Hadza camp
Unnamed or fictional setting in There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness; pinned at a best-guess location within Tanzania.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness | Carlo Rovelli | setting | Rovelli, his partner and the guide Hassan drive out before dawn from a lodge and walk through the savannah to a Hadza camp, where he sits at the men’s fire and trades his Opinel knife for friendship. |
There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness — Carlo Rovelli (2018)
Source: There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness · Readwise highlight
After a long drive we catch sight of them. Five or six men sitting around a small fire.
- Role: setting
- In the book: Rovelli, his partner and the guide Hassan drive out before dawn from a lodge and walk through the savannah to a Hadza camp, where he sits at the men’s fire and trades his Opinel knife for friendship. He goes on a hunt in which Sha-Kua shoots a dik-dik, and the group eats it together. He leaves the knife and receives an antelope horn.
- Why it matters: It is the essay’s meeting with a way of life lived for hundreds of thousands of years and prompts his reflection on curiosity, hierarchy-free society and the value and cost of civilisation.
- Real vs. fictional: Real people and region; exact site unnamed.
- Where is it?: ⚠️ best-guess. Clues in the text: “They live in a region of northern Tanzania.”; “It is still dark when we leave the lodge.”; “We leave the vehicle under a baobab and begin walking through the savannah.”; “Hassan was born in a village near to Hadza territory”. Reference works: Text names no site. Wikipedia (Hadza people): ‘They live around the Lake Eyasi basin in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau’, mainly Baray ward, Karatu District, Arusha Region. Chosen: Tanzania. Hadza territory is essentially the Lake Eyasi basin, so Lake Eyasi is the representative point; the actual camp, reached by Land Rover from a lodge, cannot be pinned. Alternatives: Yaeda Valley (Mbulu District), the other main Hadza area; Serengeti Plateau edge near Mang’ola/Baray