A Can of Worms

I took my new (American) neighbor on a cultural adventure yesterday. We went to my friend's village, and I taught her how to harvest rice. Afterwards, we were chilling in my friend's house, where his wife served us coffee (that he planted, harvested, roasted, and ground himself) and we talked. What I like about this friend is that our lives are different in basically every way.

I am the oldest of three kids, and he is the youngest of nine.
I am single, and he is married with three kids.
I am a 30 year old female, and he is a 50 year old male.
I moved halfway around the world, and he still lives in the house he was born and raised in.
I take my toilet for granted, and he just got running water in his house 2 years ago.
I do not smoke, and he firmly believes that if he ever quits chain smoking, he will die.
I have a college degree, and I'm not sure he ever finished high school.

So our talks are always interesting, and we almost always have different opinion and/or perspectives. We talked about several things yesterday afternoon over our coffees while it thunderstormed outside. My neighbor has only been here 7 months, so she is still learning Indonesian. At one point, I turned to her and asked if she was bored, and she told me she wasn't, that she was enjoying listening to Indonesian without feeling the pressure of having to respond herself. I imagine I must have had an impish grin on my face as I said to her, "Then watch me open up this can of worms."

And I turned back to my Indonesian friend and asked, "So what do you think of America's new president?" My neighbor gasped.

But my friend excitedly told me how into American politics he's gotten. He confessed that on voting day, he stayed up until 2 AM watching the news to see who won and to watch the news coverage of it. But then he told me that he doesn't think Trump is a good president. I asked him why and he said, "Because he doesn't have a heart." I asked what he meant, and he said, "Your president says he is a Christian, but Jesus says in the Bible that if you really love Him, you will take care of others. People in this world are being persecuted and killed and they are running away from evil, and does your president even know about them? Does he care about them? Because he told them they cannot come into your country. Where is his heart? Where is his compassion?"

And for once, I could not disagree.