Monday, January 7, 2008

day trip to kaffrine

kaffrine has a cyber!

i am in kaffrine for a day trip to see friends and to visit my eaux-et-foret counterpart. it is a nice respite away from site and i am thrilled that kaffrine has finally gotten an internet cafe.

unfortunately my trip to kaffrine was tainted with some disgust that i can't get out of my head. i was standing on the side of the main road shivering (it's cold!) and waiting to flag down a car to bring me to kaffrine. there was also a group of boys waiting to hail a car in the other direction (to birkelane) and at first i was a bit wary of them, as all groups of boys are usually 90% of the time annoying and/or trouble. however, they were good kids, giddy and excited for whatever trip they were going on and horsing around with each other on the roadside.

a car comes barreling down the road and it is visible that it is full of toubabs (foreigners). so far i haven't been too irked by toubabs or anything, it's been more comical than anything else to see them here, i guess because even though i'm a toubab, i'm not really? anyway, the car full of grinning toubabs whizzes by and something comes flying out of the window and skitters onto the road. what is it but a little jolly rancher. who do these people think they are? throwing candy at the roadside attraction? it was insulting and degrading and i was disgusted at such behavior. thankfully the boys were equally baffled by such a gesture and there was no mad dash for the piece of candy and it sat in the road alone and unwanted for a while until talla told the kids to take it. i don't understand why anybody would think that such an action would be generous or gracious or kind. if one wants to give them candy, they ought to stop the car and acquaint themselves and talk rather than throw a singular piece of candy out of a window as if these were not children but animals to be thrown scraps of food at.

4 comments:

treesaver said...

what assholes!

i've never seen that in my life.

Semaphoric said...

How are you getting internet there? Saw your pics, very cool stuff.

Anonymous said...

Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my site, it is about the CresceNet, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://www.provedorcrescenet.com . A hug.

Unknown said...

Nice blog. I must think of those foreigners as weird fools.