As for my family: my parents wanted me to come home and find a “real job”, like him. He was always my father’s favourite and thus also my mother’s. He was everything they wanted: a good athlete, he studied law at Yale and had a good job with an even better paycheck. He also had a nice girlfriend, of course with rich parents.
While working in South America, I hardly ever spoke to my family. I knew they were just going to tell me they disapprove of my choices and that I should come home. There was just one thing, that place at that time was my home. I had felt more at home in there the middle of nowhere then I had ever felt back in Oregon.
During my time in South-America the situation in Afghanistan grew worse and worse. My friends and I decided our help was more needed there at the moment than anywhere else, and so we moved. Maybe it was a wrong decision to go there, but on the other hand, a confrontation would have been inevitable. We did a lot of good work there, provided food, clean water and shelters. It was very tough, in America we had always been accepted with open arms, but here it was a different world: people did not always accept our help; maybe it was because we were Americans, and they just didn’t trust us.
When he began the war something inside of me snapped. It made me hate him, made me loathe him from the deepest of my heart. I simply could not understand how he could have been so ignorant and so self-centred!
Of course, Afghanistan wasn’t the ideal country, and yes, a lot could have been improved and the system was corrupt, but that is no excuse to begin a war. I don’t think he ever thought even for a second about the social consequences for this country. All he ever cared about was power, and finding ways to show it off. I did what I could to better the lives of so many whom had lost their home or parents. Eventually I went to America to talk some sense into him. He treated me like a stray dog. Said I had to keep my nose out of HIS business. I guess he forgot it was my business too; it was also my life that was in jeopardy while I was trying to save the lives of people he did not care about. We had a horrible fight. He even had me thrown out of the white house by his bodyguards. I did everything to make him stop that war, but it was all in vain. He did not stop until he had turned that beautiful country into a giant parking lot.
Everything was ruined. Most of my work had been destroyed, but all he cared about was `fighting against terrorism´ as he called it. He never realised the entire world thought he was the greatest terrorist of them all. After wasting a month in America, trying to convince him of his mistakes, I went back and we did everything within my powers to sabotage him and his war as much as possible. We poisoned water reserves, we stole cars and weapons, destroyed camps and set up revolts under the local people. Eventually it stopped. He had done enough damage and went on to the next country; Iraq. I went back again and confronted him. We had a great fight, the worse ever. This time he had no bodyguards to defend him. He always used to be the more athletic one, but all those years in the field had made me hard and strong.
The fight took a dramatic twist when one of his bodyguards came in. He saw us fighting on the floor and dreaded for the presidents life. Without thinking he shot me in my back. He did not kill me, but my life was in danger. As I lay there on the floor, the life flowing out of me, I was positive it was my last hour. And so, moments before I had lost consciousness I said jus one thing: Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!
Eveline van Velthuijsen, V6
