Dirty souls, clean soul
High phone bills, lack of access to fresh cow’s milk and more often than not, white skin, somehow awards a deceptive sense of superiority to certain members of the expat community. Yes, being an expat can certainly curb your cappuccino cravings, give you a great suntan (location permitting) and have you yearning for random nostalgic memories of home, like magpies warbling, but somehow it is also affords you this ‘Please advance to the front of the supermarket line, and collect your $200 dollars in cheap Chinese goods as you pass Go’ status.
The residual behaviours of colonialism still lingers. And near 36 years on, the head of the supermarket line is just the beginning.
Sitting at the bar enjoying a pint as the sun shimmers it’s way over the sultry, crimson horizon, wandering thoughts are slammed back to reality as the oily, beer-bellied, cherry sunburnt face belches his demand for more lager, startling the few unfamiliar visitors. Eyes perpetually averted, the young local girl fumbles to satiate the dirty souls demands for more of the seemingly sacred liquid.
Continuing to tell anyone who will listen about what he has to put up with around here, he struggles to find the opening on his glass of beer. The bar stool heaves with years of expat salary induced imported diets as he finds the unsuspecting clean soul to offload his latest colourful, but equally as crude, yarn.
Pointing to the oozing infection in the corner of his bloodshot eye, he slams down his glass purging any dregs that haven’t already soaked the front of his grubby 1970’s sun-bleached shirt, again seeking pity for the grievances he has to suffer in this God forsaken tropical island hell. Slurring through his inebriated speech impediment he stammers, “Ya know the best thing for gettin’ rid of a sore in ya eye?”
“Milk. Breast milk. Yep, that’ll sort ya out. Have you purring like a, like a baby.” Squinting, the glassy, bloodshot eyes await the reaction from the slowly dirtying clean soul. Almost fortunately, the reaction lags, outwardly displaying a neutral stance disguising the attempts to comprehend the vulgarity of the situation.
“Oi, woman! Get here. None of this beer, I want mother’s milk. Now get onto it.” Ever so generously, he throws her the silver change from his unspent bar shrapnel and grins with self satisfaction, scratching the exposed bulge where his lower hem of shirt doesn’t quite reach.
Eyes perpetually averted, she sidles off into the blanketing darkness to find a kindred soul willing to assist her in satiating the dirty soul’s demands for more, seemingly sacred liquid.
Returning with an inch of mother’s milk in an SP middy, his reddened eyes glow. Knocking his head back he fumbles to drizzle the sacred liquid into his oozing, infected eye with his lashing tongue fortuitously around, catching any of the overflow.
Seedily satisfied, his sunburnt face and sun bleached shirt now both soaked with the crudely brewed seemingly sacred liquids.
And slamming down his glass once again, he proudly announces to the well-soiled clean souls now almost repulsed by their own amber ales, “Ah, still fresh, straight from the tit. Nothin’ better than warm milk to sort ya out. Have you purring like a baby”.
Lesson 27: The head of supermarket line is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I forgot how quickly your souls can dirty in this country, and fortunately, not metaphorically speaking.
Excluding the variety that are within arms fumble of a beer tap, ‘dirty souls’ can be quite a enlightening, mind-opening means to literally take a walk in somebody else’s shoes, or ‘slippers’, as it were. (Aussies, read: ‘thongs’ or ‘double-pluggers’ and for the Kiwi’s: ‘jandles’.)
Getting down and dirty, learning a thing or two from the locals, your souls will undoubtedly end the day with the kind of tan that washes off in the shower. Dirty souls in this journey, take you along the bush track through the village where you learn that having dirty souls is not reflective of your soul, and neither that this imposed notion of ‘poverty’ can be measured by dirty souls.
Why is it that having shoes on your feet, is a measure of poverty, or rather lack of? Where shoes are lacking, smiles are wide. Life may not have the qualities deemed appropriate by some hierarchy of needs or scale of poverty, but the quality in the life would rank highest on any imposed scale.
Lesson 28: Poverty is merely a frame of mind, with no correlation to shoes or dirty souls, but to smiles, strong community, healthy minds and a clean soul.
