amandanotsuitcase
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
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Sucuri was saying in another thread how annoying the "gap year backpackers" are. That reminded me of a story from my Middle East days, which I figured I would share cuz it's 3:30 am and I'm at work with nothing to do.
So... I used to work with a grassroots NGO in Palestine which was all about using permaculture techniques to empower Palestinians to non-violently resist the Israeli Occupation. We did a lot of experimenting with sustainable living, and how it could be applied to urban resistance. We also had this big-ass farm where we did more traditional stuff, like demonstrations about how to build compost toilets.
Anyhoo, as you can imagine, the Palestinians in the area where we lived thought we were all pretty funny. They called us "the hippies in the valley" and the westerners in the area referred to us as an "anarchist permaculture commune". I suppose both were true. Now, you can all imagine what happened: when any wierd-looking travellers hit town, they were told "go see the hippies in the valley !" or "There's an anarchist permaculture project you should really check out while you're here". Consequently, we always had curious drop-ins turning up on the farm.
My role in this fucking crazy clusterfuck was to do the shit that nobody else wanted to do. That involved a lot of cooking, cleaning, and babysitting 19 year old internationals who were decent activists, but completely emotionally dysfunctional humans. Good times !
And here's where the story starts:
I was making curry for 30 people when these two Dutch girls turned up. Somebody had told them "Go see the hippies in the valley !" and so there they were. They were gap year backpackers. The first thing these girls said to me was "Everybody in Israel was right... Arab men ARE disgusting perverts !" I suggested that the fact that they were both wearing bikini tops and micro-shorts, and they were in a mostly Muslim neighborhood might be the problem. Immune to common sense, they disagreed with me and crowed about how they had the right to wear whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted. I said "Awesome. Excuse me, I have a curry to finish making."
The two Stupid Ditch Girls stayed and hung out, telling everybody about how they were using the Couchsurfing website to travel from Amsterdam to Egypt, and generally complaining about how rude some of their hosts had been. One girl in Turkey had the audacity to ask them to chip in for food ! And in Jordan... their host had told them asked them to move on after only three days ! That was just NOT ENOUGH TIME to experience (for free) the splendors of Petra ! I was in the kitchen hitting my emergency bottle of whiskey by this time.
So I finally finished cooking this gigantic meal, and hauled a huge pot of curry and a huge pot of rice out. Everybody, including the two Stupid Dutch Girls dug in. One of them complained the entire time that it was too spicy (Uhm...it's curry !) but still managed to eat like a logger. I had been eating as I was cooking, and I wasn't hungry, so I rolled some spliffs and started smoking up. A few people (we were pretty communal with our drugs, somebody always had some and we always shared, so nobody was usually very concerned) came and sat with me and we were passing a few spliffs around. The two Stupid Dutch Girls made a beeline for the circle and worked their way in. By now I REALLY did not feel like sharing my drugs with them, but I was in a generally good mood and didn't want to bring myself down by being "that guy". About five people, three spliffs, and these dumb ass Dutch girls managed to get ahold of one and suck it down like mooch ninjas. I was non-plussed.
After they had sucked down my spliff, the two idiots went out to the porch and mooched some beer off another person in the crew. I cuddled with a friend and watched Fritz The Cat for a while, then got the munchies wikkid bad. Back in the kitchen, all we had was bread, rice and curry. I was too stoned to eat more curry. The two Dutch girls were on the porch, eating our bread with Nutella on it. That Nutella looked damn good, and I asked them if I could put some of it on my peice of bread.
This was the answer I got : "Well, no, you can't have any of it. We're on a budget, you know, and we bought this ourselves. We won't get to Egypt if we just give away all our food."
I was standing there, slack jawed. I just couldn't beleive what had happened. In fact, I was beginning to doubt that I had heard them correctly (being as stoned as I was) when another of our crew decided she had listened to enough. Cara, a tiny girl from Northern Ireland, grabbed the Nutella out of their hands and threw in down the driveway.... where it rolled downhill. Cara suggested that they fuck off and follow the Nutella down the hill. One of them started to get teary and started sniveling about how they had nowhere to sleep, and they had assumed they would be able to sleep on the farm. That enraged wee Cara to the point where she began screaming and yelling, and the two terrified Dutch girls were soon packing up their backpacks and scurrying off.
