I took the opportunity to study these tourists as Auma and I sat down for lunch in the outdoor café of the New Stanley HotelI took the opportunity to study these tourists as Auma and I sat down for lunch in the outdoor café of the NewStanley Hotel. They were everywhere − Germans, Japanese, British, Americans − taking pictures, hailingtaxis, feeding off (1) street peddlers, many of them dressed in safari suits like extras on movie set. In Hawaii,when we were still kids, my friends and I had laughed at tourists like these, with their sunburns and their pale,skinny legs, basking in the glow of our obvious superiority. Here in Africa, though, the tourists didn't seem sofunny. I felt them as an encroachment (2), somehow; I found their innocence vaguely insulting. It occurred tome that in their utter lack of self−consciousness, they were expressing a freedom that neither Auma nor Icould ever experience, a bedrock (3) confidence in their own parochialism (4), a confidence reserved for thoseborn into imperial cultures.Just then I noticed an American family sit down a few tables away from us. Two of the African waitersimmediately sprang into action, both of them smiling from one ear to the other. Since Auma and I hadn't yetbeen served, I began to wave at the two waiters who remained standing by the kitchen, thinking they musthave somehow failed to see us. For some time they managed to avoid my glance, but eventually an older manwith sleepy eyes relented and brought ...
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