"Jeff Taylor" wrote in message
...

"riverman" wrote in message
...

there's no coup attempts weekly........damn, I gotta go cry now.

Last night when I got home from work, my bride was watching Oprah. The
show
was a special on the Congo and how difficult the living is for the people,
with the insurgents raping and pillaging the village folks.

If it's any consolation Riverman, Myself and many appreciate what you are
doing for the people... I mentioned to my wife, that I knew of you from
ROFF
and that you teach in the Congo, she was impressed when I told her you
were
from the US.



Thanks for the nice thoughts, JT, but in the fairness of full disclosure,
I'm not doing anything with the locals, and I'm definatiely not doing
anything apreciable. I work in an international school, teaching the
cooperative and privilidged kids of diplomats, missionaries, businessmen and
the government. We are pretty well funded, live behind 10 foot razorwire
topped walls, are guarded 24/7, and earn more than 99% of the country.
(Which isn't saying much, I realize. We also earn considerably less than
that remaining 1%). There's really nothing noble about what I do here....I
teach school in a recognizable instutution, and if I wanted to get access to
the interior to teach the locals, I would probably get stopped nine
different ways to Sunday by bureaucracy, danger and territoriality. Having
been mugged by soldiers last year, terrified by incoming rounds in several
coup attempts, and generally panhandled to death by the population of
Kinshasa, I am feeling so ready to move on from here that there is no
shade of honor or nobility anywhere near my being. Sorry.

-riverman