Sucuri... man... I feel your pain ! I will take oogles over backpacking gap year kids ANY day of the week !
So... I used to work with a grassroots NGO in Palestine which was all about using permaculture techniques to empower Palestinians to non-violently resist the Israeli Occupation. We did a lot of experimenting with sustainable living, and how it could be applied to urban resistance. We also had this big-ass farm where we did more traditional stuff, like demonstrations about how to build compost toilets.
Anyhoo, as you can imagine, the Palestinians in the area where we lived thought we were all pretty funny. They called us "the hippies in the valley" and the westerners in the area referred to us as an "anarchist permaculture commune". I suppose both were true. Now, you can all imagine what happened: when any wierd-looking travellers hit town, they were told "go see the hippies in the valley !" or "There's an anarchist permaculture project you should really check out while you're here". Consequently, we always had curious drop-ins turning up on the farm.
My role in this fucking crazy clusterfuck was to do the shit that nobody else wanted to do. That involved a lot of cooking, cleaning, and babysitting 19 year old internationals who were decent activists, but completely emotionally dysfunctional humans. Good times !
And here's where the story starts:
I was making curry for 30 people when these two Dutch girls turned up. Somebody had told them "Go see the hippies in the valley !" and so there they were. They were gap year backpackers. The first thing these girls said to me was "Everybody in Israel was right... Arab men ARE disgusting perverts !" I suggested that the fact that they were both wearing bikini tops and micro-shorts, and they were in a mostly Muslim neighborhood might be the problem. Immune to common sense, they disagreed with me and crowed about how they had the right to wear whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted. I said "Awesome. Excuse me, I have a curry to finish making."
The two Stupid Ditch Girls stayed and hung out, telling everybody about how they were using the Couchsurfing website to travel from Amsterdam to Egypt, and generally complaining about how rude some of their hosts had been. One girl in Turkey had the audacity to ask them to chip in for food ! And in Jordan... their host had told them asked them to move on after only three days ! That was just NOT ENOUGH TIME to experience (for free) the splendors of Petra ! I was in the kitchen hitting my emergency bottle of whiskey by this time.
So I finally finished cooking this gigantic meal, and hauled a huge pot of curry and a huge pot of rice out. Everybody, including the two Stupid Dutch Girls dug in. One of them complained the entire time that it was too spicy (Uhm...it's curry !) but still managed to eat like a logger. I had been eating as I was cooking, and I wasn't hungry, so I rolled some spliffs and started smoking up. A few people (we were pretty communal with our drugs, somebody always had some and we always shared, so nobody was usually very concerned) came and sat with me and we were passing a few spliffs around. The two Stupid Dutch Girls made a beeline for the circle and worked their way in. By now I REALLY did not feel like sharing my drugs with them, but I was in a generally good mood and didn't want to bring myself down by being "that guy". About five people, three spliffs, and these dumb ass Dutch girls managed to get ahold of one and suck it down like mooch ninjas. I was non-plussed.
After they had sucked down my spliff, the two idiots went out to the porch and mooched some beer off another person in the crew. I cuddled with a friend and watched Fritz The Cat for a while, then got the munchies wikkid bad. Back in the kitchen, all we had was bread, rice and curry. I was too stoned to eat more curry. The two Dutch girls were on the porch, eating our bread with Nutella on it. That Nutella looked damn good, and I asked them if I could put some of it on my peice of bread.
This was the answer I got : "Well, no, you can't have any of it. We're on a budget, you know, and we bought this ourselves. We won't get to Egypt if we just give away all our food."
I was standing there, slack jawed. I just couldn't beleive what had happened. In fact, I was beginning to doubt that I had heard them correctly (being as stoned as I was) when another of our crew decided she had listened to enough. Cara, a tiny girl from Northern Ireland, grabbed the Nutella out of their hands and threw in down the driveway.... where it rolled downhill. Cara suggested that they fuck off and follow the Nutella down the hill. One of them started to get teary and started sniveling about how they had nowhere to sleep, and they had assumed they would be able to sleep on the farm. That enraged wee Cara to the point where she began screaming and yelling, and the two terrified Dutch girls were soon packing up their backpacks and scurrying off.
Sucuri... man... I feel your pain ! I will take oogles over backpacking gap year kids ANY day of the week !
