Over the next few weeks, we taught the kids baseball, held English and math classes, helped with homework, walked down to the Zambezi River (watching for crocodiles), and took a field trip to a terrifying swinging bridge at Chiningi. And I tell you, those kids have nothing close to material wealth. They dress in hand-me-downs. They eat meager meals that fill their stomachs but nowhere near provide the well-balanced nutrition children need: nshima (a thick maize porridge), little fishies, boiled greens. And yet, those children exude so much joy. 

The issue no longer was the heartbreaking tragedy of the killing of a prized and endangered animal. Nor was it simply heaving a big sigh of collective relief and much joy that a child was saved. The issue now was the enraged fingerpointing at the parents for bad parenting. Equally enraging was the counter-charge that the only reason there were such accusations was because they were black. Cincinnati police officials raised the stakes in the debate when they announced with great fanfare that the parents could face charges presumably for child negligence or endangerment. 

In the thousands of years of known human history, every level of brow has been used to discuss fatherhood. Bill Cosby, Louis C.K. and Dr. Spock occupying the highbrow spectrum, Hitler’s Dad, Danny Tanner and Cronus  slumming it in the lower levels and  Hamlet’s pater familias, the former King of Denmark, somewhere in the middle (he could have hugged the Prince of Denmark once or twice, maybe that would have cut the brooding in half, I am on team Fortinbras). I have been a dad for three years and in the immortal words of Vonnegut, so it goes.