This story does contain a common curse word, so to the listeners, be advised. The holidays are fun, right? Lights, presents, food. But what if after all the eggnog and champagne, what you're looking at isn't a hangover, but the biggest decision of your life.
And this, dear listener, is where our story begins. It's from an eight-part series called Shithole Country. Yeah, we're there. It comes from a nine-month producer and a friend over at Radio Tokyo Presents.
Let me share the first three episodes with you today. Four years ago, Afia, 30-something Canadian American living right here in the open area, she went back to Ghana for the holidays. When she returns to the bay, she flies directly into a media firestorm. My name is Afia.
And I don't know what to do. Let's start at the end. I'm 30, the youngest at three and the daughter of Indian immigrants. Born in New York, currently living in California.
If you were to read my Tinder profile instead of just swiping right on the bikini pic, which, hey, that's what it's there for, you'd know I stay loyal to Biggie over Tupac. And Sail Moon over Biggie. It's January 17, 2018. Last week, I returned to San Francisco after a month in Ghana.
I'd just spent the holidays with my parents and older brothers, all of us celebrating together for the first time in five years. The very next day, I awoke to some disturbing breaking news out of Washington. Mr. President, did you give an apology for the statement yesterday?
Mr. President, are you a racist? Mr. President, are you a racist?
Mr. President, are you a racist? Mr. President, are you a racist?
When he started to describe the immigration from Africa, that's when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from shimples. I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday. That's Dick Durbin, a Democrat and senator from Illinois. And for our purposes, an earwitness to the presidential scandal du jour.
Reportedly, Trump went on to helpfully suggest that the U.S. bring in more folks from places like Norway, instead of Africa. I know, I know. Don't feed the troll, even if said troll is the leader of the free world.
And yeah, I usually do keep it moving. When a CNN alert lights up my phone with a weekly reminder that our president has zero respect for large swaths for a nation, I just pray for a quick death and the nuclear holocaust will likely trigger and go about my day. But this time, I paused. Again.
And again. As I ate breakfast, and waited for the bus, and walked to one of my jobs. Shit hole. What an ugly word.
An ugly, interesting word. I started thinking of all the other words I've heard used for African countries. Primitive, poor, developing, third world. They're more polite, and they point to the same thing.
Africa is a backwards monolith. Home of the hollow-eyed villagers crowding those depressing Sally Struthers commercials from the 90s. There are so many people who think of us that way. Even here in the Bay Area.
Shout out to my little coastal elites. Some of them, too, consume only one African export. The deeply entrenched struggle narrative. I've seen a lot of them post pictures with brown school kids and call them beautiful.
Which we all know is code for, these people need some help. Remember that awful holiday song from back in the day? The one with the starving Ethiopian children on the album cover? Where boy George and Bono and Sting.
Oh, God, why did you do it, Sting? They all say about Africa, these are the actual lyrics. The Christmas bells that ring there are the clinging chimes of doom. Nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow.
Do they know it's Christmastime at all? Maybe Sting was kidnapped and forced to participate. I'm not really coming for Sting, though. Or the liberal elites.
I'm not even coming for Trump. Mostly, I'm looking at myself. Yes, me. Tripping in so-called first-world privilege.
Carefully ignoring faint serings of frustration. Of contempt. When I'm in Accra and the electricity shuts off three times before noon. Primitive.
Developing. Third world. But let's be clear. If my family and I are from one shithole country, then we're actually from two.
In one, trash is strewn by gaping gutters lining the streets. The craters in the pavement will swallow your car and you'll never be heard from again. And the other, you're smeared by words. Looks.
An entire system expertly designed to chip away at your dignity. You can't quite put your finger on the mess. But if you live there long enough, you'll pull a Lady Macbeth on your soul, trying like math to scrub the spots where it's touched you. I have an important decision to make.
And strange as it is to say, this shithole controversy might help me make it. What it illuminates gets to the heart of the question I ask myself every day during my month in Ghana. The question that permeated my conversations with my family. The question I'll pick apart over the course of this podcast.
What does true development look like? Before we go any further, you should know that all the names you'll hear, including mine, are pseudonyms. That's how it has to be if we're going to be honest with each other. Okay.
If all that sounds good by you, let's rewind. I know, I know, I know. She ain't anybody, girl, I know. Ain't anybody's way I've seen.
