Dreaming Upside Down

Yesterday I spent a great day with Naomi in Manchester. Naomi is 18 and the daughter of half the management team of GNFC, Hazel and Roger. She is fantastic and has grown to be one of my favorite people in Buxton.
In Manchester I was once again confronted with globalization. And although there definitely are some comforts of seeing Pizza Hut, Urban Outfitters, Gap, and Super Cuts it doesn't seem quite right. It feels awkward and out of place. And I suppose that's because it is out of place. Naomi introduced me to Shared Earth. It is a fairtrade store just down the street from the Manchester train station. Fairtrade and organic products are one of my new favorite things that I've discovered while being in England. The treasures I found in Shared Earth were so much cooler than what I found in Primark or H&M. They were so much cooler than what you can find in Old Navy or Gap. But where did I choose to spend more money? Primark, not the fairtrade store. But why? It's cheaper of course. But why can't globalization be turned upside down to have the treasures from Shared Earth all over the world for easy acquiring?
And then today I remembered a poem that was read to us at our orientation in Chicago back in August.
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"Dreaming Upside Down"
By: Tom Peterson

I dreamed the other night that all the maps in the world had been turned upside down. Library atlases, roadmaps of Cincinnati, wall-sized maps in the war rooms of the great nations, even antique maps with such inscriptions as "Here be Dragons" were flipped over. What had been north was now south, east was west. Like a glob of melting vanilla ice cream, Antarctica now capped schoolroom globes.

In my dream, a cloud of anxieties closed around me. The United States was now at the bottom. Would we have to stand upside-down, causing the blood to rush to our heads? Would we need suction-cup shoes to stay on the planet, and would autumn leaves fall up? No, I remembered, an apple once bopped Newton on the head - no need to worry about these things.

Other things troubled me more. Now that we're at the bottom, would our resources and labor be exploited by the new top? Would African, Asian, and Latin American nations structure world trade to their advantage?

Would my neighbors and I have two-dollars-a-day seasonal jobs on peach and strawberry plantations? Would the women and children work from dusk to dawn to scratch survival from the earth of California and Virginia? Would the fruit we picked be shipped from New Orleans and New York for children in Thailand and Ethiopia to hurriedly eat with their cereal so they wouldn't miss the school bus? Would our children, then, spend the morning, not in school, but fetching water two miles away and the afternoon gathering wood for heating and cooking? Would a small ruling class in this country send their daughters and sons to universities in Cairo and Buenos Aires?

Would our economy be dependant upon the goodwill and whims of, say, Brazil? Would Brazil send war planes and guns to Washington, D.C. to assure our willingness to pick apples and tobacco for export while our children went hungry? Would Brazil and Vietnam fight their wars with our sons in our country? Would we consider revolution?

If we did revolt, would the Filippino government plot to put their favorite U.S. general in power, and then uphold him with military aid?

Would we work in sweatshops manufacturing radios for the Chinese? Would our oil be shipped in tankers to Southeast Asia to run their cars, air-conditioning and microwave ovens while most of our towns didn¹t even have electricity?

Would top of the world religious leaders call us stubborn pagans upon whom God¹s judgement had fallen, causing our misery? Would they proclaim from opulent pulpits that if we simply turned to God, our needs would be met?

In my dream, I saw child crying in Calcutta. Her parents wouldn't buy her any more video games until her birthday. I saw her mother drive to the supermarket and load her cart with frozen and junk food, vegetables, cheese, meat, and women's magazines.

I also saw a mother in Houston baking bread in an earthen oven. She had been crying because there were no more beans for her family. One of her children listlessly watched her. He was a blond boy, about six years old. He slowly turned his empty, haunting gaze toward me.

At that point I awoke with a gasp. I saw I was in my own bed, in my own house. It was just a bad dream. I drifted back to sleep, thinking, "It¹s all right, I'm still on top."

Thank God!

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