“I can see you are favouring the monkeys”

 

HOPE was recently able to acquire a large piece of land in one of the western districts of Uganda. Having spent my life mostly on house sized blocks of land, this piece could fit a housing development. At the moment it's just a mostly uncleared semi jungle. What is commonly referred to here as bush. And apparently, although I haven't seen them myself, in a patch of bush in the middle of the land, we have monkeys. Genuine, bonafide, live in the jungle monkeys.

Not one of our monkeys but a Ugandan resident monkey all the same, probably a species similar to ours. Cute isn’t he?

Okay, so maybe you don't care about monkeys. But I was seriously excited that we have monkeys. On the other hand, our partner who will be managing the land was not so excited about the monkeys. In fact he was ready to clear the land, including the monkeys' home.

Some of our ‘monkey harbouring’ land

Apart from making the land useful, he was actually keen to clear the bush so that the monkeys would move away. It seems that our furry friends are a pest to farmers and eat their crops. Much like our Aussie icon the friendly kangaroo. When we were talking to him he said to us "I see you are favouring the monkeys". Which made me stop and think.

Why do I think that we should keep 'harbouring' (Kaazi's word) the monkeys? Do I think that conserving the environment instead of clearing it is more important than people's livelihood? How can we be responsible caretakers of this land we now own, being good neighbours and good stewards to our monkeys we have inherited?

I care about the environment in a kind of benign way, meaning I care until I have to put too much effort into caring or it impacts on my sense of wellbeing (translate - happy to conserve water until I want a long, hot shower). Being here in Uganda though has transformed me. Not through any choice of my own really, but by the fact of my lack of consumption. There are so many time saving, life changing, space saving bits of stuff that I used to use that now are beyond my reach. And to tell the truth I don't even really miss that stuff.

I think this article I found puts it better than I could but basically to care about people living in poverty, and to care about future generations we need to care about the planet we live on. The future of our descendants will depend on how well we have cared for the environment and our example in the western world so far is pretty condemning. Not even in the sense that industries are polluting the environment and big business doesn't generally care about how they make profits. But it's in our conspicuous consumption. Our need to own, possess, consume. And our philosophy that we save time and space by making things disposable, throwaway.

Although not by their choice, the life of most people on the planet is eminently more sustainable than that of what is commonly referred to as the first world. Just something to think about.

As for the monkeys, for the moment they stay. And we pray that they will be satisfied with the wild guava trees on our land and leave our neighbours crops alone.

Have a blessed week

bron