If you think I’m joking, that’s your second mistake. Your first mistake was trying to shaft me 3,800 guaranies.
Part of the reason a middle-class American teenager spends time in a third world country is to come face to face with the unimaginable poverty which billions of people spend their entire lives entrenched in and that he was, as yet, only vaguely aware of. He is then expected to somberly reevaluate his feelings towards Nike, T-Pain and Capitalism at large.
And, while not ceasing to spend hundreds of dollars on flashy shoes hand-stitched by Pakistani eight-year-olds, he will, at least, publicly condemn his ‘bourgeois’ behavior at a coffee-house open mic, through a movingly introspective poem, short story or rap song.
But, I seem to have missed this stage of my trip. Instead, I have been heartlessly wielding my U. S. dollars like a financial machete threw a thick field of fresh guaranies (of which each dollar is worth 5,000). I can be heard screaming at ten-year-old street salesmen, saying “I may be a blue-eyed gringo, but I refuse to pay Gs.28,800 for fake Ray-Bans I know I can get for 25,000 flat, I don’t care how many livers you sold to get them.”
It is a difference of 76 American cents that I will unquestionably fight you over.
Join me next Saturday for “Bert and Ernie teach me a final lesson - childhood throwbacks are not considered trendy in Asuncion”
Part of the reason a middle-class American teenager spends time in a third world country is to come face to face with the unimaginable poverty which billions of people spend their entire lives entrenched in and that he was, as yet, only vaguely aware of. He is then expected to somberly reevaluate his feelings towards Nike, T-Pain and Capitalism at large.
And, while not ceasing to spend hundreds of dollars on flashy shoes hand-stitched by Pakistani eight-year-olds, he will, at least, publicly condemn his ‘bourgeois’ behavior at a coffee-house open mic, through a movingly introspective poem, short story or rap song.
But, I seem to have missed this stage of my trip. Instead, I have been heartlessly wielding my U. S. dollars like a financial machete threw a thick field of fresh guaranies (of which each dollar is worth 5,000). I can be heard screaming at ten-year-old street salesmen, saying “I may be a blue-eyed gringo, but I refuse to pay Gs.28,800 for fake Ray-Bans I know I can get for 25,000 flat, I don’t care how many livers you sold to get them.”
It is a difference of 76 American cents that I will unquestionably fight you over.
Join me next Saturday for “Bert and Ernie teach me a final lesson - childhood throwbacks are not considered trendy in Asuncion”
No comments:
Post a Comment