Dinner Story
Last night, over dinner and just the right amount of wine, I listened to a story by an 18-year-old Swiss girl visiting Albi for the summer who had not drunk any wine at all.
Last year, she told us, I spent 2 months with an American family in Colorado. I went to school, to fast-food restaurants, to the mall, to the mountains.
A well-rounded teenage summer, american-style.
But what marked me the most, however, was an experience that happened to someone else, a Swiss school friend of mine who had participated in the same exchange program as I had, but who found a spot in Texas. One day, my friend was in class, where she had been well-received by all. The teacher had turned on the television, and everyone was watching a newsreader tell greater Houston about the latest casualties in the Iraq war.
First mentioned were the number of American war casualties. The class was horrified, tears welled up, there was silence. Then the newsreader mentioned how many Iraqis had been killed in a horrendous marketplace suicide bombing. The class was transformed, cheering, applauding, punching the air.
What can I add to this? I know this young girl was telling the truth and I can’t imagine that her friend was making this up. It is like discovering that your chums’ bodies are inhabited by malefic extraterrestrial parasites. Are wide swaths of the USA (or maybe just Texas) fucked up beyond all repair? What is is the effect of such an event on a young sane mind, eager and excited about discovering America?
Good grief.
