Sunday 14 October 2007

The "Liittle Princes" of Southern Africa

Some Caucasians from southern Africa are just plain assholes. So I’m getting into a pretty crowded Kenya Airways flight in Yaoundé to Nairobi. I have a bit of an oversized bag as I didn’t bring any check in luggage so I walk a bit down from my seat to find space in the overhead bins. I’m a bit tired and don’t really have a plan when I see some space behind a smaller bag that’s taking up a lot of needless space. Absentmindedly, I take down the bag and as I’m looking for some where to put it, I hear someone behind me hissing at me.

“Oi, put that back!”, I turned to see a rotund white guy with a southern African accent, South Africa probably but maybe Namibia or Zimbabwe, who knows.

A little later I thought perhaps a better way for this man to have approached this situation would have been to say “Excuse me, I’d like you to keep my bag where it is”. I wish I’d said something to that effect to him, instead I just said something about needing to find space, to which he replies “Well you don’t touch my bag, put it back”. God, so bloody rude and aggressive for no reason…and he is not the first white from that region with attitude. I wonder what kind of future can be for countries which such a high level of testiness.

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