LET'S EXPLORE THE EXOTIC WEST

An African man living in the German town of Hildesheim
recently woke up to a shocking sight: Vandals had painted
his car white. After staring in disbelief through the window
of his fifth-floor apartment, the man called police, hoping
they could catch the dastardly "white-paint gang." How could
they victimize a poor foreigner like this?

Fortunately, German police are the model of efficiency. As
soon as they arrived on the scene, they identified the
culprit, a repeat offender known to most people in the
Northern Hemisphere as "snow."

The police did not fine the man for calling in a false
report, realizing he had never seen snow in his native
Gambia, not even with help from the local brew.

This reminds me of the first time I encountered snow, soon
after arriving in Pennsylvania from Zambia. I spotted a pile
that looked so soft, I decided to do what any normal person
whose brain is half-frozen would do: dive into it. Needless
to say, my face turned completely white and numb.
Thankfully, the whiteness disappeared, as soon as I scraped
off the snow. But the numbness remained, forcing me to rush
to a mirror to determine if my nose was still there or if I
needed to pay a visit to Michael Jackson's surgeon.

I blame this incident, of course, on the lack of snow
education in America. But I also blame television: While
westerners watch "National Geographic Explorer" and other
shows to learn about the exotic world, people in Africa and
Asia aren't usually exposed to similar shows about the West.
Imagine what they could learn, with help from a good
narrator:

---"They're big, hairy and stealthy, these dogged creatures
of the West. In the wee hours of the morning, you can find
them in the wild, hiding in trees and bushes. To tourists,
they're a mystery of the civilized world, but to natives of
America, they're known merely as deer hunters. Like the
primitive Indians who collected scalps of their victims,
these Homo sapiens decorate their walls with heads of their
prey. On today's episode of 'The Exotic West,' we'll observe
a group of hunters and try to understand why, in these
modern times, they don't just visit the grocery store."

---"Last week we looked at the hunters of the modern world,
today we look at the gatherers -- the creatures who fill
their homes with useless junk. They call themselves
collectors, but as our hidden cameras will show, nothing in
their homes is worth collecting. They spend their weekends
visiting yard sales and flea markets, searching for ways to
throw away their money. Why do they do it? No one knows for
sure. Like the freaks who appear on 'The Jerry Springer
Show,' they're another mystery of the civilized world."

---"In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, there falls a
white substance known as snow. It's soft, cold, and as flaky
as the creatures who play in it. Today we'll observe the
strangest of these creatures, the ones who get ecstatic
about snow, the ones who pay money to push themselves across
it. While most mammals try to avoid snow and ice, these
enigmas of the human race -- commonly known as skiers --
will tumble down snow-laden slopes, crash into each other,
twist knees and ankles, then spend hours defrosting their
derrières. They're truly a wondrous sight for all tourists
to the exotic West, particularly those from Gambia."

Send this column to a friend