Crises of Confidence
Traveling into an economically challenged nation, is a learning experience if you listen beyond what you see and hear. As you walk into the airport arrival lounge what hits you is the normalcy of the context. Duty free shops as same as ever, people crowding these shops – but mostly foreigners, with shops offering multiple deals. But one you reach the money exchange counter and looks at the rate of exchange, it hits you. For you as a visitor, it is very economical, but one starts realising things are not too ok. As you drive into the city, everything seems normal as usual. Till you start listening to stories. The taxi driver earns about $ 30/- a day with exchange rate about 300/- per dollar. Of the 30, a third goes off to the owner. He told me, I am hoping to go off to Europe as a manual labourer. There is no use staying on here. But then he said, “for some there is much money too sir! He said, last night I picked up three boys in the early 20s a with a girl around 14-15. The girl