Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Microkhan has often wondered what happens to criminals who, upon completing their prison sentences, are deported to their countries of origin—countries they may well have left when they were just a few days old. A New Zealand broadcaster caught up with one such deportee in Samoa, who says that the experience is (to say the least) mighty rough:

It was Faamausil’s former California gangster life which bought him a prison sentence and then deportation in shackles back to his birth country Samoa – a country he couldn’t even remember.

He was dumped at the airport completely alone with no money.

“After the third day after sitting there with no food no clothes I thought, oh it’s time to kill yourself and when I went to the bathroom to hang myself a taxi driver came inside the bathroom,” says Faamausil.

The taxi driver took pity on him and saved his life.

The deportees also apparently face regular beatings from their new compatriots, who (in Faamausil’s opinion) loathe Americans who threaten the relative tranquility of traditional village society.

And the situation for the exiled Americans is about to get worse: Come September, Samoa will be switching to British-style traffic regulations, after a century of right-hand driving. Prognosis? Nightmare.