Bin Laden is Dead

Nicaragua

Spring 2011

I am on a small ship, traveling through the Caribbean.  Internet access is very limited. So the only news I receive about Bin Laden is the Captain’s written, posted daily update on the situation: “Yesterday, special forces invaded Bin Laden’s house and killed him.  Several other people were killed in the incident.  No Americans were killed”.  That’s it.  That is the extent of information on this breaking news. 

Throughout the day, all of the passengers mention it to each other but in a quiet manner, “Did you hear that Bin Lade was killed?  Did you ever think we would get him?”  And that just about sums up the extent of our conversation on this matter.

That afternoon, we drop anchor in a port in Nicaragua. As others run off to view the sites of the town, I wandered off to find a little outdoor beer restaurant.  I plan on spending the afternoon writing and drinking beer. 

As I consume my beer, I am interrupted by strangers, Canadians as a matter of fact.  They are from the other cruise ship. They came right up to my table and sit themselves down.  They are from Ottawa. Originally, they were from Germany. They are very gregarious and wanted to know all about me and my travels.  The wife does all of the talking and then the husband abruptly announces that he had to get back to the ship.  “The loud music blasting through the public speakers was getting to me. I don’t know why they have to play it so loud”, he complained.  They say their goodbyes and I go back to my writing.

A few minutes later, another elderly couple sit at the table across from me.   That distance did not deter the wife from engaging in a conversation with me.  And her hearing problem did not deter her either. So I order another beer.

“I see that you are writing.  What are you writing? Are you a journalist?” she asks with great curiosity, great interest.

“No, I am just writing a journal about my trip.” I tell her, nonchalantly and a little embarrassed that I didn’t have something more interesting to report to her.

“What did you say?  Say that again,” she shouts back at me. 

It didn’t occur to either of us to join each other at our tables. And so we just continue to shout to each other.  Of course, she want to know about my travels so again I have to give a quick synopius of my travel life to her.  She fills me in on her life as well. The husband sits in his own spaced-out world while the wife tells me about her daughter, the editor of Blackpress.com.

 “She’s a writer, just like you,” she tells me.

Then I ask her for her take on the Bin Laden situation.  She is hesitant at first and I know she is being very guarded so as to not offend me, an American.  So I lead her to what I think is probably her answer. 

“You know, I felt empty”, I tell me.  “What were we really celebrating? Revenge or justice.”  Now she feels confident to speak freely and she tells me that she found some of the celebration distasteful. We exchanged emails and I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be nice if we were all this friendly to each other.”

They leave and now I am joined by an American couple from Florida and they are about my age.  Again, we are not sitting at the same table but that does not stop us from shouting to each other and now there is a third table of guests who chime in our conversation. And again, we go through the beer talk (and by this time, I am now making my way through my third bottle of beer) and where we have been so far and what we liked about out trips so far.  We offer suggestions to each other in light of the fact that we are on the same travel path but going in opposite directions.

I ask the Florida couple for their take on the Bin Laden’s death.  They are thrilled to discuss this topic.  “You know, most of the damn people on our cruise are mostly Canadians.  There aren’t a lot of us on this ship,” the husband tells me.

I ask for their take on the Canadian perspectives.  “Oh, those fucking Canadians really pissed me off”, the wife says, “They acted like we were making too big a deal over it.” 

That is my cue to leave.  I have had too many beers and I want to leave before I make a faux pas.

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