Brian, great little story. I’ve also had people give my pity for the folly of my country in electing Trump. In 2005 or so I spent a week in East Timor, training govt. officials on media communications (they were very bad at it).
It was perhaps our most difficult assignment. And the only one where one of our participants brought a revolver to class, and placed in on his table. He was a former guérilla fighter turned police chief. Also, at one point a stray dog wandered in and lay down. No one thought this was weird.