Wednesday, December 22, 1993

7 PM


I had the kind of day I don't really want to have again. True, I did eat my share of delicious food at a Chinese restaurant, and managed to convince Bennett (Steph's worker) to cook Christmas supper for us, but I also had to spend two hours on a bus each way going to Blantyre, got to Immigration to renew my passport extension only to be told that I can't, never quite made it to Limbe to get my visa for Mozambique, found out that Janine has an infection in her stomach which may prevent us from going to Harare, and on my way back home in a yanu-yanu bus a kid by the side of the road insulted me in Chichewa much to the delight of the crowd and ended his malicious monologue towards me by screaming "F*ck you!" as the bus drove away. Oh yeah, and those goddam flying termites are buzzing around me again. I could really go for a Molson Dry.


Postscript 2010: In retrospect, it wasn't such a bad day after all. Having recently spent a total of 33 hours waiting in airports during my last trip, and just as many hours in the air in miraculously inadequate airplane seats meant for people half my size, wasting a day to fruitlessly renew my passport extension doesn't seem all that painful. Most of that day was long forgotten until I transcribed the contents of this journal entry (I had completely forgotten about the infectiously wonderful-sounding yanu-yanu buses). 


One image which has remained in my mind since that day was the young boy at the bus stop who told me to f-off. His eyes blazed with such a feral intensity as he repeated those words to me over and over again that I became visibly embarrassed and felt a growing sense of unease. It didn't help that the other passengers, all Malawians, were laughing at the boy's rant, and part of me felt they were laughing at me, with my inability to respond. I made a conscious decision not to engage the boy, and it's a decision I would probably repeat again if a similar situation presented itself, for I believe a response would further fuel the ranting. 


Regrettably, I had seen a number of foreigners, either living overseas or travelling, who have shown tremendous disrespect towards people from a local population. Children often suffer the most in these cases, because many of them have an innate curiosity to approach the strangeness of foreigners and to simply observe, sometimes sneak a smile or even say hello to them. Granted, plenty of them also ask for money as well, or they're scared silly. But most of the children I've seen in different lands are genuinely curious. If it gets to the point where a young child standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere tells me to f- off, perhaps somebody told him the same not so long before, and he's merely imitating a behaviour he's been subjected to.


Wherever that boy is now - a man in his late twenties - I hope he's been surrounded by enough people who show him love and affection so that his days of swearing at strangers, or anyone, are long gone.