I remember as a small child, passing through the living room of my home, while my dad was viewing the news. World news, to me at the time, never mattered much. In fact, most of what lied beyond the perimeter of my childhood home, never mattered to me very much. Life seemed pretty simple. Confined. Wrapped neatly in a small package. So when I overheard the newscaster reporting about guerrillas fighting in Central America, I immediately pictured large, hairy primates uprising against their human oppressors. I was curious as to how these creatures were able to operate firearms, let alone aim and fire accurately. Although they possessed apposable thumbs, who was brave (or foolish) enough to train them? I couldn't figure out why the authorities couldn't simply go in, and tranquilize the gorillas and lock them back up into their cages, or send them back to Africa, where they belonged. What the hell were gorillas doing in Central America, anyway?
For the next few days, I would sit with my dad, watching the news and hoping to catch a glimpse of the clever primates. They must have been very well-trained, I thought, for I never once saw them on the newscast. There were always these dirty looking hispanics running through the trees, firing off their guns, aiming into the distance. "Them monkeys are crafty." I thought.
It wasn't until some years later, when my age entered into the double-digits, that I learned that the freedom fighters in question, were not of the monkey-variety, but of a more humanoid form. Bandits and criminals hiding in the hills of Central America, fighting for their freedom to grow illegal narcotics, rather than succumb to a more law-abiding way of life, of growing banana's and coffee and whatever the f*ck else they grow in Central America.
I guess, in the end, I was half right. Though they weren't intelligent apes fighting against their oppressors, they were stupid animals...
