I would like to see her succeed. I think some folks are being a bit rough on her, but hey...isn’t her capacity to do as she pleases the epitome of a very important conservative tenet...personal freedom?
Of course, with that freedom comes responsibility...the responsibility to avoid having others bail you out. Up here in New England, they occasionally get folks up in the White Mountains who get into trouble in the middle of the winter and have to be rescued because they weren’t prepared or didn’t exercise sound judgement. I always feel a touch of anger, even if I am glad they got rescued.
Check this out, so this pretty blonde beat her to it! (pics at the link)
The White Masai
July 22, 2006
Just how much comfort and modernity would you give up for love?
Corinne Hofmann spent four years living in the arid bush of northern Kenya as wife to a Samburu warrior named Lketinga.
She lived in a mud hut, had a baby, got sick, spent all her money, argued with her husband and then returned to Switzerland with her daughter to write a book about it.
It became a bestseller in Europe and has now been published in 16 languages. She has also written two sequels, one about raising her daughter in Switzerland, another about returning to visit the Kenyan village of Barsaloi, where her ex-husband has now remarried (several times).
All in all, Hofmann has done well out of her spur-of-the-moment decision, while on holiday in Mombasa, to dump her then boyfriend and follow a man she didn’t know and couldn’t talk to (he spoke only Masai, she didn’t know English or Masai).
Is it impolite to wonder what the Samburu got out of her adventure? I mean, what’s the difference between her mining of experience and the older, more recognised forms of colonial plunder?
I don’t think you understand the criticism.
Nobody is criticizing her for making a free choice. They are criticizing her for probably making a rather stupid choice that is based on unrealistic assumptions and expectations.
If she makes it all the more power to her. I just don’t see any evidence it’s based on any sound logic, as others here also believe, and have said so. Her own quotes tell you how she arrived at her decision, and they are all feelings based. Tell me that’s a conservative principle, to base major life altering decisions totally on feeling.
And as conservatives we also have the freedom to comment on others when we believe they are doing good things, or stupid things, or evil things.
Just like you just did.
Ditto. I was waiting these last few days for the annual Tuckerman’s Ravine fiasco.