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  • From: Paul Kosuth <prkosuth@ll.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] learning
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:48:26 -0500

from Elspeth Huxleys The Flame Trees of Thika a memoire of an African CHildhood:

I can't find the paragraph where she talked directly about here education but she spoke about the openness of growing up in colonial British east Africa where she would learn what was needed to be learned without direct instruction. She was there at age 6, 1913.

"Tilly (Elspeths mother) was so taken up with the daily business of of living that she had little time, and perhaps even less inclination, for a brooding hen approanch to motherhood. Life was there for me to take part in, and always offered plenty to do, but things were not invented for me, I was not labeled as a child to be handled with care and given special attention."

about learning from the Kikuyu..

"the Kikuyu, as a rule, were not much interested in their surroundings. ..they walked around their country without appearing to possess it -- or perhaps I mean, without leaving an mark. To us, that was remarkable: they had not tried to recreate or change or tame the country and to bring it under their control. ...The natives of Africa had accepted what God, or nature, had given them without apparently wishing to improve upon it in any significant way. "

I am finding this recounting and her education very interesting. At 18 she did attend Reading College and Cornell to study agriculture.

Paul K



  • [permaculture] learning, Paul Kosuth, 07/19/2006

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