How Chris Blattman Attempted to Destroy an Innocent Mother-Son Bond

(Editor's note: sarcastic title. Mostly.)

When I was a child, my mother would regularly read me The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Amazon describes the book as follows: "A little bunny keeps running away from his mother in an imaginative and imaginary game of verbal hide-and-seek; children will be profoundly comforted by this lovingly steadfast mother who finds her child every time." (Maybe this is where my sometimes-outrageous imagination hails from?) As the little bunny imagines new and exciting ways to escape the boring life at home, the mother bunny stays a step ahead of him, telling her child, "...for you are my little bunny."

My mother has reminded me of this story throughout my life. When I went to Spain in high school, she left me a birthday card that included the reminder "For you are my little bunny." Similarly, care packages arrived in Madagascar enscribed with the same line. But aside from this specific mother-son bond, I have not given the book much thought in years - very few of my friends even remember it (unlike Margaret Wise Brown's more popular Goodnight Moon).

So, imagine my surprise when The Runaway Bunny came up during a lecture in my Political Economy of Development class. Professor Blattman used the story in a state-building lecture (details here). Here is his connection between the children's book and the lecture material:

States for most of history have been unrelenting, coercive, and all-consuming. If you think of states as merely benign or civilizing, you will fail to understand the shape of society. You can try to run away, but you will come home. Here’s a carrot for your trouble.

I guess I should not be too surprised; earlier in the semester, Professor Blattman used Babar to demonstrate European colonial rule in Africa. On a completely unrelated note, he has small children...

Was The Runaway Bunny statist propaganda, meant to discourage the anrachist element in young children? It is an interesting point (though I doubt that anarchist-purging worked for me...). Others have argued it is an allegory about God/Christianity. That might be, but to me it will always just be the story of an adventure-seeking child who knows he can, contrary to Thomas Wolfe, go home again.

I guess that just goes to show, I am my mom's little bunny. I think it is time for a carrot!

March Kenya Visit

Oh, how the time slips away from you in Grad School. I wanted to post about my week-long trip to Kenya weeks ago, since it happened in March, but a little thing called "school work" kept getting in the way. Also, it took a while to get the video at the end together...

I was visiting the projects of One Acre Fund, a very cool agricultural development NGO working mostly in East Africa. If you are interested in ag development (and been living under a rock for the past few years), you should check them out! I will not spend much time on the organization nor their model here; rather, I just wanted to offer a few random observations from an excellent trip to Nairobi and southwestern Kenya. So, here we go:

• I was in-country during the time between the announcement of a Presidential victor (Kenyatta) and the confirmation of his victory by the Supreme Court. I heard many different opinions on the legitimacy of the elections, but I also heard a general agreement that violence would not be repeated and the entire country would accept the Supreme Court's decision. Judging from international media after I left (and after Kenyatta's confirmation), they were right. It is nice to see that political discourse did not lead to violence as the international community had feared/predicted. In other words, great work Kenya in proving so many "experts" wrong!
• There are a lot of newspapers - everyone in the towns and cities were reading multiple papers to stay up-to-date on the political results. I have no idea how independent or distinct they are, but it was an interesting aspect to note. Somewhat related: this African newspaper search engine looks pretty cool.
• I went at the start of the rainy season, which lives up to its name. But it meant lush greens and dark red soils.

The rains in Kisii, Kenya

• Tourism was down while I was there, but everyone I met was warm and quite friendly. And as I said above, no political violence despite international concerns. As a few people in Nairobi kept saying: "Kenya is open for business!" So get back there, tourists!
• The food there is good - ugali (cornmeal) by itself is a bit bland, but it is very filling and you can dip it in anything you like!

Mmm... ugali and fish!

• The answer to my favorite evening meal in Madagascar (THB and brouchettes) in Kenya is Tusker and grilled goat meat. So good.

Ugali and nyama choma

• The nature reserves in Nairobi are pretty cool, and you can see the tops of the skyscrapers from inside the park! In particular, the Giraffe Center is pretty great.

2 tall guys, just getting to know each other

• And a really cool operation is elephant orphanage at Nairobi's David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which takes in baby elephants orphaned by ivory poachers.

Football, the world's sport

• And here is a video I took at the Trust, with some of those elephants jamming to a band I thoroughly enjoy: Kenya's Just a Band. (the song has its own, awesome video). This video also made me think: if Budweiser can make a commercial with Clydesdales playing American football, surely Tusker can make one with elephants playing real football? Anyways, enjoy!

Friday Music Video - Our Time is Running Out

With less than a month left of graduate school, I dedicate this song to you, SIPA. Particularly the lyrics such as:
I wanted freedom
Bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
But I'm addicted

...and...

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
How did it come to this?




Seriously, time flies when you're reading painfully long scholarly articles...

Support this Book - Letter to Momo

I often promote my friends' awesome work here, and this post will highlight another great project: Letters to Momo. My friend and classmate, Alejandro Souza, is publishing a collection of the daily letters he wrote to his imprisoned cousin. Alejandro is one of those people that you expect to succeed in anything he does, yet his success never gets in the way of his values. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and this book is a testament to that lifestyle (one we could all emulate a bit more, probably - especially the cynical folks like myself). Alejandro describes the motivation to begin the letter-writing project as follows:

A truly compassionate, loving, and caring person only a year my junior, Momo has always been my closest friend in the family. Although we lived in different countries most of our lives, no physical distance ever kept us from communicating. Crushed by his imprisonment and the realization that he had been facing this situation alone for months, I made an unconditional commitment to live the experience as close to him as I possibly could.
My mind was made: I resolved to write him one letter each day for as long as he was in jail.

The motivation to write to Momo, and now to share the letters with the world, can perhaps be summed up best in Alejandro's simple phrase: "Because nobody should walk alone."

Here is a video of Alejandro describing the project:

In addition to the chance to share this work, I like this additional goal of the project: "Donate books to prisons, rehabilitation centers, homeless shelters, and other support centers all over the world."

As you may be able to tell, the project aims to deliver inspiration to people in any situation where they need support. I cannot think of a better ideal (or person) to support, so go here to lend a few dollars to the campaign. And as usual with kickstarters, each pledge level comes with different unique rewards, so check it out in full!