You listening to Shithole Country from Radio Tokyo Presents. Don't go anywhere, Snap Nation, because we're just getting started. Fia's got a big decision to make in return. She's going to tell us how it all began one month earlier.
Get your passport ready. Go on to Ghana. Step up. Say.
I know. I know, I know. I always think about it last night. Welcome back to Sam Judgment.
You're listening to Shithole Country, the newest series from Radio Tokyo Presents. Last you left, our narrator, Afia, she revealed that she was dealing with something big. Now we're going to go to Ghana one month earlier in time and space to find out exactly what it is. She tricked me.
She totally played me. I stare at my mom, Agnes. The dusty hammered on wind straight from the Sahara don't do anything to cool the room. Sweat rolls down my neck, and the huge peacock tattoo curling around my mom's left shoulder glistens.
She sighs and says it again. This apartment is yours. Your daddy and I want you to move in. Mom directs her gaze past the swanky marble floors and recessed lighting to the tropical greenery outside.
She sweeps long braids away from her face and reclines in her white plastic chair, the kind that has the ubiquitous chien-yamie god symbol to sit into it. God is everywhere in Ghana. He literally has your back, especially if you're my mom. What is there for you in America, mommy of you?
Hmm? She laughs. Her silver earrings and bracelets jangle merrily. Scratch that.
Menacingly. I should have known. When I first graduated from college and moved out to Philly for a job, my parents happily offered to drive. And as they headed back, they happily handed me the receipts for their gas and tolls.
She's just so good at this. A minute ago, we were celebrating. The shiny new apartment complex we're standing in is hers. She had the plan.
She wrangled the builders. She made all of this happen. My mom, the former seamstress. The Burger King coupon hoarder.
The person making me an offer, I'm not sure I can refuse. You can call me Ephia. This is the story of my family and our lives in a quote-unquote shithole. Shithole.
I don't know why there's a live jazz band in customs, but I like it. After approximately a week on plane, I've arrived in Ghana for only the fourth time in my 30 years of life. Rikina Faso to the north, Cote d'Ivoire to the west, Togo to the east, the Atlantic Ocean just a few miles away. Welcomed by the dulcet tones of...
Yeah, that's the Backstreet Boys. You would never see this at JFK. I feel a surge of pride and the slow exhalation of a breath I didn't realize I've been holding. Kind of like the first time I watched Ghana beat the US in World Cup soccer, back in 2006.
The soundtrack to their win was an American announcer's slightly incredulous reminders of Ghana's GDP. As I shuffle through the final set of airport doors, I'm hit by a wall steamy nighttime air and jostling crowds. I'm back. Gelef rice and bride plantain on my lips, diesel exhaust in my nose, shades of my family in every face I see.
And the voices. Oh, this is the greatest accent in the world. I'm four years old and dad is introducing me to the Berenstain Bears. I'm 12 and buried in mom's estate lot is sent to chest as she says, I'm 25, mom gazing at me and my brothers with murder in her eyes, muttering, and I even miss that.
Being back feels like walking into my bedroom after a long day at work. I shimmy out of my two tight button-down slacks and fall into my bed into relief. Hi! Yay!
Hi! Oh, don't say that out loud. Oh, my goodness. I thought I said she was like, oh, I'm sorry.
Mom and dad, Agnes and Kupna. It's been a very long time. It matters. See?
He just cut off and ping. We're getting out from the airport. So right now, we are at the airport going west. Despite the holiday traffic, it only takes a half hour to drive to my parents' house.
I clock shop bars blasting Afrobeats and billboards for New Year's Eve prayer marathons through my window as mom and dad paint their own picture of present-bay Ghana inside the car. There's lots of gesticulating and the occasional tssst. Reunions like this one have become a little more complicated since my parents sold their New York house in 2014. They moved back to Accra soon after, settling for good in a modest peach and pearwinkle three-bedroom with a standard live-in housekeeper.
My older brothers and I are still scattered across the U.S. Victor and Houston, Sammy and New York, me and the Bay Area. And since I'm not making bank working for Google, I was going to spend another December alone. Until my mom called with an uncharacteristically generous offer.
Come to Ghana. Let's spend the holidays together for the first time in five years. Because that's what Christmas is about. Fellowship.
Family. Love. Perfections are obscene and we keep those things indoors and hidden. That's one of my cousins.
