Marie-Luise Matthys
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The water of life or: patience and spit
Bachelor thesis on field research in Ethiopia
While the cold winter wind blows in Witzenhausen, the scorching sun burns down from the sky in southern Ethiopia. It is the dry season, the brown pastures of the Borana have been grazed, the cattle have long since moved on with the herdsmen. They will only return in a few months when the rain falls again, making the soil soft and the pastures green. But it is still bone dry. My translator and I find shade in the sparse dwelling of a widow who invites us in for tea. Her gaunt figure, her stooped back and her wrinkle-ridden face testify to the many years of her life full of privation. She makes herself comfortable by the fire and begins to tell us about her youth, about her former physical strength, about her enthusiasm for working with the animals. The more she tells, the more her eyes sparkle, the brighter her laughter sounds, and the more vividly I see before my inner eye the young, irrepressibly strong woman she once was. We smile at each other, and I feel that through her willingness to reveal something, through the skillful translation, and through my interest in her life, a connection has been formed that ultimately needs no words.
And then she spits at me. Spits on my feet, on my hands, on my chest. I no longer understand the world, but while her saliva is still falling down on me, it occurs to me that this spitting has nothing aggressive, but, on the contrary, something strangely loving. She murmurs something that is translated to me later: "May you age in abundance. [...] May your path be peaceful wherever it leads. [...] May your tongue and your hand be kind to all people. May you live in contentment wherever you go." Years later I read about this, "In an important form of blessing, elders, parents or special ritual 'spitters' convey fertility through the medium of saliva representing the water of life." This unexpected blessing is one of the most impressive experiences of my entire time as a student. The time in Witzenhausen and especially the bachelor thesis at DITSL taught me to be open: for other people, for other cultures, for the unexpected. The project work at the University of Faisalabad in Pakistan, the study trip to Kenya and the exchange semester at the College of the Atlantic (COA) in Maine, USA, did the rest. I am very grateful that FB11 made these diverse international experiences possible for me - in addition to three great years in Witzenhausen itself.
Master studies in Zurich with focus on Kenya
At COA, I became enthusiastic about philosophy, and so, after a summer in the Alps in Switzerland, I decided to study for a master's degree in the history and philosophy of knowledge at ETH Zurich. This led me to Kenya, where I investigated the implicit nutritional knowledge of farmers. A year later, I returned to Kenya to work for the Biovision Africa Trust in a knowledge transfer project on organic agriculture as part of the ETH NADEL Master of Advanced Studies in Development and Cooperation.
Doctorate on agricultural change in Nepal and Rwanda
I am currently writing my doctoral thesis at the University of Bern, in which I am investigating the socioeconomic consequences of agricultural change in Nepal and Rwanda. The question of where my path will take me after I graduate in spring 2021 is still open. It is important to me to work in an evidence-based and actionable way, and I can well imagine that this would be possible both in applied agricultural sociological research and in science-based development cooperation. Until that time comes, I am practicing patience with regard to future issues and trust that I will be able - perhaps by virtue of the water of life? - to practice my profession in such a way that the skills I have acquired in Witzenhausen and elsewhere will bear fruit.