spirit can be viewed as a poverty alleviation strategy.
The shave spirit can also be evil in its practice by bringing unwanted consequences to the host such as the spirit of witchcraft (shavi rekuroya), the spirit of stealing (shave reumbavha) and so on. This spirit can be dreadful as it may cause unexplainable illness, unlucky events and even mysterious death. These bad consequences of the shave can be taken to be primary causes of poverty, thus representing another level at which the causes of poverty could be understood. According to Christiaensen and Subbarao (2004), people reside in places with risks such as illness, death, weather related shocks (floods, earthquakes and droughts), violence and theft. To cope with these risks, people tend to invest in income generating activities (Christiaensen & Subbarao, 2004). In Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, people face these calamities. However, the occurrence of these calamities should also be understood within the realm of their spirituality if poverty alleviation polices are to succeed.
The Shona, like many other African people, have always had a mechanism or code of conduct to shield themselves from the calamities arising from nonconformity to their cultural practices. The cultural practices are promulgated by elders and approved by the vadzimu and mhondoro. Samkange and Samkange (1980) described this code of conduct as hunhu, a term which in Zulu/Ndebele is usually rendered as ubuntu. Samkange and Samkange (1980) also mentioned the terms munhu in Shona and umuntu in Ndebele/Zulu, which refer to a human being or person. The Shona/Ndebele or Bantu meaning of munhu or being is different from the English word 'person' as it means more than simply being human. For example, when we see a Black and a White person we say, ' hona munhu uyo ari kufamba nemurungu' which means there is munhu walking with a White man (Samkange & Samkange, 1980). This shows a deeper epistemological understanding that suggests that unhu/ubuntu is more than just being a human being or person. There is a code of behaviour expected in relation to how one treats relatives and non-relatives and this has consequences which define the purpose of life. Ubuntu/hunhu imposes different responsibilities and duties depending on age, sex, and a person's social position in society. In the section below some of the key responsibilities of the role players are discussed.
Responsibilities of role players
The Chiefs are expected to guard the community's assets jealously, including any natural resources such as land and everything that the land holds like minerals, forests, animals, and water. They are also expected to be guarantors of the rule of law, to be fair and to execute the administrative responsibilities of the state at the local level. If they fail to observe these, they are liable to face the ire of the Mhondoro, which may lead to poor rains and bad harvests thereby leading their community into poverty.
The subjects, in turn, should also obey the Chief's orders and are expected to participate democratically and equally in matters of the state. If they fail, they upset the Mhondoro who would then bring unbearable misfortunate such as death, loss of income, wealth and other calamities. The same code of conduct applies even at family level with the Vadzimu. Children are expected to look after their parents so that the parents do not cause unbearable problems when they become family spirits after their bodily/physical death. The African traditional view of acceptable conduct is best described by the statement that "I am because we are and since we are, therefore I am" (Mbiti, 1999, p. 145, emphasis added). The conceptual framework is that personhood (unhu/ ubuntu) is derived from other members of the community. A Ghanaian (Akan) saying states that one tree does not make a forest (Gyekye, 1991). This implies that a forest draws its identity from individual trees (Gyekye, 1991). This is in contrast to the Western notion as put by Descartes (1984) that cogito ego sum [I think therefore I exist]. This statement suggests that the individual exists in isolation from the community, thus portraying an individualistic worldview. This is contrary to ubuntu/hunhu, which focuses on the community at large and suggests that 'we are therefore we exist'.
To understand ubuntu/hunhu is to master one of the key strategies of poverty alleviation that could be used within the Zimbabwean context. Ubuntu/hunhu creates synergies within the society as it is based on mutual trust. Without that trust, the society cannot function. Marais (2005, p. 50) argued that kin and community support systems are crucial in an African setting. The systems include, inter alia, assisting with labour, lending money, providing food and fostering children.
In times of food shortages in rural areas, urban household members often help out by sending money or food. For their part, rural household members provide food to urban counterparts who lose their jobs, or they allow them to rejoin the rural household. ... The support is extended within networks of reciprocity, entitlement and responsibility. (Marais, 2005, p. 50)
Marais (2005, p. 54) argued that in Africa, as in Asia, the extended family spans a very large network of relatives and generations with the relationship being glued by kinship and marriage. This creates a source of mutual support, social cohesion and a safety net. These safety nets are products of hunhu/ubuntu and have lifted many people from cycles of poverty.
Torts and poverty
Another level to understand the causes of poverty is analysing the concept of kutanda botso. Kutanda botso (KB) is a process undertaken by a wrong doer or tort feasor to appease the spirit of the deceased person's surviving family. This is done through a combination of rituals and payment of presents in cash or kind to the relatives of the wronged family. In a KB scenario, the wrong doer or tort feasor commits a tort when he offends his parents. This is committed when he breaches the ubuntu/hunhu code, for example, by harassing parents either verbally or physically. This offence may be worse if it leads to the death of the parent. KB can also be committed if a person neglects his parents by not providing for their material needs when he is economically able to provide. Regardless of his or her age, a child who is economically active has an 'automatic' responsibility to materially support his or her parents at all times without any excuses. Even if someone is not economically active or employed, supporting parents takes many forms such as tilling land for them, fetching water, doing other household chores as well as showing respect and providing love. This practice is captured in a popular phrase, chirere chigokureravo, which means look after your child so that he/she looks after you at the time of need.
The tort should be so severe that the wronged parents may not easily forget and/or forgive the tort feasor without appeasing the spirit. When the parent(s) die they can come back in the form of an avenging spirit which can only be appeased by KB. It is believed that the female parent's spirit is more vicious than that of the male parent. The spirit of the mother and the father exist as separate entities after their bodily/physical death. It is believed that each spirit can cause untold suffering to the surviving wrong doer and requires appeasement separately. The spirit of the departed can cause untold suffering, misfortunes and hardships which can lead to abject poverty. The avenging spirit can cause a wide array of problems such as mysterious deaths in the family, unexplainable loss of employment, loss of income, loss of accommodation and so forth. All of these factors can lead to poverty.
Based on a study in Mashonaland West in Zimbabwe, Mtapuri (2010) claimed that respondents identified the common causes of poverty as theft, 'the economy' and drought. The incidences of theft included theft from fields, theft from granaries, theft of chickens, goats and even vegetables in the garden. Cattle rustling targeted old people and woman-headed households, leading to destitution (Mtapuri, 2010). The economy was pinpointed as a cause of poverty due to the hyper-inflationary environment that was prevalent at the time. This hyper-inflationary environment resulted in the poor being unable to pay for basic needs (Mtapuri, 2010). These causes could be considered the conventional causes. However, this article presents an expose of a different dimension in the experience of poverty caused by KB. Mtapuri's (2010) study could have benefited from direct questions concerning KB, and this represents a viable topic for further research using phenomenological methods. This article argues that there are people who believe in the supernatural causes of poverty. As such, the causes mentioned above could be deemed the 'normal' causes of poverty whereas kutanda botso and ngozi can be categorized as 'unusual' and therefore 'abnormal' causes of poverty. These causes of poverty can only be understood with a solid understanding of the aesthetics of the Shona culture and traditions of Zimbabwe. Although these causes are poorly understood within the Western context, for the people of Zimbabwe who believe in them they are as real as the rising sun.
Put simply, there is a belief that a person's life is influenced by spiritual powers that are connected to those in the world beyond which is the deity or Mwari/Umlimu. The vadzimu spirit and its power act as a shield against other forms of evil spirits which are marauding and searching for people to torment. The spirits of an individual's parents act as a shield or immune system in his or her life. If the spirit of an individual's departed parents, or grandparents, or great grandparents, which becomes mudzimu, is not happy about what that individual did to them or is doing to other people or if that individual is in breach of the unhu/ubuntu code, the spirit's protection is simply withdrawn. The individual then becomes exposed to the vagaries of the evil spirits which would torment him/her endlessly with poverty.
