Tuesday-- They Won't Let Me Change the Channel

Today, Bill and I got out of school a little before Kevin, we stopped at Brenda’s Good Time Café, and were expecting a quiet respite at the end of the day. We were first greeted by a man named Bob, and he started off with a very cordial and friendly conversation. It was soon apparent that there was something a little bit off with Bob and his story. There were some details that were confused and repeated and some maybe we did not understand, but it seemed Bob was also looking for something from Bill and I that we were just not able to give. Bob soon moved a storefront away, and a young mentally disturbed boy moved closer to us, he was holding a box of milk, and had about a foot long piece of drool, hanging from his lip. He, too, looked at us with some hope and some sense of need, but how could we help this young boy, I did not know. Bob’s spot on the chair next to us was soon taken over by an obviously intoxicated man, he had gone to the small store next to Brenda’s to buy a bag of alcohol. Imagine MD 20/20 in a big Kool Pop bag, that is drank by biting off one corner and slurping it out of the small plastic bag. I have know forgotten this man’s name but he alternately called me his brother, his papa, and his lover. He tried to explain that he loved white men, because his sister had married a white man and moved to California, and his other sister had married a man from India. So he tried to explain, as he spilled more sweet yellow alcohol on his hands, pants, and arms. The bag with the hole in it might not be the most efficient way for drunks to drink. I then returned home, and dropped my first deuce of the Atanga trip into a smelly pit latrine, that might only be used by me, because it has a lock, but then again maybe not. Although, I really believed I have seen Africa and its people before, it is a much different story this year. At night, I always had a chance to relax around the candlelight with American teachers. When I got hot there was a fan that I would sit in front of, when I wanted an ice cold drink I could go buy one. This is a different experience, when I see the unpleasantness and heartbreak of poverty and tough conditions, I cannot change the channel.

John