Often I chuckled at Fiji Times’ stories for their bad writing and humorous subjects. I can’t think of any specific examples off hand at the moment but rest assured there were plenty.
Since being home I have enjoyed getting back into keeping up
with current events in real time and reading local newspapers. I have found that stories here are just
as humorous and poorly written as in third world countries. For example, on the front page of the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram local section is a story of a 3-year-old child that
contracted E. coli, which then led to a more serious ailment hospitalizing him
for days and almost killing him.
It sounds sad, right? Well,
as I read on I discovered this little dude contracted the disease from swallowing
dirt. O.k., that sounds normal for
a 3-year-old no matter what world you live in. But it gets better.
This ‘scrapper’ swallowed the dirt because a galloping sheep bucked him
off while racing other sheep with 3-year-olds strap to their backsides. Of course this all happened in front of
paying adult spectators of which I have to think a tiny percentage had their
faculties about them and still let this strange exhibition take place. You may doubt this actually happens in
the developed world, or anywhere in the world for that matter, so here is the
quote from the first paragraph of the story. “It took just seconds for 3-year-old DerekScott (yes,
that’s his first name) “Bubba” Kirby to get to thrown off the sheep he was
riding during a mutton-busting event at a Central Texas rodeo.” Amazing
right? I must confess I have
observed, and possibly competed in, this event many times and it never quite
dawned on me how stupid this is.
What is even more shocking is that it took me living on a remote island
in the South Pacific to register the complete insanity of this
activity. I guess that is one of
the beauties of the Peace Corps, your perspective is never quite the same
again. Thank the Lord!
Great post!
Posted by: Marty Hill | August 19, 2010 at 12:38 PM