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October 14 my fake name and homelandAround my hotel in the Gambia, guys (I call them "touts") are constantly trying to get you to buy something or come to their restaurant or whatever. But they always start with a couple of friendly personal questions to get to know you. Unfortunately, they all ask the exact same questions, so at this point dozens of men have asked me, What's your name? and What country are you from?
At some point, I began to feel fatigued and defensive (since no one really cares about my name or home, it's just an unoriginal sales intro) and didn't like feeling that way, I decided to have some fun. My new name would be The Magic Man and I come from Brigadoon. Here is a real conversation (as far as I can remember it) from Friday afternoon as I'm walking along the beach:
And tout goes on to invite me to his bar and I pass. The great thing about this exchange is that I couldn't help but smile and be good-natured the whole time. (Unless you think it's inherently bad-natured to use a fake name, but I don't in this case: Everyone in the situation is being disingenuous, so I think everyone is playing by the same rules.) TrackbacksWeblogs that reference this entry
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