He's reminding me of why it's so foolish to project sentimentality onto my very practical Ghanaian family. My father, the first time he said to me I love you, was when he dropped me off to college. So I had to call my brother up and be like, yeah, he's dying. He's like, what?
Huh? He's like, why? He's like, oh, my cousin, of course, is right. Parents here don't have time for feelings.
They got goals. And mom reveals her grand design the next morning, right after she addresses a pressing matter. But your haircut, your dress and the dress you're wearing when I'm working with you is what I'm made. That's how she's going to do some of my...
Really? Yeah. So this is very nice purple vintage dress that I bought in Oakland. Because you know what?
All these nice, all the African shops in America, when they close, they don't buy it, they bring it here. They call it faux. Nice, nice. When they go to school, you see how the people are dressed.
Nicer than us. They laugh at us all the time. You know what they want? Johnny just came.
Johnny just came from America? Yeah. Or maybe for me or for somewhere. Johnny just came.
Okay, I'm changing. Ten minutes and far too much jewelry later, we're on our way. Mom will finally show me the construction project that's consumed her life for the past four years, her apartment and retail complex. Two stories and 20 units that she'll officially start renting on January 1st.
This is why I bought a recorder and a microphone, to document a mom's transformation to a badass entrepreneur. But when we arrive at the site, it doesn't take long for things to go sideways. She and one of her new tenants who is almost definitely on her payroll make it clear. Why don't we stay here in the country?
We have to travel to make life better. Better. And this is a beautiful place. Why can't you come and live here?
Your mom went. Your mother see your father and say, why wouldn't you come and live here? Okay, wait, this turns. This took a turn.
This is not about me. This is not about me. This is not about you, but why would you not call me that? Because I have a life in California.
What? You gotta have a life here too. Okay, point, counterpoint. I've got great friends in the Bay.
Half the year, I wake up to perfect weather, avocados are delicious, and even though it kind of killed me a little bit to admit at first, but in Ghana, I feel like an imposter. Here's a preview of a conversation I'll have in 10 minutes with one of the plumbers. So you guys make treat? Nope.
Wow. Mom, dad, and teach me. Oh, wow. My parents wanted us to assimilate.
So outside of the necessary curse words, I've never really learned treat or fancy. Here's another attempt at conversation I'll make two weeks from now. What is the feminine of Kujo? Ajwa.
Ajwa. Ajwa. Ajwa. Ajwa.
Ajwa. Ajwa. Ajwa. I keep messing it up.
Is it low-key kind of nice to be celebrated for operating at a zero-grade reading level? Of course. Brings me back to a better time when there were juice boxes and hugs on demand And Peter Jennings anchoring the evening news But that's not real life Real life is getting laid off from my copywriting job Real life is running out of unemployment money in a month Real life is obsessing over these facts and not noticing that I pass my mom her ringing phone With my culturally unacceptable left hand, which she promptly smacks into oblivion My mom takes a call outside the apartment we've been standing in And I watch her pace through the window She did this Did something even bigger Moved from across to New York in her 20s knowing almost no one, I think Something like that And then she uprooted her life again 40 years later How did she do it? You're listening to Shithole Country from Radio Talker Presents Where in return, Lula Fia gave up everything she's known in America To move to Ghana Stay tuned Welcome back to Snap Judgment My name is Ben Washington and you're listening to Shithole Country An 8-part audio memoir from Radio Talker Presents Now this next segment It does mention sex and drug use And references animal cruelty Please take care while listening This one last we left was December 2017 And Fia was visiting her parents in Ghana They just made her a huge offer Leave America, move to Ghana You'll have help taking care of everything Fia isn't sure what to do But she does know where she might find a man I'm in Accra Standing in the apartment my parents want to give me And I feel White Like Blair Waldorf and Gossip Girl levels of white Don't get me wrong, some of my cousins are living large I just never really thought generational wealth was in the cards for our toy to the family tree But apparently, the second my risk-averse father finally retired My mom, Agnes, sat him down Gave him some real talk on one of her favorite subjects Money As in, you know how you drove a taxi and I sewed wedding dresses for crazy brides And we scrimped to buy land in New York and Accra in the 90s Guess which real estate market is burning up And which investment will sink us before we can force the Fia to give us grandkids Now here we are Five years later Melting in the dusty heat on the outskirts of Ghana's capital On a dirt road lined with bustling shops made from shipping containers Where diesel trucks and stray goats do their best to navigate the deep divots And walk out to the streets to get a better look at the purple 20-unit apartment and retail complex The worn carpeting and cracked tiles of our small suburban home Born again into the entrepreneurial high life Traded in for skylights and stately ceiling fans and wainscoting and Damn, mom gets results She's different, she's not like a typical Ghanaian She's different And I like that, yeah She lives her life My cousins speak truth My mom, Agnes, is a peculiar sort of Ghanaian woman Endlessly stylish, makeup perfectly applied to her heart-shaped face Doesn't take shit from anyone But that description could apply to 80% of the aunties and Ghana Where my mom sets herself apart is in the lengths she will go to in order to be seen Exhibit A That time I got my first tattoo My mom decided to follow suit Badgering me for months to set up an appointment for her Mommy, Afia Let them do a picture of my face on my arm I want to always remember when I was young and beautiful My brothers and I threatened to never again acknowledge her in public if she went that route She eventually decided on a kaleidoscopic peacock splashed on her left shoulder And we thanked God Exhibit B Recently my mom got into it with her next door neighbor It was over a rooster that shrieked outside her window for hours in the middle of the night I ripped its neck You broke its neck?
