<OT> Ubuntu to all

[Alma J Wetzker]

Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> My wife and I recently housed a refugee family for a week before they moved 
> into their new home.  My church sponsored the family to come over from Rwanda 
> where they've been living in less than ideal circumstances (refugee camp) for 
> 10-15 years.  The father speaks French and his native tribal tongue, his wife 
> only speaks the tribal dialect and his five children have a smattering of 
> both.  
> 
> While my French took a soaring leap during that week, it had no where else to 
> go but up, and I found it easier to communicate when some other refugee folks 
> came over to visit.  Turns out they had been in the same camp, and the father 
> of the new family had taught them French in the refugee camp.  
> 
> So while the refugee friend, Dale, was over I asked if he had ever heard of 
> the term UBUNTU.  He immediately showed a sign of recognition, and we chatted 
> a bit about what it means.  It turns out, almost all tribal languages in 
> Africa share a lot of the same words.  Their use and pronunciation varies a 
> bit between dialects, but UBUNTU means basically the same thing throughout 
> the whole continent.  Everybody in our refugee family had two names...  one 
> was French-derived, and the other was their African name and means something.  
> Oddly enough, one of their names had "ubunto" on the end, and it is based on 
> the word Ubuntu.  Very cool.
> 
> Anyway, happy trivia, guys :)

I have a friend from South Africa who knows the term.  She uses 'Ubuntu'
the same way you would expect someone to use the term 'Christian' (or
Jewish) to describe acts of humanity and charity.  The name was chosen
on purpose.

    -- Alma