The traditional panacea
The sum total of these misfortunes is called munyama, which means bad luck when loosely translated into English. This bad luck can only be identified by consulting a traditional healer or a family spiritual leader who makes the diagnosis.
These people act as experts who direct what needs to be done in order to appease the avenging spirit and stop the identified causes of poverty. The avenging spirit does not stop unless or until the appeasement process has been undertaken and completed. The person (wrong doer) and his family become so poor that conventional poverty reduction strategies would not work. The perpetuation of an individual's misery, which is caused by the breadth and depth of poverty, results in him or her being called rombe. This means that society starts to socially exclude him/her, especially where they suspect that his/her condition was caused by breach of the unhu/ubuntu code. This stage of poverty cannot be reversed by modern poverty reduction methods such as provision of grants, seed money to start income generating projects, and training. Deaton (2002 cited in Christiaensen & Subbarao, 2004) claimed that people cope with poverty in the following ways: consumption smoothing, asset depletion, borrowing, involvement in government insurance schemes like public works and participating in informal insurance networks. According to Shona culture these strategies cannot work in the context of rombe. The rombe is also faced with many additional symptoms of poverty such as being socially excluded, homeless, clothe-less, unemployed, lacking confidence and finding it difficult to engage.
The Shona believe that rombe cannot simply be contrasted with urombo. Urombo - being poor - can be caused by many ordinary causes of poverty such as lack of access to education, lack of assets, lack of access to land, lack of marketable skills, disability, discrimination and so forth. These causes of poverty can be reversed by poverty intervention strategies such as training, grant money or loans to start income generation projects and public works. This means that there is a difference between the adjectives murombo and urombe and their derivative nouns rombe and murombo respectively. Rombe cannot be rehabilitated using conventional/Western methods. Instead, African methods must precede Western methods in the treatment of rombe. The conundrum is that the rombe may refuse rehabilitation before the appeasement rituals are performed, but a person who is a murombo (a poor person) may gladly participate without the rituals and be rehabilitated. It is therefore important for poverty experts to understand this nuance if they are to succeed in poverty reduction using non-conventional strategies. It is in this area of African aesthetics that phenomenological studies are critical.
Therefore, for the rombe and his family to break the cycle of poverty he has to appease the wronged spirit and ask for an apology from the wronged person's family. The appeasement process is not easy as it calls for maximum public humiliation of the tort feasor. If a tort feasor is late, then his family adopts the curse, facing the same wrath of the avenging spirit as was faced by the tort feasor. This means that this process can occur between families and it can also be inter-generational, just as poverty can be inter-generational. The appeasing process involves paying the family of the wronged spirit in cash or in kind. Presents are usually given in the form of cattle. However, an analysis of the appeasement process shows that this process can itself be a primary source of poverty. When a family is asked to part with assets such as goats, cattle or chicken in order to appease the avenging spirit this is a route to poverty for the paying family but a route out of poverty for the receiving family.
Case studies
Having discussed various aspects of spirits among the Shona people of Zimbabwe and their link with poverty, it is imperative at this juncture to introduce three case studies: an irrigation project; an HIV/AIDS intervention project in Manicaland province; and a dam project in Gokwe and Mutare.
Case Study: Irrigation intervention in Nyamaropa Communal area in Manicaland Province
Empirical research findings published by Magadlela and Hebinck in 1995 in Nyamaropa communal area in Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe are relevant to this paper. Magadlela and Hebinck (1995) argued that interventions aimed at transforming the social and economic life of a community spearheaded by agencies with origins elsewhere tend to ignore the local "life-worlds" and therefore result in failure (Magadlela & Hebinck (1995, p. 44). They further critiqued these approaches for being lopsided and "generalised and biased (in) [their] notions of ...technical abilities to bring about changes in their social and economic lives". We add to this argument by suggesting that such an approach cannot extricate people from poverty. Magadlela and Hebinck (1995), basing their argument on Long (1989, pp. 1-2), suggested that a problematic scenario results from what they call the 'development interface', which is defined as:
a critical point of intersection or linkage between different social systems, fields or levels of social order where structural discontinuities, based upon differences of normative values and social interest, are most likely to be found. (Long, 1989, pp. 1- 2)
The panacea for this development interface is for poverty reduction strategists to appreciate the potential conflict that results when different social systems, for example grant-based interventions perceived to be modern and superior, "interact (with indigenous knowledge systems) but fail to form a new social system" beneficial to the host community (Arce & Long, 1992, cited in Magadlela & Hebinck, 1995, p. 214).
In Nyamaropa, the researchers made a number of key findings. The most important finding relevant to this research is that there was a serious feud between settled farmers and local people on grounds of ancestral worship and this feud was undermining the progress of this irrigation project. The local leadership and people engaged in rain-making ceremonies (mukwerera) and they observed chisi. Chisi is a resting day when people are not supposed to work on the land as a sign of respect to the mhondoro. As mentioned previously, this practice is similar to Christian Sabbath Day observance. The irrigation project was accused by local chiefs of having tainted, if not destroyed, traditional sacred places through worshipping (by churches) in or near them. The chiefs also warned the irrigators to observe chisi. The researchers also found that the expansion of the irrigation scheme, an acknowledged poverty reduction intervention, would offend the spirits of the Sanyaropa clan as the clearing of trees to make way for irrigation destroys the home of the spirits. This was confirmed at a meeting held by local leadership. At this meeting, the headman stated the difficulty as follows:
Some of you go and pray in rivers and on mountains, and you chase our spirits away. They go and live in trees, the big ones you see around here, but you come again and cut down the tree. Where do you think the spirit goes after that? It has nowhere to stay, and you will not have rains when you have unhappy spirits. (Magadlela & Hebinck, 1995, p. 58)
The same meeting also demanded that the irrigators observe chisi in order to appease the clan spirits of the area. The findings of this study suggest that grant-based poverty alleviation projects alone are not sufficient for poverty alleviation. Instead, indigenous knowledge systems should be integrated into poverty alleviation.
Case Study: HIV/AIDS Intervention Project
Orphans and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe live in various care settings; some are cared for by grandmothers, others by members of the extended family and some by non-relatives. A study by Munyati (2006), conducted in Bulilamangwe district in Matebeleland Province and Chimanimani in Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe, using an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Project's Generic Census Questionnaire and ethically approved by the Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe, showed that young people were providing care to their elderly 'carers' and/or sick parents (Munyati, 2006) in the context of HIV/AIDS pandemic. These orphans helped their 'carers', often a grandmother/father, with domestic chores such as washing of dishes, clothes, cooking and provision of personal care. The same study also revealed that the support structures for orphans were mainly community based organisations driven by local people (Munyati, 2006). Some community members were found to be sympathetic to these children. However, some NGOs, for example, were reported to be discriminating against poor children by making it difficult for orphans to access their services. A vulnerable child said, "They do not select us when it comes to trips to go for workshops. They would be afraid that we will shame them since we would be poorly dressed and they consider us to be of a low class" (Munyati, 2006, p. 29).
A separate study undertaken by Matshalaga (2004), conducted in the rural areas of Zvishavane District in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe, investigated "how grandmothers organise their new households (in the context of HIV/AIDS deaths) in order to produce and provide for the family" (p. 2). The study also investigated the strategies used by orphans for survival (Matshalaga, 2004). The study found that orphans help their grandmothers by providing labour in subsistence agriculture where they manually plant, weed, clear and harvest crops and tend animals (Matshalaga, 2004).
