PC has given me this weird feeling of having woken up from a dream. It's a false feeling-- but strong nonetheless.

HOME (?)

So, I think ive realized something: somehow, being here has stopped being magical and exotic and new, and instead the US has started being that. There's something about this traditional lifestyle and the modesty of it that in my mind, makes this feel natural, normal . And the idea of a country with the interstate system, and everyone has a car, big green lawns, the restaurants sell you 3x more food than you can eat, everyone's got 3 or 4 digital devices that all work together-- that somehow seems unbelievable, like a scifi movie world that they say i belong to. and i know that in my bones, but there's this cognitive dissonance.... THIS feels more emotionally like the world i'd expect if i didnt know the other existed .


Not sure if that's clear-- i used to explaina PC as ''the chance to understand how your grandparent's used to live."'

1930/40's USA- when our grandparents were our age.

While now we relate to them, knowing what it's like not to have indoor heating, or AC; not to take but one shower a week; not to have a television; no car; people in the streets rushing outside when they hear an airplane, everyone knows everybody else enough to know when they've been gone away on a trip (or if they done got into something that they shouldn't); you got a phone but maybe no money to operate it the few times that you got a clear line, you see the face of the animal you eat the day before and know the late It's name, etc. But above all, work. In a town where everyone is either a shopkeeper, a butcher or a construction worker, it seems insane that a person would be able to feasably and comfortably support their families with some of the common jobs that we have back home: party advisor, lobbyist, intellectual, naked cowboy (see below).



So maybe in my soul, ive adopted the same disbelief that you see in their eyes when you show them (...: Grandparents) Skype video-chat with somebody on the other side of the world, and its clear and full-screen and can talk direct to them with no delay--and without paying for it. It is partly that, but also even much lesser things now shock and amaze me and remind me more of a theme park parading as the real world : the silverware at Hartmut's hotel on the other side of Nkob, imported from Frankfurt, seems like the forks and spoons of a king, not just the ones you'd expect everyone to have.

Is this CG, ?, or is that a real picture, you wonder...

Maybe that's more of the heart of the matter -- I can imagine these things existing to this very high degree of quality, but the surprise is that so many back home can afford them. Or better said, amazed that they once could afford all the things they already have, even if it took10 credit cards. Same feeling as when I was with Cristina C in Lausanne, talking about how can anyone has the money for those sumtuous buildings to be their life.

But the unreality will be felt all over, I'm sure, and in many different ways apart from the purely economic ones.