giovedì, giugno 14, 2007

Mismatch

TODAY WAS PACKED with many events. The first couple were kinda weird. While walking to class I noticed a black woman at a local grocer. She dropped what she was doing and embraced me. She spoke little English but what I did understand from the conversation was that she lived here and that she never noticed me before. She asked how long and why I was here. She seemed kind of disappointed to hear that I was leaving in two weeks. Because I was already late for class, I cut the conversation short and ran to class.

As I was walking home from class to my apartment, I noticed a black man. When he noticed me and my roommate, he came running – literally! Slightly out of breath we exchanged where we were from. He could tell we were Americans and immediately told us we would visit since he has a green card. I found that to be funny, but he was dead serious. He told us he was from Africa and studying dentistry in Florence. He was in Cagli just trying to sell some African artwork.

[…]I had so many questions to ask him about the profession he aspired to work in, but the noises in my stomach made me cut the conversation short. […] We took his number and said our goodbyes.

What made these two scenes culturally mismatched was that seeing a person with the same skin color is so rare around here that they all embrace each other lovingly. Back in the States, seeing other blacks is so normal that we don’t embrace each other when we see one another.
-Melanie Edwards

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