America

Alex and I are at the airport in DC, on our way back to Vanuatu. Our time in America has been busy and good. We have spent the last three days visiting with my parents, who were kind enough to drive down to DC for the visit.

We wondered if the traffic and gigantic cement buildings and business of life here would freak us out, and we are happy to report - it didn't. We are comfortable in the states, it's what we've known our whole life, how could a year somewhere else change that?

I will tell you what did freak me out. It is the sharp distinctions between our social classes. I started to notice it at the airport in Australia. There were three people for 50 seats in the "Gold Star" waiting area and 300 people for 50 seats in the "You don't have a gold star" waiting area. The waiting areas were right beside each other with only a little gate (that anyone could move) in between the two waiting areas. Everyone seemed to take this situation as normal and acceptable.

DC has Mc-mansions, multi-million dollar cathedrals/monuments and homeless/near-homeless living together in what seems to be an acceptable agreement. There are stores for poor people, stores for middle-income people and stores for wealthy. There are even stores for middle-income folks that wish they were more wealthy.

As we wait for the airplane now, several men and women are surfing the internet while those not wishing to pay for internet services (and those without a computer) are not. It's very different than life in our village on our island in the South Pacific. I wonder how natural it is to find our caste system acceptable. I wonder how our friends on the island would respond if they were given a level in our caste system.