The practice of young people and orphans providing domestic and personal care in households is considered controversial. However, a closer analysis of the practice needs to include the idea that children do not want to offend their elderly carers lest the elderly relative passes on to the spiritual world through death and becomes an avenging spirit (ngozi). It can further be argued that although the support given by the community to orphans and by children to their sick parents is voluntary, it is also motivated by a belief that disembodied humans continue to exist in a spiritual manner. We argue in this paper that a realisation of the existence of this spiritual world by the orphans and by the Shona community creates a symbiotic relationship with inherent checks and balances capable of preventing anti-social behaviour, discrimination and abuse of vulnerable adults, vulnerable children and orphans.
Case Study: Water Dam Project in Gokwe and Mutare
Poverty alleviation projects that do not take into account people's spiritual beliefs do not progress well. The government of Zimbabwe has, among others, initiated two dam projects (at Gokwe and Mutare) which have been temporarily halted because of the belief that mermaids were preventing water engineers from installing pumps. Giving evidence before the Senate Committee on Gender and Development, a Zimbabwean Government Minister responsible for Water Resources Development and Management was reported in the media as having said, "We even hired whites thinking that our boys did not want to work but they also returned saying they would not return to work there again" (Nkomo, 2012, p. 1).
The Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister concurred that they were going to work with traditional leaders to brew African traditional beer to appease the clan spirits (mhondoro). The belief among the Shona is that the living humans do not own the current resources (water, land, forests, and minerals) but instead they are mere custodians of these resources who must look after them communally on behalf of the disembodied beings in the spiritual world (vadzimu) who are the owners. The living will become joint-owners of the resources when they pass on to the spiritual world through death. The expectation is that the living beings cannot, therefore, use these resources as they please without informing or appeasing the ancestors (vadzimu or mhondoro) who hold title to these resources. The Shona also believe that the living have an absolute duty to defend those resources by any means necessary so that they do not end up being owned by non-indigenous people. Failure to do so would invite serious punishment from the clan spirits.
In light of the evidence from these examples concerning dam building, irrigation schemes and HIV/AIDS programmes it is clear that if poverty alleviation projects are divorced from the people's spiritual worldview they are unlikely to succeed. The dead are believed to be part of the living and they cannot be side-stepped in important community development projects. There is thus a need to research culturally-appropriate approaches to development using phenomenology.
As Krumer-Nevo (cited in Thomas, Muradian, de Groot, & de Ruijter, 2009, p. 254) rightly suggested, it is clear that "locally informed programmes and methods, the 'life knowledge' of the people who experience poverty and vulnerability in their lives combined with expert knowledge" are important in the alleviation of poverty. In order to solve the problem of poverty occurring as a result of kutanda botso caused by an avenging spirit (ngozi), alien spirit (shave), clan spirits (mhondoro), or family spirits (mudzimu) it is important to engage the family and communities.
As authors, we are aware that matters of religion are problematic because they are relative to a specific people. However, the onus is on human development practitioners to take into account people's cultural beliefs if human development interventions are to have positive impacts on people's lives.
We end this article with these insightful words:
The poor can be targeted once they are identified, but poverty can be reduced when policies aim at its causes. (Thomas et al., 2009, p. 254)
This article has argued that supernatural causes of poverty have received very little attention when designing poverty reduction strategies. The challenge still remains as to how to incorporate local conceptions of spirituality into poverty alleviation development strategies and how to study these conceptions using phenomenological methods. The article has also highlighted some of the causes of poverty that can be said to have a supernatural character and has looked at how these can be addressed. It is hoped that these suggested strategies will go a long way in augmenting Western oriented strategies for poverty alleviation. It is our position that understanding the supernatural causes of poverty, as well as the hybridisation of approaches to poverty alleviation, will build long lasting solutions to problems faced by people in their various communities.
Referencing Format
Mtapuri, O., & Mazengwa, P. J. (2013). Of spirituality and poverty: A Zimbabwean cultural perspective. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 13(1), 10 pp. doi: 10.2989/IPJP.2013.13.1.6.1172
Alkire, S. (2007). Choosing dimensions: The capability approach and multi-dimensional poverty. In N. Kakwani & J. Silber (Eds.), The many dimensions of poverty (pp. 89-119). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. [ Links ]
Asante, K. W. (2000). Zimbabwe dance: Rhythmic forces, ancestral voices: An aesthetic analysis. Trento, Zimbabwe: African World Press. [ Links ]
Aspers, P. (2009). Empirical phenomenology: A qualitative research approach. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 9(2), 1-12. [ Links ]
Basson, P. J., & Mawson, P. (2011). The experience of violence by male juvenile offenders convicted of assault: A descriptive phenomenological study. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 11(1), 10pp. doi:10.2989/ IPJP.2011.11.1.2.1101. [ Links ]
Bourdillon, M. F. C. (1987). The Shona peoples: An ethnography of the contemporary Shona, with special reference to their religion. Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press. [ Links ]
Christiaensen, L. J., & Subbarao. K. (2004). Toward an understanding of household vulnerability in Kenya. Washington DC: World Bank. [ Links ]
Descartes, R. (1984). The philosophical writings of Descartes (Volume 2). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published in the 17th century) [ Links ]
Embree, L. (2010a). Interdisciplinarity within phenomenological. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 10(1), 7pp. doi: 10.2989/IPJP.2010.10.1.2.1074 [ Links ]
Embree, L. (2010b). Disciplinarity in phenomenological perspective. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 10(2), 5pp. doi: 10.2989/IPJP.2010.10.2.2.1083 [ Links ]
Gelfand, M. (1970). Unhu - The personality of the Shona in studies in comparative religion. Retrieved from http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com [ Links ]
Gyekye, K. (1991). Person and community in African thought. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from Africa (pp. 12 -37). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]
Long, N. (1989). Encounters at the interface: A perspective on social discontinuities in rural development. Wageningen, The Netherlands: Agricultural University of Wageningen. [ Links ]
Magadlela, D., & Hebinck, P. (1995). Dry fields and spirits in trees - A social analysis of irrigation intervention in Nyamaropa communal area, Zimbabwe. Zambezia Journal, XXII(J), 43-62. [ Links ]
Marais, H. (2005). Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa. Pretoria, South Africa: University of Pretoria. [ Links ]
Matshalaga, N. (2004). Grandmothers and orphan care in Zimbabwe. Harare, Zimbabwe: SAfAIDS Publications. [ Links ]
Matshidze, P., & Mabogo, D. E. (2009, September). Some problem health conditions recognized and treated in African health systems. Paper presented at the National Indigenous Knowledge System Expo 2009, Bolivia Lodge, Polokwane, South Africa. [ Links ]
Mbiti, J. (1999). African religions and philosophy. London, United Kingdom: Heinemann Publishers. [ Links ]
Mtapuri, O. (2010). Developing a poverty index for African economies using the consensual approach: The case of Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe. Saarbrucken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. [ Links ]
Munyati, S. (2006). A qualitative assessment of orphans and vulnerable children in two Zimbabwean districts. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press. [ Links ]
Nkomo, S. (2012, January 31). Mermaids stopping government work. Zimbabwe Herald Newspaper, p. 1. [ Links ]
Samkange, S., & Samkange, T. M. (1980). Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwean indigenous political philosophy. Salisbury, United Kingdom: Graham Publishing Company. [ Links ]
Stones, C. R. (2009). Editorial. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 9(1), 1-4. [ Links ]
Thomas, B. K., Muradian, R., de Groot, G., & de Ruijter, A. (2009). Multidimensional poverty and identification of poor households: A case from Kerala, India. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 10(2), 237-257. [ Links ]
Willis, P. (2001). The "things themselves" in phenomenology. The Indo-pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 1(1), 112. [ Links ]
About the Authors
Oliver Mtapuri is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the Turfloop Graduate School of Leadership at the University of Limpopo. He received his PhD from the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). His main interests are human development, community development, poverty and inequality. E-mail address: email@example.com.
