January 21, 2011

Ever the Spoiled Westerner


Ever the spoiled westerner.
I started crying today when things didn’t go my way, I was too embarrassed to give money to the beggar tapping on the taxi window so I gave her my coffee instead. Didn’t want to pull out my wad of bills in front of her, because she would have kept asking for more. I have mere hours left in this country, what are rupees to me anyways? In 24 hours what will not even buy me a bottle of water she could feed her entire family with. I feel selfish and fat and American, escaping the heat, misery, dirt, grime, noise and filth with my ticket stateside. Running from this third world, I am exhausted and hiding behind my money and my passport; who knows how much money I am going to spend in the next six hours. 

I’m embarrassed how badly I want out of this country right now, off this continent. Its all about loving and living and practicing patience but I lost it today, and look what happened. Always keeping my cool and smiling, laughing, shrugging it all off. But its more and more difficult the longer I sit here, tired and dirty, broke but treated rich because I’m white.

Women in India buy creams and dyes to lighten their skin, I lay in the sand and turn nut-brown, hair bleaching like veins of gold in sandstone.