The residual behaviours of colonialism still lingers. And near 36 years on, the head of the supermarket line is just the beginning.
Sitting at the bar enjoying a pint as the sun shimmers it’s way over the sultry, crimson horizon, wandering thoughts are slammed back to reality as the oily, beer-bellied, cherry sunburnt face belches his demand for more lager, startling the few unfamiliar visitors. Eyes perpetually averted, the young local girl fumbles to satiate the dirty souls demands for more of the seemingly sacred liquid.
Continuing to tell anyone who will listen about what he has to put up with around here, he struggles to find the opening on his glass of beer. The bar stool heaves with years of expat salary induced imported diets as he finds the unsuspecting clean soul to offload his latest colourful, but equally as crude, yarn.
Pointing to the oozing infection in the corner of his bloodshot eye, he slams down his glass purging any dregs that haven’t already soaked the front of his grubby 1970’s sun-bleached shirt, again seeking pity for the grievances he has to suffer in this God forsaken tropical island hell. Slurring through his inebriated speech impediment he stammers, “Ya know the best thing for gettin’ rid of a sore in ya eye?”
“Milk. Breast milk. Yep, that’ll sort ya out. Have you purring like a, like a baby.” Squinting, the glassy, bloodshot eyes await the reaction from the slowly dirtying clean soul. Almost fortunately, the reaction lags, outwardly displaying a neutral stance disguising the attempts to comprehend the vulgarity of the situation.
“Oi, woman! Get here. None of this beer, I want mother’s milk. Now get onto it.” Ever so generously, he throws her the silver change from his unspent bar shrapnel and grins with self satisfaction, scratching the exposed bulge where his lower hem of shirt doesn’t quite reach.
Eyes perpetually averted, she sidles off into the blanketing darkness to find a kindred soul willing to assist her in satiating the dirty soul’s demands for more, seemingly sacred liquid.
Returning with an inch of mother’s milk in an SP middy, his reddened eyes glow. Knocking his head back he fumbles to drizzle the sacred liquid into his oozing, infected eye with his lashing tongue fortuitously around, catching any of the overflow.
Seedily satisfied, his sunburnt face and sun bleached shirt now both soaked with the crudely brewed seemingly sacred liquids.
And slamming down his glass once again, he proudly announces to the well-soiled clean souls now almost repulsed by their own amber ales, “Ah, still fresh, straight from the tit. Nothin’ better than warm milk to sort ya out. Have you purring like a baby”.
Lesson 27: The head of supermarket line is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I forgot how quickly your souls can dirty in this country, and fortunately, not metaphorically speaking.
Excluding the variety that are within arms fumble of a beer tap, ‘dirty souls’ can be quite a enlightening, mind-opening means to literally take a walk in somebody else’s shoes, or ‘slippers’, as it were. (Aussies, read: ‘thongs’ or ‘double-pluggers’ and for the Kiwi’s: ‘jandles’.)
Getting down and dirty, learning a thing or two from the locals, your souls will undoubtedly end the day with the kind of tan that washes off in the shower. Dirty souls in this journey, take you along the bush track through the village where you learn that having dirty souls is not reflective of your soul, and neither that this imposed notion of ‘poverty’ can be measured by dirty souls.
Why is it that having shoes on your feet, is a measure of poverty, or rather lack of? Where shoes are lacking, smiles are wide. Life may not have the qualities deemed appropriate by some hierarchy of needs or scale of poverty, but the quality in the life would rank highest on any imposed scale.
Lesson 28: Poverty is merely a frame of mind, with no correlation to shoes or dirty souls, but to smiles, strong community, healthy minds and a clean soul.
Edit (September 2021): Recently I had someone read my blog and call me out on a photo that was featured here. It was of children in a fishing village near where I lived in Takubar (near Kokopo) in East New Britain. The children had been swimming and were naked, and whilst I did seek permission from them to take the photo, I have learnt and know understand that what I did was exploitative. The power and privilege I held (and hold) as a white, foreign woman meant that them giving permission was never done so freely. Let alone a photo of them naked. I am sorry. Thank you to the reader and to those that have the courage to call out racism and white supremacy when they witness it. I am committed to holding up a mirror to myself, my whiteness and my racism.
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