Pudurai Justin Mazengwa is a Director for a private organisation in the United Kingdom. He, inter alia, graduated from the University of Bristol and the School for Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) with a Masters in Social Work and a Masters in Development Studies respectively. His main interests are human development, social corporate responsibility, poverty and inequality


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ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Minimizing Delusions
Treatment for mental illnesses, including that for schizophrenia, is an imperfect deal. Those who are in treatment will almost invariably have some residual symptoms. A person with schizophrenia will sometimes be delusional while taking medication. Sometimes the dosage is wrong, either too low or too high. (Too much medication can be just as bad, sometimes worse, compared to too little medication.) Also, antipsychotic medications do not always work. About a third of people with schizophrenia aren't helped by medication.
When someone has a lot of experience dealing with their illness they can sometimes self-assess. Yet this is not always reliable.
A person with a psychotic tendency would do well to have several layers of carefulness-like a failsafe system, to prevent getting excessively delusional. For example, self assessment could be a first layer, and this could be followed with monitoring by one's significant other (or perhaps a roommate.) The idea is to have people in your life who know you and who you can share thoughts with, so that you can get another opinion on possible delusions.
Keeping secrets from one's psychiatrist prevents being helped. The point is to catch one's delusions before they proliferate. If psychosis while medicated becomes too severe, it increases the likelihood of noncompliance.
The question arises: how do you know it when you're delusional, and what do you do about it?
Moreover, when are people really "out to get me," and when is this thought merely a product of the illness? When is a person dealing with the "real extraterrestrials" versus the ones that the person is imagining? When is someone really a famous person, and when are they having "delusions of grandeur"?
I am helped by the "I don't know" axiom that I have adopted. This is the admission that my knowledge is limited. If I adopt an "I don't know" stance, I am less likely to act on a belief that may be inaccurate. Prevention of acting on delusions is like declawing a tiger. You still have a tiger but it is no longer mauling people. Thus, if a person with a delusional disorder learns to regulate their actions, it prevents their delusions from doing external harm. (In order for this to work, it is necessary to have some idea that a thought is questionable.)
A "delusional system" is a set of interwoven delusions that take the place of the perception of reality. A person with psychosis may be emotionally attached to their delusional system. The delusional system may have elements that reassure a person, that make a person special, or that shield a person from difficult truths. Delusions tend to be beliefs that are very unusual and that do not ordinarily seem credible.
Getting over a delusional system usually requires medical treatment, e.g., medication, but can also require that a person "give up" a belief to which they may be emotionally attached.
Because I have experience with techniques of mindfulness, I have learned not to be emotionally attached to delusions. This is an area in which meditative practices can augment drug therapy. When someone eliminates their emotional attachment to delusions, and is not afraid to tell a psychiatrist or family member what the delusions are, they have a better chance of becoming nearly delusion-free.
Delusions sometimes have power because they hijack the pain and pleasure capacities of the brain. Delusions multiply when kept secret. When a person with schizophrenia takes the step of relinquishing the emotional attachment to delusions, they have eliminated something that reinforces their illness.
I will often use my wife or my psychotherapist as an external "reality checker" where I ask how realistic a particular thought sounds to them. I don't share delusions with strangers or with members of the general public because they would not understand.
Schizophrenia is insidious partly because it warps all of the perceptions. Thus the psychotic person will believe that they have a lot of evidence to support beliefs which they do not realize are false.
If I were taken off medication, it would not matter that ordinarily I know the difference between a delusion and a truth. I would become delusional from being taken off medication because the basic reality-finding ability of my brain would stop working. I would forget all of these wonderful thoughts and techniques that today help me think pretty clearly. If I lacked medication, I would become more and more delusional until I reached a point where I would need external intervention.
Getting the brain's "hardware" to work by administering medication is the first step, and only after that can a person work on the errors in "software," originally produced by a malfunctioning brain.
There are some strategies for alleviating delusions in addition to standard treatment that might surprise you. Getting distracted by something calming and enjoyable can reset the thoughts, which can allow reality to filter into the mind. I once got over my delusions when the movie "Field of Dreams" was played in a psychiatric ward. I was released within a few days of that.

subset: commoncrawl


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Lego Star Wars has been one of the most successful Lego theme in the past 10 years, and now at SDCC09, Lego and Pixar has just announced Toy Story Lego!
Does anyone want MotU Lego? Imagine building your own Castle Grayskull, or Snake Mountain! Imagine the Wind Raider made out of Lego. Do you think we will get Lego MotU anytime soon?


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Valve's Steam Box Plans To Expand The Universe
Only one more day of waiting to see what tricks Valve has up their sleeve with a product rumored to be titled the Steam Box. The company has a countdown page with just over 24 hours left on the clock (at the time of writing this). Below the countdown there is mention of Steam in [&hellip
Diablo III Auction House Shutting Down
Since Diablo III was released back in May of 2012, there have been some very opposing opinions on the game. One of the biggest controversies of the game was the Auction House; a place to buy or sell in-game items. Blizzard has finally decided the Auction House should be removed after stating that it "ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play." An email arrived in the inboxes of D3 players a few days ago explaining the situation. While the email had very limited information, it did say the Auction House would be no more on March 18, 2014.
The email reads as follows:
We are writing tell you about an important change to Diablo III: we're going to be removing the gold and real-money auction house system from the game.
When we initially designed and implemented the auction house system, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But after much review and player feedback, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.
We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the final shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process, but feel free to check out our blog post on the subject, and stay tuned to Diablo 3.com for further details.
– The Diablo III team


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KELO-TV: Professor Conducts Study on Children's Vocabulary
Dr. Olivia Lima, assistant professor of Psychology, was recently featured on KELO-TV for her research study that focuses on preschoolers' word learning in a school setting.
Augustana Students Involved in Plain Green Conference
Seniors Jamie Horter and Karin Costin have been involved in the planning for the Plain Green Conference and Marketplace to be held April 28-29 at the Washington Pavilion in downtown Sioux Falls.
Augustana Students Sweep Research Competition
Augustana students Jared Soundy and Marissa Kern won outstanding undergraduate poster citations at the South Dakota Academy of Science meeting April 10 in Spearfish, SD.
Augustana Professor Appointed as Fulbright Scholar
Dr. Joel Johnson, associate professor of Government and International Affairs, will serve as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer/Researcher at the University of Marburg in Hesse, Germany.
New Graduate Degree in Sports Administration and Leadership
Augustana will be offering a Master of Arts in Sports Administration and Leadership, pending approval of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
Six Students Awarded Christopherson Scholarships
The six students were selected for the 2010-2011 academic year based on scholarship, campus and community service, and how well they fit the description of the donors as someone "equipped for life."
Reception to Honor Sinte Gleska President Lionel Bordeaux
Lionel Bordeaux, president of Sinte Gleska University and major supporter of American Indian issues, will be honored Tuesday, April 20, during a reception at the Center for Western Studies.
Thought Leader Forum features Major League Baseball VP
On Friday, April 23, Webster, SD, native and Augustana graduate Laurel Prieb headlines the final segment of this spring's Augustana Thought Leader Forum. Prieb is in his fifth year as Vice-President of Western Operations for MLB.
