Friday, February 29, 2008

A poor man?

We watched the DVD of “Fiddler on the roof” recently with a Rwandan friend. Expecting a rather light evening’s entertainment, we found that it dealt with quite a number of serious issues – political upheaval in pre-revolution Russia, anti-Semitism and the decline of tradition as a force shaping society. It also had an interesting story-line and some good songs.

The setting of perhaps the most famous - “If I were a wealthy man” was very interesting, particularly as we sat and watched this in Rwanda. The man singing was in his huge barn, with his milk-delivery horse and several other animals. With all this round him, compared to most Rwandan subsistence farmers, he was already a very wealthy man.

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