Yeah Twisted the neck But it didn't die It got up It got up It was okay But then the owner saw that So that was the end We don't see any more roosters there So you were trying to send a message? Yeah, that's what I did And it worked I was embarrassed of my mother growing up I drank into myself during her regular all-too-public showdowns with Costco cashiers over savings she'd allegedly been denied I was Is Everything she does so extra Clearly I have trouble taking my mom seriously But there's no point in me weighing the pros and cons of a transatlantic move if I don't trust her I need to understand what her angle is Why did she build these apartments in the first place? So that evening After a healthy serving of goat meat, foo-foo, and season 5 of 90 Day Fiancé I asked her I don't know a lot about mom's life before dad She likes to roll her eyes and wave away those kinds of questions Not because she wants to keep secrets It really feels more like she doesn't think anyone would care about the answers I once stumbled across an answer That's all Digging through the fireproof box in my mom's closet I needed a member certificate for a school project When mom came home from work that night I cornered her in the kitchen Stealing myself for the task ahead by channeling the spirit of my favorite show The Austin's Creek I always handle secret revelations with such style Mommy, I know about Mensa I saw the divorce papers You were married before daddy? Mom looked at me blankly I swallowed my heartbeat Once Twice Father God I know now I've made a terrible mistake And pray for you to deliver me from this imminent ass-loping I promise to never again follow Dawson Leary Or any other false American teen idols to disrespect their parents And I will never Yes She said It was as if I'd asked the most obvious question in the world I stared at her She turned back to a pot of yams on the stove They weren't going to cook themselves Citizens of the new state of Ghana gather for the celebration Marking their day of freedom from colonialism What was once the Gold Coast of British County Now becomes an independent commonwealth Vice President and Mrs.
Nixon represent the United States At the three-day festivities Native dances and games mark an event of historic importance Since Ghana becomes the first Negro colony in Africa to gain its freedom Remy Akwam Nekrumah Passed with Representative Adam Clayton Powell of the US As Ghana's new army passes in review Before the American-educated Premier And Deputy Secretary Ralph Bunch of the United Nations Another feature of the occasion is a beauty contest In which the fair I was the last born Of ten children The second, third, fourth, and fifth They all passed away So that's why I became me If they didn't pass away, I wouldn't be born So I was grateful For them bringing me to this earth I was very privileged My father opened a lot of stores Selling flour Selling rice, big bags My father was doing import and shipping I had a maid You know, I went to a good school Preparatural school And in my household You don't speak We call it vernacular Vernacular means your native language You speak English Most of the parents That were exposed to the white man Felt like Hey, if you understand the white man's language You'll be favored When Papam Nekrumah was overthrown That's where everything went back I think it was 1966 My father had money And the government took everything Everything, everything We packed out things And we all went to the village And he was never the same From the city straight to village When you go there It was so dramatic Because nobody understands you You didn't speak onto you? No Parents are so happy That their children are speaking English So when you come home They're speaking with you in English Even my mother was speaking to me in English And she wasn't educated She never went to school Yeah And everybody calling you They all surrounded you Listening to you Mom tells me that taught Westernmost The primary and secondary school Until she met the young man When he was very quiet And wouldn't even look at me Something told me to exploit That's what I am The resistance attracted me That was my first love I really did love him We would go to concert with no money And jump the wall You know So many stupid things Yeah