They hate us...

I add another 2 tenths of a mile to my morning run – slow jog that is, as the crows sing out an uneven beat to the insect melody and my clunky foot steps.

The sky appears semi-full of clouds, floating by as weak bubbles in a bathtub wilting while waiting for the late bather. 

It is brisk, maybe in the 50’s, and all the campers have left but two.  I don’t see deer this morning, but hear lots of little creatures scurrying away. It is the ones I don’t hear that I am heavy-footed for, although my apprehension has eased.

I do my Monday morning camp host chores, cleaning the men and women’s bathroom building assigned to me.

I meet John, the nurse camp host from the next rv campground over at the end of the road. He appears to be white but I am surprised when he tells me he identifies as part Creek, Cheyenne, Navaho. I already know he has told Roy that they left because the people on the reservation where he and his wife worked, "don't like white people".

He talks from his white man’s privilege, but I doubt he would see it that way:

He tells me how wonderful Mexico used to be, when the Mexicans loved us - he and his wife married there, he's taken many trips since he was young. He appears to be in his 50's - but now "they" no longer love "us", he says kind of bewildered.

When I say, weeeelllll can you blame them? 1.7 million farmers losing their land the year NAFTA was instituted, thank you Monsanto and other U.S. corporations.

He says but now Mexico is dangerous for 'us', how unsafe, how uncivilized, how stupid the people are now. Hmmmm not difficult for him to say.

He now goes to Chile – thanks to the CIA overthrow of Allende, I want to remind him – and claims the people know how to act (towards u.s.a. folks - I say) there. And after how many years of repressive dictatorship I want to ask.

But John has moved on to ask me who I voted for. I smile and say not romney, who he calls 'wilt' romney. John's an Obama fan, although he says neither of the candidates are good on the environment, nodding in the direction of my truck.

Nor on wars, I say - but that's nothing new. John agrees with me and says we're as the roman empire.

And I have to re-evaluate my experiences with camp hosts. The ones I've met as a camper have been scary, aryan types that paid my money to and then did my best to avoid. But these folks in Alabama seem to be on the left side of center at the very least.

And they vote. Of course, they're not Alabama born & bred....