Gecko Tales

I complained about the lawlessness, the traffic, and the weddings and funerals at high decibils starting at 5 a.m. and ending late at night right under my apartment. I complained about being gouged or for a few bucks everytime I went to buy something or do business somewhere, just because I was a 'barang.' I complained about the crime, the dust, the rain, and the heat. Did I mention the taffic? I think I did. But I didn't complain too much about injustice, because being a foriegner, even a poor foreigner, I could still buy my way out of most situations if I had to. As much a being a 'barang' in Geckoville is to experience things being out of one's control, money is the great leveler.

I didn't really understand just how much hopelessness their is attached to being powerless. In Geckoville, the people are powerless unless they have a position in the government of Geckoville, power, or wealth. All the rest are subject to land-grabs where they can lose everything at the whim of some greedy power hungry general who has the means to fudge land titles and remove people from thier land which has been in thier family for generations. Garment factories pay forty dollars a month and attract many young women from the country-side who find out that living expenses eat most of that up by the end of the month, and they have nothing to send home to their hungry family members in the Geckoville country-side. They have to sell sex on the side. Some get AIDS, STDs, or get pregnant. Most women have husbands who are unfaithful, and they bring home HIV/AIDS to their wives. Children are born HIV positive and when their parents die from this disease, they are now AIDS orphans that no relatives want to take in. This is only the tip of the iceberg in Geckoville, and how can one empathize with being totally powerless if you haven't been there yourself?

Having spent twelve years in Geckoville, I have only experienced the feeling of being powerless here in the land of the "Home of the Brave." I'm going broke trying to pay health bills, having an insurance company policy that has a $500 dollar deductible. Prescription meds are really costing me! The family car was hit by a lady that broadsided us, and her insurance company is playing big time games with us, and after a month our totalled car is still sitting at the auto body waiting for the insurance company to claim liability. Gas prices are close to $3.00 per gallon. The Home of the Brave is a place where big Oil companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Insurance and Healthcare corporations are gouging the poor for ever increasing profits. For the helpless poor, the Home of Brave is fast becoming 'The Home of the Grave.' The poor are becoming poorer and people of middle level incomes are becoming poor. And how can the powerless gain a voice in the Home of the Brave? You can't. Even when you vote, you wonder if you can trust those who are doing the tallying.

By making abortion and same sex marriages the central issues of the culture wars, the Religious Right has thrown up a smoke screen that obliterate's the church's call to address social issues where people are oppressed and suffer from excesses of such monoplies as mentioned above. The church should be a voice to government, but a voice of reason, not a voice of self-serving agendas. Where is the Religious Right confronting this Administration's penchant for greed and the oppression of the poor? You'll notice they are only vocal concerning matters which do not affect the purse of the wealthy.

"Geckoville' and the 'Home of the Brave' have more similarities than I would have ever thought. I am understanding a little bit more now, that when the 'Home of the Brave' tries to tell Geckoville that it needs more democracy, many people, and not only residents of Geckoville, become indignant because democracy just can't happen in countries that have such a large gap between the rich and the poor, like the 'Home of the Brave.'

Although there are few things more hopeless than feeling powerless, I am glad I was afforded this opportunity to experience semi-powerlessness during my brief stay in the 'Home of the Brave.' I can now return to Geckoville somewhat more able to empathize with the Geckoville citizens, and point them to a true hope that can sustain people in the worst of situations, the hope that comes a long with being a citizen in the Kingdom of Heaven, whose King is the Lord Jesus Christ. His Kingdom is where the poor and oppressed are prefered customers. I wish that were true of the Home of the Brave.