Mind Boggle

"In cultural synthesis, the actors who come from "another world" to the world of the people do so not as invaders. They do not come to teach or to transmit or to give anything, but rather to learn, with the people, about the people's world." - Paulo Friere

Thursday morning I woke and dressed for work as usual. When I left my bedroom I saw that the front door was wide open. Not just unlocked, WIDE OPEN! I walked onto the terrace and it seemed no one was around so I called Rodney who seemed the likely suspect. He said he was at work and Andrew had left after him. I wrote Andrew a note letting him know how upset I was at having been left in such a vulnerable position. That night Rodney and I were chatting about work projects when Andrew knocked on my door and asked if we could talk.

I said sure and he passed me the note I had written that morning and said why don't you read this note you left me again so we can discuss it. I said I'm familiar with what it says. He then passed the note to Rodney and said well why don't you read it. I said Rodney doesn't have anything to do with the note. I wrote it so if you have an issue you should take it up with me. Then he goes on to say that the note did not make him feel good. That he's been having a hard week as it is the anniversary of a family death. I told him I empathized with him on the family death as I know from personal experience how hard that can be. I also said that we have no idea whether things are good or bad for him as he is never around to have a conversation and when I tried to start a conversation two days earlier he ended it curtly and left the room.

All this has nothing to do with the note though, I said. The note was not intended to make you feel good. It was intended to convey my distress at learning that I was both asleep and then in the shower while the front door to our apartment was wide open. He never really apologized and I didn't expect an apology anyway, so the conversation moved on taking several turns and finaly resting on the recent ramping up of his aggressively boorish behavior. After we pressed him he admitted that he has been taking out his anger on us. The cause of the anger, you ask? Because last Friday when Rodney and I went to the market and bought food, and cooked a pot of soup and a pot of rice, we brought our plates into the livingroom to eat, and though we invited him to eat if he was hungry (although he appeared not to be - why else had he waited for us to get home and begin cooking at that late hour) we did not fix him a plate and bring it to him. So after all that he was angry with us?! You can't make this stuff up folks!

I said Andrew it's not enough that we go to the market while you laze about; it's not enough that we have put out a cash advance for the share of the food that you are going to eat since you only pay after money has been spent and food digested; it's not enough that we have to prepare and then cook food when we get home even though you get home hours before we do, but now you want us to serve you a plate too? Are you kidding me? I told him that I found it utterly ridiculous that he would be angry enough to be rude to me while still taking the daily opportunity to partake of the food I cooked and was generous enough to continue to share in spite of his boorish behavior. The very idea still boggles my mind every time I think about it.