Xenophobia

I had MY first taste of it today.

I was at Shoprite (a SOUTH AFRICAN based company) buying a few groceries this afternoon and had my few things on the counter and a guy came behind me and put his KENYAN yoghurt down right next to my stuff so the cashier would probably have rung his yoghurt up with my stuff so I moved it over a bit. You'd think I had touched the flipping crown jewels the way he went off at me!!!! So I explained to him that I was just moving it over so the cashier didn't accidentally put it with my stuff but he was hearing nothing of it!! He told me that I mustn't touch HIS stuff to which I pointed out that it wasn't his because he hadn't paid for it yet. So he tiraded (is that a word?) about "you foreigners" and that we should pack our bags and leave. The cashier and the packer were at this stage, rather wide eyed as you can imagine! To which I then pointed out that if it were not for "us foreigners" he wouldn't even be there considering he was buying KENYAN yoghurt in a SOUTH AFRICAN based shop!!! I saw RED!!! I was so angry that I actually wanted to cry afterwards. Fortunately Nicholas (who was with me) was more interested in what was going into someone else's trolley so he didn't see the ugliness of it and then ask a million questions afterwards.
I guess he was having a bad day. Ugandans are normally so polite and non-confrontational. In MY experience anyway.....

Then on another note....I was reading The Weekly Observer today and there's an article in it that should be distributed to all the South Africans that have jumped on the Xenophobia bandwagon. The writer hit the nail on the head.