{"id":388,"date":"2013-04-21T16:24:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T16:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=388"},"modified":"2013-04-21T16:24:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-21T16:24:45","slug":"what-is-a-bono","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/what-is-a-bono\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Bono?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It caught my eye as it ran across the CNN ticker: “Madonna, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Bono are some of the celebs pledging to ‘save Africa.’ But does Africa want them?”<\/a><\/p>\n

I was on my way to teach a class, so as I continued down the hall I thought about it. Good question . . . does Africa want them? But it can’t be answered. Africa doesn’t even know they exist.<\/p>\n

Once while I was living in Ts’oeneng, I think it was in 2006, Bono came to Lesotho. He visited the capital on a Saturday and I happened to travel from Ts’oeneng to there the next day, where I ran into an American friend who told me about it. She was working in Maseru for a non-governmental organization and she giddily told me all about the event the night before where Bono had spoken about the local textile factories and AIDS. She showed me photos on her cellphone. There he was on the stage at Lesotho’s most expensive hotel wearing his signature extra-terrestrial sunglasses (is that what they are?)<\/p>\n

Wow, so Bono had visited little Lesotho. He came and went and I would have never known. I guess out in the villages we don’t get a lot of news. But then I wondered if his visit counted as news in Ts’oeneng.<\/p>\n

On Monday, I asked my Form E class — the oldest and most world-wise class of students at Ngoana Jesu Secondary School, “Did you know that Bono was in Maseru over the weekend?”<\/p>\n

“Pardon, sir.”<\/p>\n

“Did any of you guys hear that Bono, the singer of the music group U2, was in Maseru this past weekend?”<\/p>\n

“Sir?”<\/p>\n

Not that my students were totally unfamiliar with Western celebrities. One student had written “Snoop Dogg” on his backpack, and I had been asked a number of times if I liked Celine Dion.<\/p>\n

But that’s just it: Snoop Dogg and Celine Dion. Which Western celebrities were also known in Lesotho was curious and never predictable. Dolly Parton was played frequently on the radios of public buses, along with R.Kelly. Soccer is the most popular sport, so people knew the British player David Beckham, but the only other athletes we knew in common were professional wrestlers. They loved John Cena.<\/p>\n

No one I met knew Madonna, or Angelina Jolie — and once I showed students a magazine photo of her husband Brad Pitt, to which they made no connection either. Sorry, George Clooney. You, too, don’t translate.<\/p>\n

And sorry, Bono. While you’re flying in and spending a few hours saving Africa, Africa is wondering who you are.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It caught my eye as it ran across the CNN ticker: “Madonna, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Bono are some of the celebs pledging to ‘save Africa.’ But does Africa want them?” I was on my way to teach a class, so as I continued down the hall I thought about it. Good question . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-6g","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":442,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/book-reviews\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":0},"title":"Book Reviews","author":"Greg Alder","date":"August 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've heard of writers who don't read reviews of their books. I understand the temptation to avoid being criticized, but I see \"The Mountain School\" as a conversation starter, just the first word in a dialogue, and so for me to ignore a review would be like refusing to participate\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/book-reviews\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tsoeneng-mountain\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":1},"title":"Ts’oeneng Mountain","author":"Greg Alder","date":"June 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When I arrived in Ts'oeneng I assumed the village got its name from the rock atop its mountain that looked like the profile of a monkey.\u00a0Ts'oene means \"monkey\" in Sesotho. Later, I was told a couple of other origin stories. There used to live troops of monkeys in the caves\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tsoeneng-mountain\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tsoeneng mountain","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/a-rainy-day-i-will-never-forget\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":2},"title":"“A Rainy Day I Will Never Forget”","author":"Greg Alder","date":"August 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was 97 degrees, the hottest day of the year. I expected more of the same today: the National Weather Service had forecast a high of 91 with clear skies. But at 9:30 AM it began to rain. It didn't begin to sprinkle, it began to rain -- what a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Marine layer fog most mornings -- like this -- is as close as we usually get to rain in summer.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Summer-morning-marine-layer-2014-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":236,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/236\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":3},"title":"Videos Related to The Mountain School","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I came to Lesotho at the right time in terms of technology. Digital cameras had just become affordable, and though mine didn't take a high-quality picture, it did have a video mode. Here are some videos taken during the time I lived in Ts'oeneng (except for the taxi rank video,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"videos\"","block_context":{"text":"videos","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tag\/videos\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":550,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/malefa-an-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":4},"title":"‘Malefa: an update","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Where is she now? My super student is married with a daughter named Pinkie, and she lives in a village just a few miles from Ts'oeneng. In Lesotho, the wife becomes part of the husband's family and therefore usually moves to his family's home village. She recently graduated from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":288,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/initiation-ceremony-new-men\/","url_meta":{"origin":388,"position":5},"title":"Initiation Ceremony – New Men","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the first warnings I received upon arriving in Lesotho was not to hike aimlessly in the mountains, for if you happen upon an initiation school you'll be captured. A group of boys spend about six months in initiation school up on a summit, being circumcised, learning to stickfight,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Boys just become men, freshly returned from the mountain school.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/IMG_1464-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}