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Episode #66: Joel's Diary: My Trip to Africa · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you wonder, well, you know, are these people, are these people doing backyard gardens?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are they farming it?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: What you have is you have the very wealthy that live in gated communities because crime, crime is is is so rampant of the of the farms that I was on, only one of them, only one of them, and it was extremely small.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was like like 20 acres, and the people lived right there, and and so they were okay.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody, but but even they were gated.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh everybody else, they actually employ full-time people for security.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The last farm I was on up north of Johannesburg, they have two people that that that are night watchmen, and they patrol the pigs and the sheep and the and the cows and stuff because uh uh um theft is absolutely ubiquitous.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Cena McKella.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here with Joel Salatin.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Joel.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Sina.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So this is an exciting episode because Joel just spent quite a bit of time in Africa, and I've asked him to share his experiences with us almost like he's sharing from pages in his diary.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, Joel, I don't know much about Africa, you know, the the farming there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do most people have gardens there?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Are they self-sufficient?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Are they relying on you know uh imports like a lot of us?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: So can you just share about your experience in Africa?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in South Africa, which is considered the most uh the most western of all the African countries.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was it was by far and away the most technologically advanced uh until Nelson Mandela uh uh uh came to power.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I'm I'm being very sensitive here about racial issues here.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um as you know, the South Africa was the tip of the spear on on apartheid, and um and and and certainly I'm not a I'm not a friend of apartheid, but uh it's important to understand, you know, Paul Harvey, uh many of our listeners may remember the great American commentator, uh news commentator Paul Harvey, always said civilization at its most accelerated pace is agonizingly gradual.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so here, you know, so South Africa was was um really dominated by the Dutch and then the British.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: They do speak English there, along with the Afrikaans.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and so it uh enjoyed incredible westernization as far as infrastructure, uh utilities, uh power, uh railroads, um, highways, uh those kinds of things.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful country.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, lots of rain.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it does fluctuate from you know Mediterranean Mediterranean climate, which is you know, which is uh six months dry, six months wet, uh all the way to tropics.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I I picked oranges and bananas outside my room.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was wonderful.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was I was on three different farms doing uh three two-day masterclasses.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I was in Cape Town and then East London, and then about an hour north of Johannesburg.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I was moving from Mediterranean up into uh subtropical by the time I got up into uh uh uh Johannesburg, north of Johannesburg, which is not that far from actually from uh you know from uh Zimbabwe.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and I was actually you know within I don't know what a hundred miles of the official edge of the Serengeti.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So as on that last place, uh the land, it was just flat, flat as the pancake, uh for just just I mean, for for it's seemingly hundred, hundreds of miles.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you just couldn't believe the the lack of uh of uh you know terrain change.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so the the country has had uh where I'm going here with this is the country has been dominated by Western influence for a long time.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then when Nelson Mandela finally came back to power and the African National Congress uh uh uh uh took over and basically uh threw the threw the whites out and the and the the natives, the Africans uh took over.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's happened since is a complete collapse of the country's infrastructure.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the roads are so ill-maintained that as you drive along, you'll find people just out with rakes and shovels and hose trying to keep the roads passable, and they have a little tin can and they hold it up as you drive by to put donations in uh uh to to to pay for them, you know, trying to keep the road passable.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the um the utility of the power system is uh 40% below need.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So every day they're rolling blackouts anywhere from six to eight hours.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: They do tell you when they're gonna cut the power.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was doing my PowerPoint, and you know, boom, suddenly the power goes and you're out of business, you know.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um you were doing a PowerPoint?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you were Mr.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: No PowerPoint.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's just slides.