Student Congregation Leadership Team in Place for 2010-11
The Chapel of Reconciliation Student Congregation leadership team has been named for 2010-2011. Each spring, students are invited to apply for positions that coordinate the work of the student congregation.
Kelly Sprecher Named Director of Communications and Media Relations
Augustana has announced Kelly Sprecher as the College's new director of communications and media relations. Sprecher replaces retiring Bruce Conley, director of news information since 1990.


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She's the baddest of the comic book bad girls; she's a kitten with a whip; she's tantalizing catnip to the most serious-minded superhero of them all; and she's an icon of female empowerment.
It takes a certain kind of Hollywood actress to sink her claws into Catwoman and Anne Hathaway looks up to the challenge as she inhabits the role - and skintight costume - in "The Dark Knight Rises," opening Friday. PopcornBiz takes a look at Catwoman's backstory, and the ladies who've led the characters many lives.
Comic book artist Bob Kane and his collaborator, writer Bill Finger, first crafted Catwoman – a.k.a. career criminal Selina Kyle – as a femme fatale foil for their creation Batman back in 1940, there was no catsuit, no whip – even her name wasn't fully formed, known only as "The Cat." But she did have a built-in Hollywood pedigree, having been modeled after two seductively sexy superstars of the day: Kane drew, literally, upon the lithe sensuality of Jean Harlow, and the dark, smoldering looks of Hedy Lamarr.
It wasn't until two decades later that the tables turned and Hollywood actresses found themselves rising to the challenge of embodying the ethereal qualities that distinguish the Dark Knight's slinky nemesis/paramour. Their combined efforts have contributed to the Feline Fatale's enduring screen presence.
1. Julie Newmar
The statuesque Newmar was the first screen Catwoman, introducing the character to the pubic on the phenomenally popular "Batman" TV series, bringing a dancer's sinuous grace and a wicked gleam in her eye to the campy take on the Caped Crusader. Between Newmar's quirky chemistry with series star Adam West, entendre-laced dialogue from writer Stanley Ralph Ross, and the sleek black catsuit, Catwoman coalesced into an empowering blend of femininity and feminism.
"Catwoman is appealing because she's a rascal," Newmar told PopcornBiz in 2011. "If you're the good kid in the family, you kind of get ignored, but if you're the naughty one, you're the one that they're always going after, always looking to see what you'll do next or what's happening here. They're not going to keep their eyes off of you. So some of that – maybe 50% naughtiness and 50% the other stuff."
The catsuit, she says, "just puts you in a good mood. You wear black and put on the heels, that also makes your posture go forward slightly so you're kind of out there, looking and accepting and finding new people to play with."
2. Lee Meriwether
When Newmar was unavailable for the 1966 "Batman" theatrical film produced in a rush to capitalize on the bat-craze, Meriwether, 1955's Miss America, won the role by adding a literal bit of feline flair to her interpretation.
"I had to read for the part and there were five girls in the outer office when I got there to read," Meriwether recalled in "The Official Batman Batbook." "They gave me a scene, and I thought, 'I really have to do something to make them remember me,' as those other girls were really gorgeous. So I decided I would do things like a cat: I curled myself up in the chair and I licked my hand like a paw and did a little preening and purring and things like that. [Director] Les Martinson said to them 'I didn't tell her to do that!' It all kind of worked, and I had the part."
The part had an added benefit at home, she added: "I really made it in my daughters' eyes when I became Catwoman. I had to do 'Star Trek' or 'Batman' – I did both, but if I hadn't have done 'Batman' I would have been nothing."
3. Eartha Kitt
A movie role also kept Newmar from three Catwoman stints on the twice-weekly series, and the producers made a bold choice for the times when they temporarily recast the part with African American actress and singer Kitt, then well known for the distinctive growl in her voice.
"It was a racial victory," the late actress recalled in "Catwoman: The Life and Times of a Feline Fatale." "A black woman portraying a traditionally white character? I don't think of myself in terms of a race. I am an artist."
Kitt played the character totally claws out and with a certain hiss that was far more aggressive than any previous Catwoman, but just as sexy – it was she who really made Selina's signature phrase "Purrrfect" sing. "I had never seen any of the segments before," admitted Kitt. "I don't think I even read the comic. I knew nothing about what they were looking for. But since people have thought of me as a cat, it seems, and told me that I movie catlike, I was just myself. More."
4. Michelle Pfeiffer
When Catwoman resurfaced in 1992 for "Batman Returns," the hotly anticipated sequel to the re-darkened "Batman" directed by Tim Burton, Pfeiffer played her as a ferocious feminist force: a mousy office drone abused by men and restitched together for a second life as a seductress just as likely to claw Batman's eyes out as to kiss him.
"Tim Burton reinvented it and I was the lucky gal who got to play it," Pfeiffer recently told PopcornBiz. "This was really his vision, and Tim is always so collaborative, so it's hard to know what was him and what was me, but that was really so strongly drawn and so clearly drawn. I'll never forget this. He came down because he wasn't happy with where the stitches were on my catsuit. They would replace them, and finally he got so frustrated that he came down to the wardrobe department and placed the stitches on my catsuit myself, on my body, and that was the end of it."
Pfeiffer says the character has remained a potent icon throughout different eras "because all little girls and all women have this inner rage that we spend our lives controlling and being good little girls, and she's everyone's fantasy."
5. Halle Berry
Catwoman hasn't always landed on her feet in Hollywood: witness her widely panned 2004 solo film starring Halle Berry, as graphic designer Patience Phillips – NOT Selina Kyle – who ends up targeted for murder by her cosmetics company client but revived as a whip-wielding, midriff-baring minx by Egyptian Mau cats serving the goddess Bast and – yeah, it gets lamer after that. Nevertheless, Berry certainly looked the part, and reestablished that Catwoman's appeal transcended her traditional appeal.
A good sport who actually showed up to collect her Golden Raspberry Award in person, Berry (who had better super-heroic success as the X-Men's Storm) later told reporters she'd catsuit up again "in a minute. I loved it so much and I hate that it [failed] – it was what it was, but if we had a chance to do it again I know that we would make it better…I loved being Catwoman. I think that Catwoman was a great character that maybe just wasn't presented in the right way," she added. "People see it on video and they seem to like it. They tell me that it wasn't as bad as they all said."
6, 7 & 8. Adrienne Barbeau, Gina Gershon and Eliza Dushku
Along with live action, Catwoman's also inhabited various animated incarnations of Gotham City as one of Batman's rogue's gallery regulars, where a trio of alluring leading ladies have embodied her spirit using only their velvety vocal cords: Barbeau in "Batman: The Animated Series," Gershon in "The Batman" and Dushku in the home video animated adaptation of Frank Miller's seminal "Batman: Year One," as well as Selina's own stand-alone animated adventure.
"I wanted to purr, and they let me purr – so that was really like getting a bit of extra credit," Dushku explained earlier this year. "I wanted to get in there and really emphasize her relationship with her cats, as I think it's very feral and very significant. And everyone was really cool about letting me play around with my ferocity."
9. Anne Hathaway
The latest – and perhaps most highly anticipated – Catwoman to bow on the big screen is Hathaway's sophisticated thief in the hyper-realistic cinematic world created by director Christopher Nolan in his third Batman film, "The Dark Knight Rises."
"I love the costume," Hathaway told Hero Complex from the set of the film. "I love the costume because everything has a purpose, nothing is in place for fantasy's sake, and that's the case with everything in Christopher Nolan's Gotham City."
"What's come before doesn't limit or even affect this new version," Hathaway explained. "It doesn't affect me because each Catwoman – and this is true in the comics as well – is defined by the context of the Gotham City created around her. Catwoman is so influenced by Gotham and whoever is creating Gotham at the time. Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman was informed by Tim Burton's Gotham and Eartha Kitt was informed by Adam West's Gotham. You have to live in whatever the reality of the world is and whatever Gotham is."