When I look back That wasn't good for him Because he took it to his dream Yeah You know He even stole people's money So we could go out with Which is not fun He wanted a baby I didn't want a baby I dropped out from college And he took me to learn how to sew So I finished my sewing I had my kiosk out You know You had your what? Kiosk Your kiosk Yeah I have a princess You know This was going fine for me Why should I have a job? But then he felt insecure And my parents didn't want to see him Well your parents didn't approve And you had to listen Yes I had to listen I had to listen As my mom says the words She visibly deflates Her eyes not meeting mine It doesn't square at all With the woman who raised me Who always makes people listen to her It's like I've accidentally walked in on her changing And I want to cover her up Until she's decent again Those fights she'd have With Costco cashiers All the dramatics I was embarrassed But I'd be lying If I said a small part of me Didn't deeply appreciate it How she stuck up for us I'm invested In my mom being this Ultra fierce protector My protector But she's more than that She's more than my mom So Agnes collects herself And continues her story When I had the baby He was never there And after I finished having the baby I left the baby For my mother I left it with my mother And I came back to her That little boy My oldest brother Sammy And when I came back He did something very bad to me I had a big chest And I put people's clothes in here He took all the clothes away And burned them I called the police He went to jail Thanks to Joseph Agnes Who had a brand new baby To take care of It was now $400 in debt Big money in the 70s And even bigger in Ghana Where at the time The price of the cocoa crop Was cratering And the economy was falling apart But what choice did she have Other than to start all over?
I was in my chaos I saw him And this guy had a Thunderbird A Thunderbird? Yeah Oh, okay Right And everybody looking at this car This guy Was looking at me I was very tall Skinny Night-shaped And that was that evening He sent somebody to come And pick me up So we can go to the club And so I said No, I have a little baby What can I do? He said, no, no I'll get somebody to babysit So he was here for two weeks Only two weeks And that's where I started Mensah A.K.A. the dude from the newspapers Yeah, this is him Right away He wanted to marry me It was so fast I was in a relationship That was going sour And here comes somebody Want to marry me And take me to America Why would I say no?
And I mean He wasn't my ideal person But he was a good Okay man And he had the money Were you attracted to him? No He came back Eight years time To marry me And start filing papers for me Agnes was going to New York Leaving Donna And her unstable ex-boyfriend behind But what about the baby? He's barely two years old She'd leave him too? I didn't take this at all For what?
Not even one guilt? No I have a new life I'm going to make life For my knee and my child It's a new adventure What did I have here? Nothing And I didn't know What he would come To do to me You know This is a mad man Walking around I don't know what he would do To me and my child So you saw it as a way To provide Oh for my family For my relatives Everybody Going to America those days? It's like It's like It's like you know A part of honey Driven into your mouth It's beautiful You have to focus So she did In 1978 Agnes packed her bags And left her kid with her sister Boarded her first ever plane Destination JFK And settled in with Mensa's sisters In the Bronx Waiting for a man she barely knew To return from an international business trip She waited for months Scraping together money To send to her family in Ghana From a job taking care of A elderly white woman But she would never see Mensa again He called one day To tell her that he'd gotten caught up In some shady business That somehow led to his Denaturalization and deportation Luckily Agnes had just gotten Her green card But without Mensa's money Her place in America Felt a lot less secure Until she went to a party And met someone new I want somebody to build a life with This guy had a good job So I said okay It wasn't love at first time No no no Because he was skinny like this I felt sorry for him Skinny like what?