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't do PowerPoints, but it's on a PowerPoint platform.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was I was doing my slides of the farm.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's it's a virtual, you know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I used to do it on a on a Kodak carousel, you know, uh uh slide projector, right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you know we put these slides on a on a PowerPoint uh platform.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh the the the I mean uh there's there's no railroads now.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The railroad tracks are being torn up by people and salvaged for uh steel.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They go into scrap metal yard, all the the signposts, everything are being uh uh uh uh taken.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the the corruption the corruption and the um the uh the the the nepotism is just uh is just unbelievable.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And but but you know it it's such a wealthy country from resources.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, how can you not how can you be hungry in a place that grows pineapple and oranges and bananas in your yard, you know?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so they get they get good rain, it's it's always warm.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it never freezes, never frosts.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you can lay water pipe on top of the ground, you know, you don't have to bury it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um you do have to keep the baboons from coming out and and and and you know playing with it, but you know, it's it's it's um it's a land of tremendous uh resource, but it is it is with the current situation, it is really um the infrastructure is just imploding in on itself.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's happened now is so so you what you what you have you have this interesting thing where um because it was dominated by the West, you have these massive, massive corporate farms.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: There is there is I asked and asked and asked because I you know met with a lot of farmers, and basically you cannot get non-GMO, non-GMO feed in the whole country.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it has to be imported.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that makes it extremely expensive.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so so they said there was not a single mill.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here in the US, we can get we can get GMO free, you know, livestock feeds for you know, chickens and pigs and stuff.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: We can get GMO free all over the country pretty much.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some places it's harder than others, but it's it's it's very available.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: We we have a very active active uh supply into that market.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: There, the few livestock producers who care about it, um just it's not available.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that that becomes a that becomes a real issue for people that want to be you know organic or you know want to want to do uh uh cleaner things.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So so they have um you know massive canola, uh, canola, soybeans, and corn, um, monocultures.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So so what happens is in a situation like that, you don't have you don't have the mid-level farm like in the U.S.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like our farm.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our farm would be, you know, is a is a mid-level farm.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: What you have are massive, massive uh large acreage.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for example, one of the guys that attended um that attended one of my seminars uh is the manager of a you ready for this?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: A 20,000 20,000 acre sugar cane operation.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and he comes to hear me, you know, and and um so you know, we had a we had a great discussion, but um the the ecological the ecological hurdles, how do you how do you take a um how do you take a a 20,000 acre sugar cane operation?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sugarcane uh sugarcane is really hard on the land.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like tobacco.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's really hard on the land.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so how do you take a 20,000 acre sugar cane operation and think of all the the specific infrastructure and the crushing and the processing and the special delivery trucks and the harvesting, all that special infrastructure, and and and and and make a change.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's um it's it's really difficult.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, he was the manager, he didn't he didn't own the place.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um but can you do that?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you pose the question of how do you do that?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: It is it possible?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, you you can.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've actually helped the guy in uh Barbados do that, and he's converted his sugar cane operation to pastured poultry, beef, pork, all that stuff.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the only guy in Barbados uh doing it, and so marketing has been great because you know, uh he's the only game in town.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, he's a monopoly, yeah.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh so so yes, it it absolutely can be done, uh, but you have to obviously have a whole different um, you know, a different a different plan.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think the the the main thing, the couple things that struck me.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um one was so you know, you wonder, well, you know, are these people are these people doing backyard gardens?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Are they farming it?