Before the War
We did not get our macaroni from Italy.
We cultivated corn, beans, sesame seeds, and rice. But these products never fetched as much as the cashew, which has a good price.
We were trying to fit intelligence and facts around the policy.
We ate ducks and walked like horses.
We had to write a letter home every Sunday after chapel.
We thought we would be heroes and save the world.
We were introduced to a young family at home in pleasant surroundings.
We saw friends in a small town uniting over a marriage in a Russian orthodox church.
We used to poison them to keep them away from our houses.
We drank brandy and slivovitz every night.
We had lights, there was water in the taps, but now because of these guns we have nothing.
We were a friendly people fond of spending our time outdoors.
We made our living mainly by producing food for cows.
We had an electrical appliance factory, and there were eighty women working there.
We were not aware of the military value of the natives.
We had an overly centralized system and that did not help us a lot.
We had a White country, a country determined to stay White.
We could cross the border freely and marry each other.
We were doubters. Nearly all the fiction of the past fifteen years is a proof of that.
We lived too far from God; we believed too much in our own power, in our almightiness and righteousness.
We bombed warehouses where we thought the munitions existed.
We could not get any jobs, we were restricted.
We used to go dancing, but that was forbidden, all the halls were closed.
We were allowed to go as far as the road itself, the Green Line.
We saw the painter with swirling storm clouds behind him.
We used to draw happy things.
We had a garden which was full of ferns.
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