Zambia

My morning bus is unusually full. As usual, I'm one of the last people to earn a seat partner, and much to my surprise, the person who opts to sit with me is a cute redhead in her early 20s. She's a very trendy dresser: a taupe wool overcoat, long purple silk scarf, and those thick-rimmed glasses that add about 40% to a person's cool factor.

In my bachelor days, I always had a thing for redheads. But the good Lord saw fit to hook me up with a blonde, and I've never looked back. Still, redheads stir me up in a manner over which I have little control.

So it is with concerted effort that I try to ignore her cuteness and her youth. But the discipline I'm forming within myself via this blog - to observe, to notice, to comment - kicks in and I can't help but saying to her, as more and more people board the bus until it's standing room only, "This must be what sardines feel like."

"What?" she asks, focusing her attention on me.

"This must be what sardines feel like," I repeat.

"Oh, this isn't that bad," she responds. "When I was in Zambia last year they'd fit way more people on."

"Really?" I say.

"Yep. This seat we're in would have three or four people in it, and the people standing would be pressed much more tightly than that."

"Wow. They must have a completely different understanding of personal body space than we do."

She nods. "They sure do."

"So what took you to Zambia?" I inquire.

"Oh, I did my internship in an office for a group supporting HIV/AIDS research and treatment. Just administrative stuff, nothing glorious," she replies. "I'd love to go back and work in development though, which is completely different from what I did. The way they live there is so drastically different from us. What we think is normal and important in life doesn't mean a thing to them."

"Yeah," I say. "When I was younger I read a LOT of comic books, and one day I felt convicted that I was spending $30 a month on Superman, when I could be sponsoring a child for the same amount. So I signed up for one in Burundi, and another a few years later in a refugee camp in Rwanda. The letters I get from them indicate that their society moves at a different pace and has completely different priorities. I'm definitely not rich by our society's standards, but they would look at my life and think I'm the wealthiest man they'd ever seen."

She nods. "And they don't consider themselves poor. The last thing the West needs to be doing is going in and telling them how to live, although they would certainly benefit from things like clean water." She turns the discussion on to me. "So what do you do?"

"I work in customer relations at a moving company. I'm amazed at how people get up in arms over the slightest little damage like a nick or a rub on their furniture and insist the world grinds to a halt until it's repaired. People can be so hedonistic. It drives me batty sometimes."

"Yeah. You typically don't find that attitude among the general population in Zambia, although they do have their wealthy class which is just as realistic as we are. So which moving company do you work at?"

"That one," I saw, gesturing out the window, just ahead.

There's my stop.