The Breaking Spears - Kunoni, Paul

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Résumé :
The story revolves around its author's's life in Kenya, and how his tradition and family background shaped his resolve to acquire modern education. He takes the reader through the various stages of formal education in tandem with Maasai rites of passages that he went through. He describes how colonization influenced education in his country and how it continues to influence wealth distribution and politics. The author is from the Maasai, a pastoralist community who have been able to maintain their culture and traditions despite the pressure exerted on their lifestyle by modernization. He gives a detailed account of the struggle experienced by his culture's gradual transformation in order to conform to the new world order. Traditionally, it was considered sunrise was the beginning of a day, yet in this formal world, a day begins at midnight and ends at the same time. The author illustrates how a father saw an eminent change of his people's culture and what he did to prepare his children for it. As the author was educated, his boundaries expended and revealed experiences that touched about family, ethnicity, Nationality and to some degree, race....

Biographie:
The ninth born of a family of eleven, Paul grew up in a tiny village in rural Kenya to a Maasai father and a Kikuyu mother. His parents' diverse cultural backgrounds, together with their effort to have their children embrace modern lifestyles, contributed to his pursuits for academic excellence. Paul studied medical laboratory sciences at Kenya medical training college, majoring in parasitology/entomology. He holds several certificates and training in infectious diseases, including Malaria, TB and leprosy, and HIV/AIDS, among others. He also studied Health System management at the John Hopkins university of public health and Global policy and international affairs at the University of Maine graduate school. He served in his country's health ministry, several international non-governmental organizations, and private academic institutions. Together with other scientists, they have contacted several scientific research on his community's cultural practices, including the Maasai persistence of traditional cattle naming, cultural human and livestock disease management, lactose intolerance tests and other dietary studies. Paul has authored and co-authored many research publications in various international academic and research institutions. He has also acted as a visiting consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania museum of archaeology and anthropology, Bristol and Oxford, the University of the arts, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh university Branston, among others. In addition, Paul is a lifetime member of the international zoology association, a Bonafede member of the American anthropology association, and the association of Kenya laboratory scientists' organization. He lives and works in Montreal, Canada, after living in the United States for several years....

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