Film Lesson: "Mountain of the Moon"

Over the last two days, we watched an interesting film called "Mountains of the Moon". This film was basically about how these two European explorers wanted to find the source of the Nile River. To do that, instead of going up the river to its source, they decided to walk through the middle of Africa in hope of finding the source near Africa's center. However, finding the source of the Nile was not an easy task. To find the sorce, they had to walk on foot the entire way. Africa's terrain was not really inviting. In fact some of it was mountainous! They had to carry all these heavy loads by walking. Many people died of fatigue and more then half of them deserted. Another big problem was the local tribes in the area. There was one scene where their camp was ambushed by a whole bunch of people from a trbe. Many were killed. Some also died of diseases, such as milarea.
It took them a good couple of months but eventually John Speek was able tto find the true source of the Nile. In honor of the queen of England, he decided to name the enormous lake, Lake Victoria. It was actually a very strange name at first. For one thing, the lake was always there but the Europeans believed that they "discovered" it just now. A second factor, was that the sorce of the Nile was located in the heart of Africa and it belonged to Africa. John Speek named it after his queen all the way in Europe. It's strange that an African lake has a European name.
During the course of the film Speek and his travel partner, Burton, showed many of the gadgets that were from Europe, to the native peoples of Africa. Many of the Africans were amazed at all these new devices. They have never seen such things in their life before. For example, the gun. When Burton gave the tribeleader the gun, he was simply astounded. He knew that his tribe's spears were no match for the deadly firearm. This wasone of the reasons why Europe was able to cinquer Africa so suddenly. If it was spear against guns, who do you think would win? Of corse the European guys with guns!