I am an American going to Haiti. What comes with an American?
A laptop and charger, coffee, tea, pens, a pair of keens, books, different soaps for the body, face and hair, 100% and 30% Deet, SPF 75, toothbrush, crest, a pair of pink running shoes, 10 pairs of shorts, a shirt that blocks UVA and UVB, emails, phone calls, text messages, a media-molded image of Haiti and a self-projected processing of reality.
An insistence that the individual matters, deserves and is independently capable.
An aura of affluence and abundance.
A glimmer of health and bulges that store fractions of America's excess.
An image of airbrushed porcelain skin on an elongated, malnourished physique with bubbly breasts and seductive hair waves as the pinnacle of beauty.
A view of love inseparable from animal cravings that are so far from being for the other.
A desire to escape the tedium of consumerist reality by dreaming of acquiring more and sucking stimulation from any of 200 tv channel choices.
A conviction that individualism and an incessant cycle of produce-and-consume are signs of prosperity.
Pity for peoples whose value systems differ from our own.
A privilege--"No one touches an American."
A longing--for relationships that have been replaced with texts, instant messages, hours of emailing and Facebook "likes."
A curiosity, "Where are we in relation to all of humanity?"