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, what you have is you have the very wealthy that live in gated communities because crime, crime is is is so rampant.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I was on a farm uh that well, let's see, I'm trying to think here.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um of the of the farms that I was on, only one of them, only one of them, and it was extremely small.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was like like 20 acres, and the people lived right there, and and so they were okay.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody, but but even they were gated.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, everybody else, they actually employ full-time people for security.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the last farm I was on up north of Johannesburg, they have two people that that that are night watchmen, and they patrol the pigs and the sheep and the and the cows and stuff because uh uh um theft theft is just ubiquitous in the country.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it it is it is absolutely ubiquitous, as well as corruption.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to one guy, uh, he has a friend in the uh in the truck hauling business, and um, I don't remember whether it was you know president, vice president, whatever, but some some big uh upper level you know national political figure uh was getting a bunch of furniture.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so this friend of his is in the hauling business and he hauled this uh furniture to this guy's house.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as they're unloading the truck, oh one of the guys, you know, ripped uh uh caught a corner of one of the you know sofa cushions and it ripped a little bit.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what was in all that furniture, all the cushions were stuffed with money.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was a whole it was it was a money deal.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so so that that's the kind that's the kind of stuff that's you know that's going on.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for example, several of the farmers I've talked with, you know, they want to raise some sheep, but they they said sheep, sheep are the most are the most uh um risky thing to grow there because of theft, because they're so easy to steal.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: A pig is hard to steal because they fight you uh or and bite you.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a cow is too big, um, but a sheep is fairly stupid and docile, and you can go pick up a lamb and yeah, you can pick up a lamb and and run off with it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so um so sheep farming has almost disappeared uh from the country due to theft.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, when when you think about the rule of law, you know, we we we you and I, you know, we we understand the rule of the rule of law, the rule of law allows a government to be small.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It it when when you have a complete breakdown in rule of law, the government has to get extremely big in order to compensate for all the shenanigans that are going on.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, a lot of most of the time the breakdown of the rule of law is because the government has begotten too big and too corrupt.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but in a case like this, to actually be there and see what happens in a complete breakdown of rule of law.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, there there are there are theft syndicates.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I talked to one guy, one guy came to the seminar and uh he told me uh uh a month ago uh a syndicate came in and stole 50 of his cows.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: 50 cows.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and and the thing is these these gangs are armed, they're armed.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if the farmer goes out and confronts them, he's dead.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and lots of farmers have been shot, killed, killed, um in these, in these kinds of things.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and and a million, uh a million uh whites have fled the country uh as their lands get expropriated, as they you know, they get run over.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens is these um these these folks, the Africans, uh they they they build these shanty towns.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh here, you'll you'll love this.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So so um so you're driving along, and so you've got you've got the very wealthy, and you've got these very poor.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And half the population lives in a in a in a shanty that I wouldn't put a chicken in.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just like it's just a little, you know, a tin box.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those has a satellite dish on it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one has a satellite dish.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got these these shanty towns, and and they um and they push right up against each other, and there's no room for a garden, there's no room for for anything because they literally they're literally pushed right up against each other.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in order to get power, they actually go over to the utility line, and sometimes something as simple as just a piece of barbed wire, but just imagine it's just a bare bare wire, they go over and they pirate the power, pirate the power off of the utility, and uh put a couple little pieces of PVC pipe to keep the wires separated so they don't uh you know spark.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and those wires are just above head high all through these shanty towns.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and shiny when I say shanty towns, I mean there might be there might be uh two or three hundred houses, uh houses, if you call them houses.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and these folks live with um you know, with their satellite dish, their TV, and um and you know, it's a it's a complete uh the government actually creates these places where people can come.