Taking Exception to Exceptionalism

As promised, I continue my week of productivity with some thoughts and stories that I've accumulated over the past month. Typically, I like to pair these in positive and negative experiences, the positive usually following the negative to avoid any lingering distaste with humanity. This is no different, despite the fact that the following negative experience occurred a few weeks after what I will relate in the next post. The chronological continuity thus gets a bit confused, but hey, it's my narrative art, and I'll manipulate it as I see fit! Anyway, onwards and downwards. I promise a more heart-warming tale in the next few days.

My stay in Valencia wasn't ruined by the American at the bar, though I must say she represented a jarring example of what I fear may be all too commonplace when I return to the USA (or, more specifically, to rural Indiana). Now that I've left Africa, I'm diligently working towards Peace Corps' third goal: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. I extend this goal to include a better understanding of other people by all people. The conversations I have whilst traveling are all pretty similar, as everyone I meet on the road tends to be of a certain mentality and tends to be interested in my travels, my work, Niger, Africa, and the sense of community and service that leads so many people to attempt to make the world just a little bit better. At the best of times, I meet other travelers who ask such pointed, complex, and interesting questions that I get a chance to step back and reinterpret my service, always gaining a new appreciation for what a life-changing, unique experience it was. At the worst of times, and this has been rare so far, I run into someone like her...

It was the night of the Holland/Uruguay World Cup semi-final match. With the Dutch win, I found myself winding down over a beer with two Americans beside whom I'd found myself standing during the match. With one, a friendly university student taking a bit of vacation in Spain after a semester spent abroad in England, I found myself reminiscing over my time there and recounting some of my lighter stories about Africa. With the other, an expressionless, plastic-faced, overtan girl on her first-ever trip overseas, I encountered new territory, territory I wasn't prepared to navigate whilst a bit tipsy.

To me, these two girls represented the perfect distinction between the traveler and the tourist. The first was a budding young traveler, living abroad for the first time in her life and ready to go after every new cultural experience with a relish that will drive her friends up the wall when she gets back stateside (I should know, I was the same way). Her friend, however, was the type of conservative, stubborn, uninformed American the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time. (A somewhat delayed preliminary note: this is in no way an attack on Americans. Every country has people like this, people who never leave home but think, despite this, that they know how other people live.) We got off on the wrong foot almost immediately after a conversation about religion (she believed in "the devil" as a personified entity taking an active role in the temptaions of daily life), and though I disagreed with her on many issues, I relish a good conversation with anyone who has an open mind and an ability to listen.

Oh, an open mind! What a wonderful thing indeed! Here was the main sticking point separating the two into their respective tourist/traveler camps, because while the traveler accepted the differences around her as cultural learning opportunities, her friend the tourist questioned everything, compared these differences to American norms, and more often than not found the differences wildly inferior to what she was accustomed.

Thus it was one innocent comment, one phrase I've uttered many times before without any incident, that sparked one of my worst conversations in recent memory with one of my fellow countrymen. It was this, which I still hold to be true: I believe, despite all the hardship and poverty, that my friends in Tanka Lokoto, my village in Niger, were actually happier in many ways than many of us in the developed world. Nigeriens don't suffer from depression, suicide; they don't need a new drug for every perceived problem because they struggle with more basic concerns such as food security and clean water. They appreciate what they have around them and the relationships they build and maintain to help them through life.

Well this touched a nerve, in no small part because this tourist took "the developed world" to mean "America" (she refused to drink the tap water, in Spain, a country that ranks in the top 15 of the most developed countries in the world!). This tourist took my comment as a slight against her country (which is also my country), and decided that any such insult to her country must be countered, vigorously. I honestly wish I could remember how much of this conversation went, but I'll boil it down to it's salient points.

1. America is the greatest country in the world. If this African country you lived in or whatever has been independent for what? fifty years? why isn't it a world power? Why can't it get it's shit together?

Well it's more complicated than that. There are several different ethnic groups, and you have to remember that America wasn't a true superpower until about 1948.

What are you talking about? America beat Britain. Britain was the superpower, America beat it and then became a superpower.

Tenuous grip on American history eh? (I didn't actually say this, I was very polite throughout.)

2. I can't believe you hate America so much. I'm ashamed to call you an American. You're what's wrong with America's reputation abroad.

What? What are you talking about? Peace Corps is what's wrong with America?

You're what's wrong with America. You hate America. You know, I'm going to kiss the ground when I get back to America. I'm going to kiss the ground every single day that I'm home.

I'd really like to see that. Could you send me a picture every single day you're in America. (I actually did say this, little more tipsy at this point.)

3. America is the greatest country in the world. I don't know how you don't see this. It's the greatest country in the world, and will continue to be the greatest country in the world. Forever. I don't know how you don't see it.

(This is where I got myself in trouble.) I'm pretty sure that's what the Brits said in about 1890. Or what the Romans thought in 470. Or the French in 1812. The Spanish in 1570. The Germans in 1943. (Her friend is just shouting STOP at this point...) Or what about the Songhai in 1550? The Ottomans in 1810? I could go ON AND ON!

So you can make your own judgement. We parted ways shortly after this tirade, without a handshake and confident we'd never cross paths again. If I had to say something about the whole experience, I would nicely call her a bit ignorant, but I have to stress that I don't think this would be an issue if she were actually trying to understand the world, accept that people and cultures are different, and that there's so much to learn. But she wasn't. So ya, a bit ignorant. A few more of my creative friends would call her a dipshit. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Until next time.