But Hathaway did admit to drawing a little outside inspiration from one of the original templates, Hedy Lamarr. "I know this sounds odd, but her breathing is extraordinary," the actress said. "She takes these long, deep, languid breaths and exhales slowly. There's a shot of her in 'Ecstasy' exhaling a cigarette and I took probably five breaths during her one exhale. So I started working on my breathing a lot."


text: Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Para, Para, Paradise Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today! Job Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in Para, Para, Paradise Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message sixthchildJoined: 18 Apr 2012Posts: 298Location: East of Eden Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:36 am Post subject: Para, Para, Paradise Its not often I get a lump in my throat, but after all the bs and bad news we hear every day, I just took a look at the closing ceremony for the paraolympics, WOW!!! http://youtu.be/pIRHMmM2z7c You have just got to check it out! Not your usual 2.5 minute vid, this is something else!!!! Makes me proud to be a Brit, not for the first time this year! Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum All times are GMT Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Where to Begin----------------General DiscussionNewbie ForumCurrent Events ForumTechnology ForumOnline Teaching Forum Africa Forums----------------General Africa Forum Asia Forums----------------CambodiaChina (Job-related Posts Only)China (Off-Topic)Hong KongIndiaIndonesiaJapanMalaysiaPhilippinesSingaporeTaiwanThailandGeneral Asia ForumVietnam Caribbean Forums----------------General Caribbean Forum Europe Forums----------------Czech RepublicFranceGermanyGreeceItalyMacedonia and the BalkansPolandRomaniaRussia & C.I.S.SpainTurkeyUkraineUnited KingdomGeneral Europe Forum Latin America Forums----------------ArgentinaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaMexicoMexico (off-topic)PeruGeneral Latin America Forum The Middle East Forums----------------BahrainEgyptIsraelKuwaitOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesGeneral Middle East Forum North America Forums----------------General North America Forum Oceania----------------Australia/New Zealand You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Contact Dave's ESL Cafe Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved. Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group Teaching Jobs in China


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Our staff are working from home and will assist during normal trading hours
Physical flying will commence July 2020
Trading Hours
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You want to Become a Pilot?
Westline Aviation welcomes you!
But, before you take the plunge, it is essential to know what you are getting yourself in to!
Selection of the correct training establishment is as important as your decision to become a pilot. Well, look no further! We here at Westline Aviation maintain all the essential elements that you as an aspiring pilot should be looking for. Finally, an organisation that can be trusted to put your flight training needs first!
Westline Aviation is ideally situated at New Tempe Airport in Bloemfontein and provides world class training on both Fixed Wing Aircraft and Helicopters. A highly qualified and dedicated team are on call to support your full spectrum of training. We pledge to give you the best training, not only flying knowledge and skills, but also a healthy attitude towards flight safety.
Our website will tell you more about us; such as the various courses offered and the quality of training we provide. Find out first-hand why Westline Aviation is held in such high regard in the aviation industry and why we are proud of our flight training institution.
So, whether you want to be a recreational pilot or an Airline pilot, our team is ready to assist you in taking this important step towards realising your dream.
The Best Pilot Training, Knowledge and Skills
All training modules offered are incorporated into an integrated master plan; flight training elements will be done in accordance with ICAO principles. Our training is highly structured and integrates ground and flight instruction, our courses are designed to make you a safe and proficient pilot.
A message from Charlie
Some want to fly because they heard it was great fun, others because they are seeking to make it their career. Whatever your reasons are for wanting to take to the air, it is definitely an experience you will never forget! The intensity and freedom of flight, and the skills which are acquired and developed, are to mention but a few perks of learning how to fly. For the past 41 years I have made a career out of flying and have never worked a day in my life. The promise of elevating myself above the earth in a fixed or rotor wing aircraft is enough to make me rush off to my office in the sky every day. To strap any size air vehicle to my back is such a privilege that I dare not miss an opportunity. I live my dream, sometime upside down, but I promise you, the earth is round...
There is however a few basics one needs to know before venturing into the flying game:
With the freedom of flight comes a highly disciplined and professional, hard studying, and highly dedicated individual. Pick your school very carefully, flying is not cheap, so ask the questions, or do you consider your life cheap? If it is easy then there are cheating or incompetent trainers believe me, nothing easy and cheap in life is really worth attaining, so do not make your flying experience a regrettable experience. To be a professional pilot or pilot instructor, make sure you are trained by a professional. Too expensive, then you are paying for the name. Too cheap you are in for low qualified and poor instruction and probably poorly maintained aircraft.
Make sure your school has enough aircraft, instructors, not too busy an airfield with uncluttered airspace. Bad weather conditions will always make your course more expensive and spread over a longer time. Read the fine print to find list the extras that you are not quoted for. Is South African VAT included; if not then it is against the law. Is the fuel, landing fees, instructors fees and so on, included? Everything makes up for the bottom line and many advertise to lure you with a seemingly cheap quote, but then you are in for a surprise which always comes too late.
To shop in a big city is a good experience; to fly around a big city is a waste of time.
Oh yes, the aviation world is ever expanding, in three years from now you will be needed, but will you be ready?


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In light of recent news, it is only fitting that another hardcore app, Firemint seamy, unapproved racer is barred from the App Store. Like Allen Leung's Hottest Girls which should return armed with beefier bikinis and fewer nipple shots, Firemint have a hard-core version of their racer that likely won't fit Apple's stringent approval system.
The skinny? The 'tech demo' as it is dubbed, features more rubber, more steam and a greater affinity for crashes and dangerous situations – it is simply that hard-core. (video after the jump)


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With diabetes on the rise, doctors are extremely concerned about associated risks such as heart disease and stroke, which together kill two out of three people with diabetes. Fortunately, a recent study indicates that more people with diabetes are making the link between diabetes and their increased risk for heart disease and stroke.
According to a last time's awareness survey conducted by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC), 45 percent of people with diabetes understand their increased risk for heart disease, which is up from 35 percent compared to last study.
Experts believe even more awareness is needed, however. The ADA and ACC continue to work together to share important information, tools and resources to encourage people with diabetes-and health care providers-to learn more about the impact of diabetes on the heart.
Other findings from the ADA/ACC awareness survey show:
• 69 percent know they may develop high blood pressure (38 percent in last study).
• 64 percent know they are at risk for cholesterol problems (37 percent in last study).
Importantly, more people with diabetes are talking to their health care providers about managing diabetes comprehensively:
• 45 percent of people with diabetes now have a goal for blood glucose levels (30 percent in last study).
• 57 percent have a goal for blood pressure (34 percent in last study).
• 61 percent have a goal for cholesterol (34 percent in last study).
These figures are encouraging, but awareness may not be moving fast enough to keep pace with the growing prevalence of diabetes.
Recent statistics indicate diabetes has risen by over 14 percent since last estimates in the last study. The need for increased education and awareness about the link between diabetes and heart disease is now more critical than ever.
Armed with the best information, people with diabetes can properly manage their diabetes, understand their risks for complications such as heart disease and stroke, and take action to live a longer, healthier life.
Content List
- 1 Diabetes and Heart Connection
- 1.1 Why Is Heart Disease So Common in People With Diabetes?