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but because there's no uh there's no infrastructure, they can't do for themselves.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it it it it just creates a complete dependency class.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um and it's it's quite it's it's quite uh sad actually to see it all.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, um the country is rich in resource, rich in opportunity, uh rich in, I mean, and of course, you know, that's where that's where half the world's diamonds come from.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not like they don't have yeah, yeah, they don't have uh uh resources, but boy, uh corrupt corrupt government um is is uh devastating in a culture.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um and it it was amazing to just to just be aware every moment of the day about robbery, theft, and that you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't leave anything, you couldn't, you couldn't go in your house unless it was gated.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Every single every single I mean in in the in the what do you call it, the nicer parts of town, every single house is is gated and walled to to you know to protect to protect themselves.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like my I was excited to hear about your trip to Africa, and now my heart's just heavy.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: It does give you an as you're you know painting this vivid picture for us, the couple of things came to mind.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: One is just this enormous sense of gratitude that I have for where we live, you know, and as bad as many of us say that it is here, and there's bad things happening here, you know.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Don't get me wrong.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: You and I talk about these things all the time, you know, corruption and government forcing, uh, you know, things like that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: But comparatively, we're pretty well off.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, I mean, I mean, yeah, yeah, the the thought, the thought that I I don't have to, I don't lie awake at night wondering if somebody's gonna steal, well, for example, an electric fence charger.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have we have you know a bunch of these electric fence chargers around to keep all our our livestock going.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and that's that's a critical part of my of my encouragement for them, you know, electric fence, move the animals around, da-da-da-da.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well they they can't they can't put an electric fence charger out without it being stolen.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and so at night you just have these these roving bands of of people just prowling.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's one, I mean, our worst predator here is uh, you know, is is a possum, a raccoon, uh, you know, a hawk.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's our predator.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: But think about a two-legged predator that's that's that's another human that's really smart.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That um with a weapon.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, with a weapon.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's a that's a whole different, you know, different kind of predator.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I can't, you know, as I'm getting into homesteading now and um branching out and meeting a lot of homesteaders, I've never heard somebody say, like when they're when they're planting their homestead, you know, when they're figuring out what animals they want to raise or you know, how big their garden is, I've never heard one of them say, I'm not gonna raise sheep because someone might come and steal them.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just don't have to even deal with that kind of stuff.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, you know, so it's just it's a foreign, it sounds so foreign.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: It when you're describing this, especially with the money in the couch, it sounds like a movie, you know, like a Hollywood movie.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it it does, it does sound like a movie.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and you can't believe, but you know, I've encountered this.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, if you travel the world much, I I remember very well back um, oh goodness, 15 years ago after Chernobyl blew, uh, we a couple years after that, we had a delegation from Belorussia come.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were actually very high-level government officials.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were, they were our they were Belarus's counterpart to, for example, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Vilsack.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they were very high in the government.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: They came and we took tour around the farm.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: They were wonder, wonderful folks, uh, just just first class.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: We got about halfway through the farm tour, and the the head guy asked me, he said, so how many, how many security forces do you employ?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I said, none.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: He was astounded.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said, he said, if you had this in Belorussia, you'd have to have six to ten uh full-time security agents to protect your your your gasoline tank, your equipment, your livestock, your buildings, all this stuff.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is not the first time I've encountered this.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've encountered this, you know, uh uh numerous times.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it it does indeed give you a very deep respect for the Judeo Christian uh ethic that founded this, that founded this country.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a Judeo Christian ethic that founded it, and and that's based on, you know, it's based on the Ten Commandments as foundational.