There’s nothing like getting thrown into a new culture for discovering who you really are. All that is familiar is taken from you and you have to learn to think and live in a different way. You begin to question yourself, your upbringing, your values… indeed, everything you’ve lived for. That’s what I wanted to explore in this story which draws to a large extent on personal experiences, having lived and worked for ten years in Chad, Central Africa.

Elizabeth became the ideal character to explore this question. Outwardly, a self-assured, confident business woman, she suddenly finds herself with realities she doesn’t like. When she once again meets – one could almost say is confronted by – an old college friend with whom she now seems to be on a collision course, she begins to doubt.

Making Elizabeth’s confrontation with the new culture a short one is deliberate. She’s thrown in at the deep end and is intensely aware of all that is going on around her. It’s only in the early days of cultural immersion that this is really possible. At the same time it provides her with an escape route. She can always turn her back on what she sees and is beginning to feel, return home and again take up her life where she left off. In the end she does make a choice, but this decision is just the first step on the road she has yet to explore.

The story also calls into question one of the Western world’s cherished idols. We take it for granted that successful businesses and economic growth are commendable. Giving the story a Third World setting enables me to show up this fallacy and enable the reader to ask if things are so different wherever he/she lives.

Discovery Part One

Discovery Part Two

Discovery Part Three

Tomorrow Paul talks about being part of the Chinese Whisperings project. All comments of two lines or more go into the draw at the end of the week for a limited edition (electronic) Red Book Reversed.