America, the beautiful — A Bright DrewTopian Future

Life overseas is like a long term relationship, which is why these short term trips are so great. You both put your best foot forward and go get coffee on a blind date. This is the cultural honeymoon, the first phase. This is before you enter that second phase of the relationship where everything is overwhelming, confusing, and awful. The second phase never comes on these short trips. By that point you’re already gone, left with only pleasant memories.

You don’t have to stick around, so you never find out all the ways that she’ll hurt you. How she’ll keep you up at night with her uninsulated walls and blaring honks from passing semis. How she’ll make you sick with her dirty water, or bring you pain in the form of disease transmitted via mosquitoes. There’s all kinds of things about her you don’t know yet, things you could never anticipate. You left before her issues could rise to the surface, so you’ll never know. Instead you’re left thinking “Did I just miss the love of my life?”

So be careful on these cultural coffee dates, because they’re not the full picture.

Tomoca Coffee Shop
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

China and I were together for eleven years. By that point, we knew each other so deeply - both the good and the bad. I knew her cultural contours, all her blemishes, all her lovely spots. I knew what I could expect out of her and more importantly I knew the places that she would never change because that’s just the way she is.

Now I’m back with my old partner America, the beautiful. We assume she’s the finest, the finest in the whole world. Because people will climb over a fence just to be with her. They’ll dig under a wall or pay absurd amounts of money on the long-shot chance of getting with her.

Just two days removed from the wilds of Woyiraboya, I’m seated at the bar of a Chili’s in the Chicago O’ Hare airport. It is ten in the morning.

There are three large televisions playing three different programs. Men in loud suits shout at each other about college basketball on one TV. On the other, replays of the NBA season, endlessly grinding out games. An advertisement for lawn fertilizer. Spring is coming, hurry up and take action!

The waitress serves me a big glass of ice water. My mind goes back to the kids who walk five miles to retrieve water not nearly this clean. Hundreds of illuminated liquor bottles line the back of the bar.

There are people beside me as I eat my breakfast. They are all drinking morning beers, glued to their phones and devices. It is mostly silent in this restaurant, save for The Eagles “Take it Easy” playing as background music.

America, the beautiful. I often feel that I’m being coerced to get excited about something I no longer care about. Halloween! March Madness! A New Season of This! A New Flavor of That!! OMG McRib is Baaaaaaaccckk!!!!!

This date with Ethiopia has opened old doubts.

Look at the simple joys of being with other people. Sharing a cup of coffee. Long stretches without looking at the phone. People talk to each other, because there’s no other way. They seemingly do more with less, and arrive at the destination quicker by moving slower.

Yes there’s mud. Yes it’s chaotic. Jet lag has probably scrambled my brain and I’m not making any sense. But I saw something I want to be a part of.

“Don’t be naive”, you’ll say, “It was only a week and you don’t even know each other.”

“Look at America, the beautiful, everybody wants to be with her.” You want to throw that all away on a hunch?

America: beautiful, sensual, glamorous, toxic. It would take a lot of nerve to say there’s something better out there.