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: uh which one of them is thou shalt not steal you know it's pretty clear uh and and so when you get into these other cultures where they're where they don't have that that ethical moral underpinning um it's it's truly it's truly um uh astounding but i had a great time the i'll tell you what the people the people were one the people who came to hear me uh i mean i had uh i don't know what 180 that last one there in uh north of johannesburg and and a couple things uh two seeing it's important to realize that the farther you got away from a city the less this theft thing was a problem the theft was higher in the in the urban areas and less so in the in the rural areas so the more the more country you got the the more whatever we would say the more reasonable it got the the more the more sensible it got and so were the those shanties that you described were those in the city areas and not in the those were in the city area they were in the city area they were not in the country they they were in they were more in the in the cities uh and around the what we would call suburbs uh these these were where we would what we would call the suburbs um and and the and yeah so and and they they would spring up um because of the internet they can actually uh for I'll just tell you you'll appreciate this so so let's say I'm a politician and I need votes you know uh from a place and my district is might I might have a hard time so using the internet politicians will uh advertise uh this this spot is available and it might be uh it might be like like um uh just vacant land next to um an expressway you know a bunch of lanes of an expressway all right you know a clover I mean uh uh a uh an interstate expressway in the U.S.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: takes I think 40 40 acres per uh per interchange it takes 40 acres per interchange so so they'll put out a uh an all points bulletin you know hey um you want to come and and and live here and so literally in in 48 hours what was a um a a 10 acre just vacant space is suddenly a 500 shanty um village and and suddenly all these people vote and the guy wins and so I mean it's at that level you you cannot believe that level of of kind of political chiconry uh going on but that's that's the level it is when I um I I'll tell you I'll tell our listeners you know um if if you want to go someplace uh hassle free uh to get in South Africa is definitely the place to go i i you know i've been to uh foreign countries all over the place and every time the immigration officer always asks you who are you what are you doing here how long you're gonna be here where are you going you know those kinds of just basic questions went to South Africa I mean they didn't she didn't ask me anything any I handed her my passport she just stamped it went on through and I had all my stuff ready you know here's where I'm going here's what I'm gonna be doing blah blah blah blah blah and um when I got through to my host I said I've never been a place where it was so easy to get in I mean it's just crazy and and and and I thought it was because I thought it was because oh they're welcoming tourists they're welcoming foreigners they want you to come and spend their money and we're hey you know uh we welcome you with open arms no my host said no uh what that indicates is just the total lackadaisical attitude of anybody that that that that has a job that they just they just don't care uh they get these appointments they get a big paycheck and uh and and they just don't care so it's not it's not uh a welcoming spirit it's uh it's just a uh a lackadaisical attitude and and she said to me uh she said it it it it it it scares those of us who who care about the country it scares us to death that these border agents don't ask anybody you know what they're doing said what what in the world you know who's coming in where where's it going that sort of thing so um they were they were very uh open there are some really great initiatives I made met some uh great folks that are doing a um that that have a uh regenerative uh agriculture hub in in virtually every province and uh and about 10 of those guys that run each of those hubs came to my last uh came to my last class and were just fabulous fabulous guys um uh the the the last the last seminar was probably uh half probably 40 white and 60 black and um and and and they were just the that that that African black culture is so um so unrestrained they they laugh harder they laugh longer they they clap longer they're you know they're e boolean the the the they're they're joyful and um and it was just wonderful to be in that culture and and participate in um that that kind of unrestrained unrestrained enthusiasm um and and and that I think that I think was um you know was the was the most special part to me to have that kind of reception and be that that enthusiastically received so now yeah so now I've got invitations to go to Namibia Zambia Kenya um you know Tanzania I mean all over the place so I don't know I don't know what you know what's going to happen uh next year but um um they they certainly enjoyed it they were very very responsive and um it was it was a it was a great trip that's amazing what why do you think I'm intrigued so when you said that you know there were blacks and whites there and I'm assuming they're all living in that area roughly yeah why were the blacks so more joyful like what made them more resilient look think think think about think about African dance I mean it's their cultural beliefs it's their cult it's their culture their culture they they they dance you know they uh they dance they they they have um uh you know family family is a big deal but um they have community afra Africans you know africans dance yeah uh and and uh and I I I got to feel that uh in their in their enthusiasm um compared for example when I go to Australia or Canada uh where where those countries are are still kind of uh well and and the UK uh where it's it's a a more royalty kind of situation a more um it's it's hard to it's hard to get response from an audience you know they're they're much more restrained because they're much more formal I mean after all we are the queen's you know we are the queen's children and and you know it's it's a much more restrained thing um Americans are kind of in between Americans are in between the the formal of royalty and the I will call it the dancing of of Africa the Americans are kind of in between and so to enjoy their um they're they're they're they're unrest they're not scared to show their emotions i guess that's where I am they they they they are happy to let their emotions show and it was a joy to tell my stories and do my stuff uh and have such an