Amsterdam Stories USA · Excerto «West» · 9′33″

I think mentally and physically, not every minute of the day, but there's just those moments where you're just looking out the window wishing you were somewhere else.

Chessie is a waitress. She is 19 years old. She knows about our stay in Great Falls. She wants to tell us her story. Confidences are sometimes easier to share with strangers, at the bar, simply over coffee. A long story.

A few years ago, my parents got a divorce. Just wasn't working out. A lot of financial struggles, I guess, and they ended up splitting. And my mom moved away to San Antonio, Texas, because that's where her family is. That's where my parents met at. And she left and never came back.

My dad went bankrupt, and I lost everything inside of my house. So I have nothing from my past. I don't have pictures of my mom. I don't have those kind of things. I have five pictures of my childhood. I know what it's like to lose everything that you have.

I wish other people could see what I see. The one thing I wish I would've grabbed out of that house is my photos. But I didn't. And now I have a much better appreciation for things that can't be replaced, like pictures and childhood things like that.

Being with a single parent in a small town like this, it doesn't leave you with many options. So I think a lot of people kind of act out. And everyone in my generation, everyone's parents are split up. So it's like a never-ending cycle, I guess.

And my generation, we've all seen the recession. We saw our parents get our houses taken away. We saw everyone's parents get divorced. We saw people's parents go crazy. We saw money come in and money just go. Just like in the snap of a finger. I think my generation has that hatred towards the older generation because of what we're left with.

It's money. Most people just want money. And they don't appreciate people as they are, I guess. They appreciate what they can get out of them. But that's not what life is about. It's just about meeting other people and hearing their stories. It's not about money. It's not about where you live or how big your house is. And I just think that going to another country, seeing it completely different. I think that money generates hate. And that's why face-to-face with another human is so much more than money.

I see tribes. I see people that have paint on. I see people with paint on their bodies. I see people dancing, and there's no radios. I see people making music. I don't see people talking on their cell phones or their Bluetooth. I don't see any of that.

I don't know everything about Africa. I don't know any of the languages. But I think I like it that way. I want to just be dropped off there and figure it out. I guess I don't really know what's better than that. Meeting someone that was born into that, I guess. Born into walking a mile to get water, or to get clean water, at least. Not even clean water, just to get what they call water. And some Americans don't even drink tap water. It's just completely different.

Our country is a wonderful country. We are a free people, but at the same time, it's not necessarily that we are free, it's the things that we do in order to be free. It's going into other countries, invading them, and telling them, "That's how America does it. Why don't you do it that way?" We can't just do that forever and just get away with it.

I don't necessarily want to live the American dream. I don't want to strive to be the American dream. What our country lacks is the genuine human emotions. I'd like to have faith in our country, but the reality of it hasn't changed since I've been alive. Because the things that I've seen and the things that I've seen other people go through. I just hope something changes.

I want to be with people that don't know anything about me. I want people that don't even know what it's like where I come from. I want everything to be different.

If you don't have faith in people, then where are you going to go? That's just the way it should be, I think, because that's all we have is each other, but in America it's not like that. It's not like that anymore, and I just don't think that this is what our country was intended to be like. I think it was set on the right path, but I think that human nature just drove it to the other side.