I’m living in a weird country.
I remember that, 2 or 3 years ago, I was asking my brother living in France if he was interested by buying an iPhone here in Madagascar. He thought it was a joke, Apple was only going to release it 3 months later there. I can easily understand his reaction: we are one of the poorest countries in the world, Apple’s products available way before developed areas aren’t necessarily the first thing you have in mind when thinking about us !
Some may not know it but the situation down here just got worse. It’s been more than a year that we’re living in an endless f*cking crisis, nobody has an idea of what tomorrow is going to look like. Malagasy people are struggling to the fullest but y’all know what? Since a week you can find the iPad for about $950 ! Hahahaaa… It may not be that funny but I can’t resist laughing nervously at how stupid those kinds of situations are to me, as I find that it just doesn’t really make sense: that’s around 2 years of the average monthly income in Madagascar, for God’s sake !
I’m pretty sure there are the same scenes in many other countries, but the ratio between suffering poor people and fancy expensive luxury (sigh) products in my country has always been a thing that amazed me and remains a mystery. With the amount of Range Rover or Porsche Cayenne rolling all over the city, trust me, the day Ferrari is going to put out a 4×4 model, you’ll find it in every corner here !
Even if it ain’t a luxury one, I’m daily riding in a car myself. I guess the average family father who tries hard to feed his kids with a meal a day doesn’t give a sh*t about how much did my whip cost. Knowing if it was 2 grand or a mill wouldn’t stop him think I’m a privileged dude and he probably would be right. I could agree with those saying it has been like that for ages and everywhere, what’s fair or unfair is not even the point. But one can understand that seeing a $150.000 car passing by a starving homeless mother, sleeping in the street at 10:00 pm with a baby in her arms (you can’t make that up) is goddamn surreal !
I’m far for pretending I want to change the world. Anticipating what I’m going to do past the next 10 minutes is already a tough stuff for me. Plus I am obviously no super hero, and even if I was, I would be for sure a more f*cked up version of… Hancock ! But one thing I know, every single day I try hard, truly hard TO NOT GET USED to those types of senseless situations. That sh*t ain’t normal.
