There has been a terrible and subtle change here. My homeland is not as I remember it. The mood is fearful. Even the streets look different. Women no longer hang their laundry to dry outside their huts, and they no longer cook together out on the plazas. The thatched roofs of the huts are in disrepair, and the people are quiet and subdued. And there is a new law forbidding pregnant women from walking on city streets.

The menfolk have all gone into the jungle, where they have gathered for a ceremony. They are playing the traditional game of Krambaa, which involves throwing an elaborately-carved stick, incised with tribal designs, into a tree. Each of the men then throws stones and tries to knock the ceremonial stick out of the tree. It's like a game of billiards, but played three-dimensionally, in a tree in the jungle. The men take tums throwing at the target stick; the one who knocks it out of the tree and catches it is the winner, and receives great honor and respect from his fellow villagers.

When one of the thrown sticks arches up and over the tree and lands out on the Missionary Road, they immediately run down to retrieve it before a passing detachment of soldiers discovers it. If found out, they would all be punished severely.

My aides take me to a small open-air restaurant in a clearing in the jungle, but the cook refuses to prepare any of the dishes I remember from my youth. The taro root and cassava, the manioc and yams, all the wonderful tropical fruits that I loved have been banned under a govemment decree of the new colonial regime. Now, everything the plantations produce is being sold to foreign holding companies, and the people are forced to eat a sickly sort of meaty pepper sausage, brimming with fat, which comes baked in the ribcage of a small animal. There has been much sickness from the new food, and children are becoming ill, but nobody dares to speak out, and enforcement of the new law is strict.

I look up and ask, "What is this revolting thing you have brought me?" The cook gets a wild look in her eyes, glancing back and forth between our faces to see whether we are government spies, whether we are testing her. She does not say a word, but begins wringing her hands nervously in her apron and backs slowly into the kitchen, a look of panic on her face.

One of my aides explains how, while I was in exile, a military junta installed the new colonial regime which has banned all elements of regional cultural identity among our people: our ethnic foods, sports, traditional manner of dress, everything has been replaced by govemment mandate, and people are forbidden to use the old ways. And now all the people must eat this meat dish and grow sick upon it: nothing else is available.

The realization of this slowly gathers momentum. Not even 24 hours back in my homeland, and I realize it is nothing more than the prison I just left.

I ransack the restaurant with the wrath of Christ in the Temple of Merchants, overtuming tables and smashing earthenware jugs. The cook stares in horror from the kitchen as I seize the cast iron cauldrons and polished copper kettles, and cast them to the ground.

"THEY WILL NOT DO THIS TO MY PEOPLE!" One of the ministers runs to my side and grabs the sleeve of my tasseled robe. He begs me not to make waves, not to anger the overlords, people will only suffer if we resist. He pleads, "Please, we are occupied, you must not do this! They are Malays! They are Tamils! There will be war!"

I am furious, brimming with killing, righteous wrath. I say, (exact wording) "Alright, then, there's going to be war, but we're going to take care of these guys."