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AFFLUENCE Because of the name of the country on my passport, my trip to Zambia was a disaster. Yes, I was singled out and harassed in the worst way imaginable on the sole basis of my nationality. It was awful. Why must the modern Occidental world be cursed with such popularity? Why must our affluence draw the undesired attention of so many less fortunate souls? Way to go, developed Western nations. Way to ruin yet another vacation. I had prepared myself for no Starbucks. But what in the living hell was this? Starving people as far as the eye can see, begging for scraps of food, when all I wanted was a hot cup of coffee. The cruelest, most dishonest environment on the planet. I didn't sign up for this. Running at me, grabbing at me, on their knees, fat with groveling supplications, speaking in a language so far removed from English that it barely qualified as a language. What is this crap? This is not what I asked for. Do I not deserve a Mocca Latt Is this really too much to ask? One of them got too close and grazed the corner of my Pumas. He was lean, or gaunt, and obviously forgetful of his place in the Greater Order of Things. I knew exactly what to do. I smacked him in the side of the face with my fifth-generation 80GB iPod Video. He fell backward and did not get up again, but looked into me, disoriented or just plain hungry. I looked back at him, rich and full of patriotic self-importance, and turned and ran. -murrayjames 01/21/07 |