Beware: There's A Lot Of Fuck In Here

I usually try and post humorous and funny shit.

I don't think I can do that tonight.

Before I went to work I spent a few hours watching videos about Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire) on the internet.

This was probably a mistake.

As most of you know, I spent my childhood there as a missionary kid. I've always had forlorn memories about the country; specifically Abidjan, Yamossoukro, and Buoake.

Abidjan is the city I lived in, Bouake is the city in which my oldest sister went to boarding school, and Yamossoukro is the old capital. We also used to go there once a year for a missions conference and passed through it on the way to Buoake.

Geography lesson over.

I am distraught. I have spent the past however many years living with my glorified memories about Africa. My childhood memories if you will.

Today I feel as if those were completely shattered. I pretty much spent the afternoon watching my childhood home being destroyed over and over again.

Then, I became angry. This has been going on for a long time. This time it has been bad since september, but I know for a fact that the missionaries were evacuated a couple years after we left.

It has rarely been in the news until now.

The US is doing nothing about it as far as I know.

That's cool, though. I'm sure the middle east needs our help much much more that the Ivory Coast.

But our war isn't about oil.

Right?

Who gives a fuck about cocoa beans.

The inner EvilTwin in me wants to say:

Fuckity Fuck Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck.

It's all a bunch of shit.

I may have a some whiskey....
     Or lots of whiskey.....

But it's still shit.

Shouldn't our fake war for democracy extend to this?

Fuck.

One Kind Word Can Be Remembered Forever

I had to move back to Kansas from Africa when I was in sixth grade. It was halfway through the school year and we lived in Johnson County for about a month. We owned a house in a different city but it was being rented at the time so we had to wait for them to move out. I attended an elementary school for two weeks in Kansas City. I know there is a lot of bias towards Johnson County kids here in Kansas, but I want to say that of all I had to deal with after moving, these kids were by far the kindest to me. I know they thought I was weird, because I was. I was a scrawny white kid with huge glasses and weird clothes. I'm sure I stared at everything they found normal like I was a tourist waiting for the short bus to take me around and explain everything, but they were still nice to me.

It sounds simple, but you have to remember that children can be amazingly cruel. Maybe they talked behind my back; most likely a good portion of them have forgotten all about me since I wasn't there for very long, but during my two week stay at that school they took me under their American umbrella of culture and taught me simple things. I didn't know what four-square was; the taught me. I still hate four-square; that's not their fault. Most importantly, they taught me what the magical Little Debbie snacks were. I had never had one, laid eyes on one, touched one, etc. Upon my first bite angels descended into the cafeteria and sang a beautiful Little Debbie Hymn just for me.

I want to extend a thank you to those children. Granted, I don't remember any of their names and they don't remember mine, but I am still grateful to them for the way they took the time to let me know it was okay to be that different from other people.

That is a lesson I didn't fully understand until I moved to Illinois for college.

Probably because the most common things said about me were 'Why isn't she black?' and 'Wow, she learned English really quickly!'

To answer those, living in Africa does not automatically make you black, and we were missionaries so I had the English language down pretty well since that's what I spoke. You're welcome if you were confused.

I Want A Klondike Bar Before I Hang Out With You

When I was in fifth grade, my class took a field trip to Accra, Ghana. Ghana is the neighboring country to Cote d'Ivoire (seriously, someone tell me how to put those damn symbols in here. I'm screwing up words left and right because of that) where I grew up. Well, where I lived as a child would be more accurate.

One day, we were out and about doing all the fun touristy things that you get to do when you visit countries, and we ended up at this restaurant. To eat. A bunch of fifth graders. Finding food for them is inevitable.

Each of the tables was a separate gazebo. The gazebos had numbers on them. I should tell you now that I am not always a nice person. Unless you cry and then I am only nice because tears scare me. I'm worse than a guy in that department.

Well, my two bestest-fifth-grade-friends and I were in one of the gazebos together. Lets just say the number was 54. We were making passes and handing them out to other students so they could come back to our gazebo. Look. I was in fifth grade. Well, this girl, we'll just call her Shmamber, wanted a pass too. Now, Shmamber was a very pretty, very prissy, kind-of-stuck-up blonde. We didn't like her. She thought she was the shiznit and we knew we were the shiznit, so you see where the conflict would come in.

My friend made her a pass. Whatever. But as soon as Shmamber left to go to her own gazebo, or go stare at herself in a mirror, my friend leans over to me and whispers:

I wrote 52 on her pass. Now she can't get back in.