Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: CONSPIRACY (01/21/21)
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TITLE: It's All in How You Say It | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lorie Coffin
01/28/21 -
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You must understand, I have never been in trouble in my life. I was just not aware of how much I looked like a drug mule.
Sadly, that knowledge could have helped me.
Customs singled me out from the herd like a lion going in for the kill. Open your bag, they said. Where have you been? Where are you going? I answered every question, smiling my happy, charming self, confident this would take just a few minutes.
They left to get a supervisor.
For some reason, they were confused by my answers. I was travelling around the world by myself. Well, halfway by myself. I had spent three weeks in Uganda with my friend, helping in the villages, attending a conference and going on a safari.
We had faced many challenges and dangers on this great adventure. We had travelled a notorious road, dodging bandits and land mines on the road to Gulu to visit a refugee camp. It felt like a war zone. A lady tried to curse us with witchcraft, placing a dead scorpion on the front seat of our vehicle. There were flies that could kill you, crocs that could eat you, and bees that could eat your house. Well, that last part I made up but the rest is true.
Now the adventure included me as suspect in a plot to import drugs? God did have a sense of humor. Or maybe the scorpion curse was having an effect.
They patted me down, became more intense in their questioning. Laughter left my countenance like a hyena falling asleep. Or, since I was now in Australia, a kookaburra who didn’t get the joke. Whatever it was, I sensed I was in big trouble.
Where is your friend? Vancouver.
How do you know her? She works with me.
Why is she not with you? No money.
What are you doing in Australia? Attending a wedding.
The officers were still not impressed with my travel history nor my answers. My goodness. They really suspected me of something? This was getting serious.
I began to squirm and shift my feet, feeling more and more uncomfortable. They thoroughly searched my backpack, felt carefully along the seams and studied my passport, with my yellow fever vaccination certificate and the dates of entry. People began to leave as they cleared customs. My friends were waiting outside over an hour now. What’s next, a full body x-ray? A strip search?
Why didn’t they believe me?
Alone in the screening area, with my big braids, my courage faded like the evening light. The five officers surrounding me had that effect. They whispered to each other and gestured my way.
Okay, I thought, I am a young woman, travelling mostly alone around the world. My itinerary? Vancouver, London, Uganda, South Africa, Australia. I met a “friend” in Uganda who conveniently could not come to Australia. And I looked…and smelled…like this.
Oh.
I had no real shower for three weeks, simply bathing in a bucket. No usual manicure, no makeup. I was a professional woman on a short-term missions trip. That’s how I saw myself but my looks here said I was homeless and desperate for cash.
Lord, help!
I told them every detail now; my experiences in the villages, the party we had for two hundred children, the doctors we brought with us into the mud huts. I never left a thing out, stringing syllables together breathlessly for five minutes straight. Then, I waited.
So, you’re a missionary, they said.
I paused. It never even occurred to me that I was a missionary. But that is indeed what I was.
Yes, I’m a missionary, I said straightening my back a little at my own revelation.
Okay, off you go, they announced. And that was that, I was free to go.
I just wish God had told me earlier that I was a missionary. It would have saved me a lot of grief.
And I would have worn a little lipstick.
True Story
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I was surprised to learn halfway down that the narrator was female. I then went back to the start and reread it, with the corresponding tone quite different. It's one thing to be mean to a bloke with dreadlocks, it's another to intimidate a young woman. At least that's what I think. So I wonder if it might have helped if you had dropped in a gender reference earlier on. But hey it's a great read and one I have already shared!
Whether intentionally or not I felt you also brought out the way that the label 'missionary' has accumulated unwelcome overtones, at least in some places and contexts, such that we have become nervous of revealing that identity and are then surprised by the revelation that in other circles it remains a badge of honour!