- 1.2 How to Prevent or Delay Heart Disease
- 1.3 Take Action
- 1.4 Stop Smoking
- 1.5 Lose Weight If Overweight
- 1.6 Keep Blood Pressure in Control
- 1.7 Get More Physical Activity
- 1.8 Keep Your Blood Fats and Cholesterol in Control
- 1.9 Keep Blood Glucose in Check
Diabetes and Heart Connection
According to Om P. Ganda, Director, Lipid Clinic there is a strong link between diabetes and heart disease that is now well established. Studies from Joslin Diabetes Center several years ago showed a two to threefold increase in the incidence of heart disease in patients with diabetes compared with those without diabetes who were being followed in the Framingham Heart Study. Women with diabetes have an even greater risk of heart disease compared with those of similar age who do not have diabetes. In fact, cardiovascular disease leading to heart attack or stroke is by far the leading cause of death in both men and women with diabetes. Another major component of cardiovascular disease is poor circulation in the legs, which contributes to a greatly increased risk of foot ulcers and amputations.
Several advances in the treatment of heart disease over the past two decades have improved the chances of surviving a heart attack or stroke. However, as the incidence of diabetes steadily increases, so has the number of new cases of heart disease and cardiovascular complications. Unfortunately, in patients with diabetes, improvement in survival has been less than half as much as in the general population.
Why Is Heart Disease So Common in People With Diabetes?
Diabetes by itself is now regarded as the strongest risk factor for heart disease; however, a variety of mechanisms—not solely blood glucose levels—most likely come into play. The blood vessels in patients with diabetes are more susceptible to other well-established risk factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and more than 90% of patients with diabetes have one or more of these additional risk factors.
Some of the increased susceptibility to blood vessel damage that people with diabetes have could be due to the long-term effects of inadequate control of blood glucose levels on the tissues or as a result of other cell damage related to diabetes. There is also evidence that being overweight, having a sedentary lifestyle and poor blood glucose control contribute to the increased chance of high blood pressure and abnormalities in blood lipids (i.e., high cholesterol, high triglycerides and a low level of HDL cholesterol—the "good" cholesterol.
Research on the role of additional risk factors is being conducted. Evidence shows that patients with diabetes have an increased level of low-grade inflammation of their arterial lining, a process that initiates the blood vessel changes leading to heart disease. Some of the new tests to assess this inflammation are being evaluated, including C-reactive protein and homocysteine.
How to Prevent or Delay Heart Disease
The best way to prevent or delay the development of cardiovascular disease is to prevent diabetes itself. People with increased risk for diabetes can be identified. A large National Institutes of Health-sponsored study, the Diabetes Prevention Program, and other studies have proven that modest weight reduction and a 30-minute exercise routine five days a week can reduce the development of type 2 diabetes over three years by more than 50%. Moreover, even people at risk for diabetes or those with prediabetes, in addition to those with diabetes, frequently have abnormalities in blood pressure and lipid levels that can be detected and treated to prevent cardiovascular disease.
Weight control and smoking cessation are two important lifestyle measures that have an impact on preventing heart disease. Studies show that even in overweight people, regular physical activity has major cardiovascular benefits.
In the last 10 years, large-scale research studies around the world have shown that optimal control of LDL cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) and blood pressure can prevent adverse cardiovascular outcomes by 30% to 50%. The American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association recommend an LDL cholesterol goal in all adults with diabetes at less than 100 mg/dl. In people who already have heart disease, a more desirable LDL cholesterol goal should be less than 70 mg/dl, based on evidence from more recent studies. The blood pressure goal in all patients with diabetes is less than 130/80. In most patients with diabetes, reaching these targets for blood pressure could require two or more medications. Fortunately, we have safe and effective medications available to help patients meet their lipid and blood pressure goals.
In addition, good control of blood glucose levels and low-dose aspirin can add to these benefits. For A1C tests—a measure of average blood glucose levels over the preceding two to three months—the goal is less than 7%..
Take Action
To sum up: there's no totally certain way to avoid heart disease and circulation problems. But there are lots of things to do to cut your risk.
- If you smoke, stop
- Lose weight if you are overweight
- Keep your blood pressure in the proper range
- Get regular physical activity
- Keep your blood fats and cholesterol levels in a healthy range
- Keep your blood glucose under control
Stop Smoking
This is the single most important thing you can do! Nicotine narrows and restricts blood vessels. So does having diabetes. You can't change having diabetes. But you can stop damage caused by nicotine. Join a stop smoking group. Get support. Plan to quit. Cut back. And then, stop!
Lose Weight If Overweight
Being overweight tends to increase your blood glucose, blood pressure and blood fat levels. Even a modest 10-20 pound weight loss will improve your levels. To lose weight, skip crash weight loss programs. Emphasize eating healthy foods that are low-fat and high-fiber and increase your physical activity. These will help keep your blood glucose and blood fat levels in a healthy range. Check with your healthcare provider to determine how to safely increase your physical activity.
Keep Blood Pressure in Control
High blood pressure increases the risk of stroke. Have your blood pressure tested at least twice a year. If your blood pressure is over 130/80, lose weight. This is a lower target than for people who don't have diabetes. Follow a low-salt meal plan. Increase your physical activity. And ask your healthcare provider about medications to lower blood pressure.
Get More Physical Activity
Physical Activity keeps your heart healthy, and helps keep blood glucose and blood fat levels in control. So don't be a couch potato. Talk with an exercise specialist to start a sensible physical activity program. Be sure to check with your healthcare provider before beginning or increaseing you physical activity program. Also be sure to ask if there are types of exercise you should not do because of other diabetes complications you have.
Define a set schedule for physical activity. Put it in your calendar. Stick to it. You'll be surprised how much better you feel!
Keep Your Blood Fats and Cholesterol in Control
High levels of blood fats, including cholesterol, increase the risk of heart disease. Because you have diabetes, you are more likely to have high blood fat levels. So pay special attention! Know your blood fat levels. There is now proof that lowering levels of so-called bad cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) in persons with diabetes greatly lowers the risk of a heart attack. Your target levels should be lower than those of someone without diabetes.
Your level of HDL (so-called good cholesterol) should be greater than 40 for men and greater than 50 for women. Your level of LDL (so-called bad cholesterol) should be under 100. Your triglyceride level (another bad fat) should be under 150.
To reach these goals, follow a low-fat, high-fiber, lower calorie meal plan — weight loss decreases blood fat levels. See a dietitian for help. Get more physical activity, because physical activity lowers levels of bad fats and increases levels of good fats. Blood fat lowering medications may be needed if your cholesterol levels don't respond to these treatments.
Keep Blood Glucose in Check
Monitor your blood glucose regularly (according to how you were taught). Know how to take action based on your blood glucose checks. Know how to adjust your medication, exercise and meal plan if plasma blood glucose is unusually high (higher than 180 mg/dl two hours after eating or higher than 130 mg/dl before eating) or unusually low (lower than 70 mg/dl or below 90mg/dl with symptoms). High blood glucose increases the risk for all other complications of diabetes, so it's important to know your blood glucose levels.
Know your target A1C. Hemoglobin A1C is a blood test your healthcare provider performs to tell how well your blood glucose has been controlled over the past two months or so. Your A1C should be lower than 7%. If it is running higher than 7% and nearer to 8.0%, or even higher, ask your diabetes treatment team for help with your treatment plan.


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As a result, it's tough to explain to incredulous readers of today just what women have been up against through the centuries when it comes to speaking their minds--it just doesn't seem real or relevant. A lot of tactics to stop women from speaking in public have gone underground, coded and covered up, so they're less obvious.
But this Women's History Month, Rush Limbaugh brought obvious back. The month was ushered in by Limbaugh excoriating Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke at length as a "whore" and a "slut" for testifying about the health benefits of contraceptives before a congressional committee.
