Where I will be on Tuesday and Wednesday Nights
You can find me in front of the TV, entranced in the excellent documentary series, The New Americans. It's seven hours long, and three nights straight, PBS style (which I prefer, since I'm impatient), and follows several people from all around the world attempting to immigrate to the States. What's cool about it is that it's over a period of four years, so you see them when the start out in their own countries and then the next episodes will detail their progress in America. Although each subject is appealing in his or her own way, my favorites are Israel and Ngozi, who are Ogoni refugees from West Africa. Israel was a chemical engineer in his old life, and then got into trouble for protesting against Shell Oil, and is now struggling to make it in America on $7/h, cleaning up after people. Even after being told that he has deadly blood pressure and wouldn't be allowed to work anymore, he's still sunny and supportive of his wife and willingly plays housedad. At one moment, when Israel was getting ready to board the bus from his refugee camp to the airport, he wondered aloud if his experience would be lik Eddie Murphy's in "Coming to America." That is so crazy in so many ways. Perhaps the perspective will give me pause before I whine about a 20 minute wait for a train.