Huh? She promised her always be skinny I wasn't all that soon My dad got off now By that point he'd been living in New York For a decade And loved the disco scene He was a womanizer It wasn't all fun for Kovna though He was always working In a bottling factory As a data clerk At a bank He was on his hustle And tried to keep his head down Because as Agnes would soon learn He was stuck in the US His immigration status Had been dicey for years And he had a hard time Opening up to new people Even a good friend Might rat you out to the authorities If you pissed them off enough You lose everything Your mind is shattered All your dreams You have to start over But where are you going to start from? This trust emanated from his eyes As he leaned against the wall In a dim crowded apartment Tapping a foot to Donna Summer And sizing up Agnes And then he stopped questioning me Oh my goodness Questioning me like you know I was in court Because papers Who had them Who didn't Were all that mattered I think I had Three Jamaicans That they were fighting over me Because they knew I had papers How How The more The more but then you must have felt so used no you know what it is you you were grateful i was grateful that i had that i had papers before i came here because i didn't know how much it was yeah so you know because you know people are suffering so he was in america for how long he hasn't seen his father his mother i mean you can't travel it's like 10 years by that point yeah so i felt sorry for all of them if i could have done it for all of them i would have done it i felt sorry because i didn't i didn't know what i had was that powerful so agnes decided to help him get a green card it was only after they actually started getting to know each other that the relationship evolved from a business arrangement into something more he was not serious at all i remember you know let me tell you the song that i knew that he was serious that's how uh make that move right now baby he was singing it all the time he even bought me the record i said what is it that means he wants to make the move right now oh you like that song he used to he used to sing it all the time make that move right now i don't remember things around the up and up for agnes a good man a nice apartment she started filling the paperwork for her little boy to join her in new york and then she snagged the job she had for the next 30 years grand high hotel was reopened by donald trump and his wife july 1980 and i was one of the first people to start working today so uh trump gave you a job yeah unfortunately it was on 42nd street in lexington alling everything was high and with blue glasses all but there was no there was no concrete every day reporters come to the hotel it was very dramatic i remember being in the room with uh uh uh his wife yeah when he comes here he goes to the management side but the wife is the one who oversees the rooms so believe me we were sitting here talking and everything she was telling me yeah i was proud to be a new yorker i was proud to be a grand high employee and i was proud to be an immigrant that has made it but the feeling of security didn't last long so ice would come to your work well not ice but the immigration do you remember one time one time and you know this is a big hotel here you know where i used to work the local room was there three young girls coming down i said oh can i talk to you no no no no you don't know what is going on they got dressed and run away people were coming down in droves picking their things and going security don't know what is going on human resources don't know what is going on immigration came to concierge yes and so one of the concierge lady sent somebody to go tell all the housekeepers and if you see the dishwashers the waitresses people were going through the front door hitting themselves agnes had made it as an immigrant in america which in that moment meant that her past present and future boiled down to a tiny box and her ability to check it the all-important box would change over the years single or married renter or homeowner agnes worked hard to check them off and access the life she knew she deserved but at some point she began to tire of the boxes that were presented to her she needed something bigger because as she tells me the next morning at the apartments nobody wants to dream small it's hard it's hard doing this wasn't easy but if i have to do it all over again i'll do it again because it makes you feel a part of society i was in america working but i could never do this in america where would i get the land and this will cost me a fortune i don't have the money so i'm in some way that even people see me as a rich person in america who the hell am i i'm nobody nobody even cares you know and it's like they said in shakespeare we are on the stage everybody wants to perform everybody wants to get an oscar i can't get it there i'm getting here and i'm smiling because i performed you know that we retired we are here and unfortunately i don't have anybody here all my children are in america so what is it having all this and i don't have anybody who i can rely to take care of it if in case i'm gone today i have a straight store downstairs i was thinking you can use it any way you want it to build an empire business store you can you can you can have a school year to educate people about generalism you can anything your heart desire a chance for me to be a player on the stage to be somebody to be seen who wouldn't want that and what would a stage for me in ghana look like shithole country is written narrated and sound designed by me fia these episodes were produced by me and mark pagan julie shapiro and audrey martovich are our executive producers special thanks to time and attention cover art by cindy sonyoni and music in these episodes includes i know by vince mcgustis and our theme song home by ria boss for additional credits and context especially for all these three buffs out there please check out the show notes on radiotopia presents.fm you'll also find the other five episodes in this eight-part series the next one up is number four and it's titled lvmh big thank you to my endlessly patient family supportive friends and brilliant professional mentors you know who you are this series is wild weird and real you can find out what happens next heading over to your favorite podcast directory or radiotopia presents.fm to devour the rest of shithole country you'll find out more about this show on our website snapdugman.org well now you know this is not the news no way is this the news in fact you'll have your place of birth disparaged by the leader of the free world and you would still even then not be as far away from the news as this is but this is prx you you you you you you No, no, no, no, no, no, no.