He did me an enormous favor. Using the word "whore" when a woman speaks in public, or questioning her status based on sex to silence her, is a tradition that goes back to ancient times. By keeping that tradition alive and kicking right here in the 21st century, he's given me a timely and compelling reason to look back on the history. Really, I couldn't have done better myself.
The speaker-as-whore label is just one of many tools used over the centuries to keep women quiet. Depending on the century or the nation you lived in, a woman who spoke "too much" in public--"too much" being "at all" in many cases--might have to wear the painful scold's bridle, a device that would leave your tongue bleeding if you tried to speak, and be displayed in public with it locked over your head and face. You might be put in the stocks, dunked in the lake, or even hung or burned at the stake. Today, in the U.S., we don't see those physical forms of punishment for women who speak in public, but that whore label still gets plenty of use and repetition. I'd say it's the most enduring of the historic tools for silencing women, based on sheer years of use.
Linking women's speech with sex, morals and reproduction goes all the way back to the days of Aristotle, when women were forbidden to speak in the public marketplace because it was believed that speaking interfered with their ability to reproduce. And if you're not going to get married and reproduce, you must be either a whore or an androgynous being, or maybe you're a man masquerading as a woman--or so the thinking went. You were, so to speak, a fluke. As early as the first century in Rome, "Effective female speakers....were labelled androgynes by their admirers," Jamieson notes.
Centuries later, as Gail Collins notes in her book America's Women, "pro-slavery hecklers claimed [Sojourner] Truth was really a man--an accusation frequently thrown at women who spoke in public." (That's a twofer, by the way: The accusation at once negates a woman's skill and sexuality, and praises men's speaking skills.) In Truth's case, the hecklers wanted her to bare her breasts to a group of women to prove she was not a man. Instead, she bared them to the entire assembly of men and women to prove her hecklers wrong and put the shame back on them at the same time.
These days, apparently, you demand that the offending woman speaker make a sex video and post it online, as Limbaugh did. But whether they're merely accused of being whores or more proof is demanded, the message to women is clear: You can be eloquent but not fertile, or a public speaker but not a lady, a mother or even a "real" woman.
Haven't heard the "whore" accusation recently yourself? Elizabeth Warren, currently a candidate for the Massachusetts state senate, was called a whore by a heckler in November. A Democratic congressman called a female lobbyist a "K Street whore" in 2009. Hillary Clinton nutcrackers were manufactured and sold during her 2008 presidential campaign, and we had a long discussion about her cleavage that suggested she was being suggestive. And don't forget those photoshopped Sarah-Palin-pinup photos, still easily found online.
Even the Republican National Committee featured Palin on its website in a photo taken from behind as she spoke at its convention, and from the knees down, so all you saw were her her legs and her high heels (see photo at left). Because that's what we're all interested in when a woman is running for Vice President of the United States, isn't it? Let's look at her legs, shall we, instead of listening to what she has to say.
This isn't just a risk for political women, who by definition do a lot of public speaking. Others who speak publicly or just sit in the audience also come in for this kind of treatment:
- Readers of my blog are familiar with the male presenter who used the faceless bitch slide to denigrate women in his presentation, and researcher Danah Boyd's 2009 Web 2.0 keynote, during which men in the audience used the Twitter feed projected behind her to wonder what it would be like to "do" her.
- At a skeptics conference, one of the bloggers behind the Skepchick blog was called a "media whore" for posting a video explaining why she was uncomfortable with an advance in an elevator from an inebriated attendee.
Danah Boyd described it this way, squarely from the speaker's point of view:
....what's with the folks who think it's cool to objectify speakers and talk about them as sexual objects? The worst part of backchannels for me is being forced to remember that there are always guys out there who simply see me as a fuckable object. Sure, writing crass crap on public whiteboards is funny... if you're 12. But why why why spend thousands of dollars to publicly objectify women just because you can? This is the part that makes me angry....I don't want to be objectified when I'm speaking - either as a talking head or a sexual toy. I want to inspire, to invite you to think, to spark creative thoughts in your head.Maureen Dowd wrote this week from her own experience about a similar attack, giving us a sense of what it feels like:
As a woman who has been viciously slashed by Rush Limbaugh, I can tell you, it's no fun. At first you think, if he objects to the substance of what you're saying, why can't he just object to the substance of what you're saying? Why go after you in the most personal and humiliating way?....you still cringe at the thought that your mom might hear the ugly things he said.I know why: To get you to be quiet. Even if you go on speaking, you've wasted time wondering about this out-of-left-field attack. His hope is that you absorb the shame he's pasting all over your reputation. If it happens enough, you might get discouraged and stop. Or other women might get discouraged and stop speaking publicly, since nuclear terms like these have a fantastic ripple effect. It really doesn't matter what your viewpoint, political bent or perspective are. You don't need to be speaking about sex, or having sex. You can be any age, speaking on any topic. If you're a woman and your speaking is seen as a threat, you run the risk of having sex used as a silencer.
Why such a blunt tool to stop a woman from speaking? Jamieson notes that speaking historically was seen as much more dangerous an activity than, say, writing, because it was available to anyone, regardless of her education or status. Anyone can open her mouth and speak. Writing takes access to education, time and space to learn a skill--the "room of one's own" that Virginia Woolf described, or today, a blogging conference. So the powerful tool to take away from women is the most accessible one, their ability to speak, and to speak up for themselves.
Today, this kind of attack is typically more subtle and coded, and even this week, Limbaugh has attacked another woman, but done so by flinging the epithets "single," "authorette" and "over-educated" at her. Coded or open, I believe that the enduring practice of accusing or implying that women speakers are whores helps to explain why women speakers are relatively scarce in our history. Why, in boardrooms around the world today, women are told they are being shrill--shrille is a medieval term--or get talked over, or get their ideas taken and repeated later to great acclaim. Why so many professional conferences take place with no women speakers, or as few as 10 percent, with almost no repercussions of any strength. At some level, women know that when they open their mouths to speak, there's a more than good chance that they will be seen as "too far out there" or unseemly, or attacked and ogled for doing so. They may not be trying to silence you by asking that you bare your breasts these days, but they can undress you with their eyes, demand a sex tape or use the Twitter feed to speculate about raping you.
In our world and heritage, it's assumed that women can be silenced, because that has been more the norm than the exception in our history. Sometimes, I think that even women forget that the women who led the effort to secure votes for women in the United States did so after they were forbidden to speak at an international anti-slavery conference to which they were delegates. To them, it was the right to speak that was worth fighting for; the vote was a way to ensure it. To women around the world in oppressive regimes, the idea of public speaking may not even be a dream, let alone a reality, and yet it's a power any woman has in her own throat.
So know your history, ladies. Do as Sandra Fluke has done and call it what it is: An attempt to silence you. Know and stop repeating the equally persistent myths that men and women keep spreading about women and public speaking. Every time you hear someone say that women speak more than men do, you are hearing a well-worn echo of the "too much" that led to persecuting women for speaking in days of yore. It's a tamer, toned-down way to shame you into being silent. Remind yourself that you're entitled to speaking your own views, thoughts, opinions and dreams. Keep on speaking, and reinforce other women who speak, or want to do so. Perhaps then the most consistent part of the history of women and public speaking won't be the use of the word "whore."
[This post has been nominated for BlogHer's "Voices of the Year" 2012 competition. Follow this link to vote--and thanks for supporting this post.]
(If you want a great, short rundown of the history of women and public speaking, seek out chapter four in Kathleen Hall Jamieson's book Eloquence in an Electronic Age : The Transformation of Political Speechmaking.)
(Photo from Gage Skidmore's photostream on Flickr.)
In honor of Women's History Month, look for our Famous Speech Friday posts, which will all feature historic speeches this month. Looking for more famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.