unrestrained audience that that that could that could laugh and cry and be unrestrained emotionally that was very liberating and very very enjoyable I love that because you just validated something that I have long believed and begun to research that one of my mottos in life is um dance as though no one's watching right and this really comes from um uh well for me I love dance you know I I love the rhythm it helps to regulate my nervous system as well and calm me down and the scientific literature supports this that dance um as well as singing out loud helps to calm the nervous system it should can shift you from sympathetic state into parasympathetic state and so to me this resonates that one of the reasons that that community is so joyful and it because they are they're more resilient even in that you know dangerous environment yeah is because they're probably spending more time in a parasympathetic state you know the dance the singing uh uh combined with the community aspect of it um it is really has a really powerful impact on your biology yeah yeah and and Cena they eat everything they eat the innards they they they eat guts only they eat they wash the intestines they eat them they one one lady at at uh at one of the seminars she um she was talking about all of their uh weddings and all of their the things that they do and it always involves slaughtering an animal uh as part of the ceremonial stuff of the wedding and and all that and um and and they eat the lungs the kidneys the pancreas the and they wash the intestines and eat them I mean they eat everything everything it was it was really amazing to listen to her uh uh talk about that and I'll tell you those people their their complexions their teeth their their broad uh you know broad cheeks uh I mean it was it was big broad smiles of pearly whites they're beautiful beautiful beautiful people and um and and and uh so you know even even in the difficulty even in the difficulty I mean and and and in uh and in in difficulty just poverty corruption all the things that they're dealing with uh to be able to um to rise above it uh uh um emotionally is uh was was in was very very very encouraging and and I I know they found me encouraging to them I brought I brought stuff that they hadn't heard hadn't seen and we talked all sorts of uh issues and the time just went uh went real fast that's so beautiful and we're about out of time here but I just had this thought um I wanted to share it with you um to get your opinion so you mentioned to you know the pearly whites the smiles the great complexion they apparently appear to be healthy enough to you know to dance to sing to farm to you know so not as sickly people even amongst you know the dire circumstances we're facing there um you but you also mentioned that GMOs are rampant so um most likely spraying the crops is also rampant so what I find fascinating is that that's probably a um a great deal of their diet right is these GMO foods that are also sprayed even if it's just I'm not sure that it is Cena I'm not sure most of that is export uh uh they they export to export to Europe uh the export to other African countries um and and my sense was that my sense was that um that most of those big monoculture farms like like the sugar cane uh that's not consumed locally that it's it's all it it's exported and so they have they they have a lot of uh wild animals that they that they of course uh hunt and and and shoot um most of them have have connections to some piece of land or some family somewhere that's got something and um now now are they westernizing yes and I saw some morbidly obese people again in the cities in the the the cities are where all this the cities are where all this is collapsing dietarily health all that's collapsing in the country in the country I didn't see any of that any of that so it's very much an urban rural um urban rural divide.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay now that makes more sense because I thought wait if the country's filled with GMOs and is likely being sprayed how are they combating that you know on the biological level to be so healthy and so that's why my thought went to well maybe the um can sense of community and you know the raising the vibrational frequency um can overcome that.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: But this makes a lot of sense if they're not actually eating it they're growing it to export it right for profit but they're actually eating the wild game um that wouldn't be consuming the GMO crops and is presumably not living where they're spraying in the wild.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they'd be eating the wild including all of the parts of them so they they may not have the nutrient deficiencies necessarily that that western cultures are showing up with.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and when and when they eat something they eat all of it uh so they're getting all that organ all that intestine I mean it was I almost it was unbelievable uh this the stuff that they that they eat but you know did you eat it too um no I didn't eat that I I I did eat kudu uh which is one of the you know it's uh it's bigger than a deer and smaller than an elk it's one of the you know one of their regular um you know it's larger than an impala uh there are a lot of impallas impallas everywhere um and uh but I did eat kudu and it was it was excellent it was like like venison here and um and so they they do um they do a a fair amount of that but they they have you know they have they have um plenty of of large farms there are large farms and there are you know tiny ones but but but you don't you don't see that middle you don't see that middle like you do in the U.S.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: you know it's either it's either uh 5000 cows or two cows you you don't you don't see that kind of middle that you do here it's it's a very stratified you know stratified situation well this has been very enlightening Joel I mean I really appreciate you um sharing this with us my takeaway from here is uh well there's many but on a personal note my takeaway is I am going to be grateful for for what I have and for the opportunities that we have here and when I'm deciding do I want to raise chickens or do I want to raise pigs I'm no longer going to complain about the difficulty in these decisions.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna be grateful that I have the freedom and the opportunity to basically pursue my passions.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yes that's right that's exact that's my sentiments exactly yes okay wonderful well thank you for joining us and we will see you next week