Tragic idealism

[jaapv]

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They came from Scotland, missionaries fresh from medical training, full of ideals, brought their young families, and ended up here, dead from Malaria within three years, husband, wife and babies... Not even the goats will come to eat the grass.

 

Old Bandawe Mission, Malawi. Missionary Graveyard. One of the most poignant places I know..

CL, 18-56

 

 

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[stuny]

A lovely touching set. I find it admirable that they were there to help medically, but if like so many others they were there to proselytize, I've long felt doing so is destructive to cultures and over righteous.

[Ouroboros]

Reminds me of when I was wandering around the old British Garrison Cemetery in Kandy, Sri Lanka, last February. It dates back to Colonial times of the 19th Century and whilst I was being morbidly curious about the very young ages on the headstones of almost all the people interred there, the graveyard attendant came over and took me on a personal tour around the graves!

His knowledge of the personal stories behind every one of the dead was encyclopaedic, it seems the only two who hadn't died of 'Jungle Fever' was one young officer who was hit on the head by a cricket ball and another who was killed by the elephant he was trying to shoot but missed.