My thoughts on the Space Shuttle

[dicentra63 <dicentra@xmission.com>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Judy <judy at j...>" <judy at j...>
wrote:
> Christine wrote:
> > It was horrid.  They showed the footage over
> > and over.  The cruel jokes at school about people
> > losing their lives were horrid.
> 
> As for the jokes people tell about disasters, I think sometimes they
> are just a coping mechanism, rather than a sign that people don't 
> care about the disaster. I'm the sort of person who gets really upset 
> about tragedies that happen to strangers. [snip]
> But, I laugh at morbid jokes despite being upset -- or perhaps
> *because* I'm upset. 
> 
I was in Medellín, Colombia when Challenger exploded.  I came home for
lunch, and the people I lived with were hysterical: "¡Se estalló el
cohete! The rocket blew up!"  They showed it over and over there, too.

But I was totally out of the loop when it came to the investigations
and such.  My American friends were sure it was Russian sabotage,
because "no way would NASA make a mistake."  I was also out of the
loop with regard to the jokes.  In Colombia, they didn't tell morbid
jokes about it because that's not what they do.

When I returned to the U.S. a few months later, my family regaled me
with all those jokes at once and I was totally appalled.  In Colombia
it was always treated with such gravity--and yet here, where it
happened, it was a joke!  My sense of humor had changed from being in
a foreign country, and now I don't see the jokes as appalling, but the
cultural difference is very interesting indeed.

--Dicentra