[gmw]

Some general comments only for now...

Spoiler:

This is a curious portrayal, and rather depressing. I feel as if it could do with some lighter or more upbeat elements to give some sort of contrast.

I was worried for a few paragraphs that you were going to get too preachy about religion (pun intended), but was relieved when that faded out.

While I seemed to get some reasonable sense of the people, I remained fairly blind to the surroundings. All I really got was a sense of being crowded and the smell. There was little in the way of visual aid. ... Of course that sort of thing is difficult to do without getting long winded and boring, but I do think a few more visual hints - for the surroundings and the characters - might help fill out what you are trying to achieve.

I have a similar comment here to what I had for arjaybe: I'm not really a fan of very short stories that are just scenes/images. Which is not to say they're bad, only to say they're not what I come looking for in a story. So, because I was looking for a story, I had it in my head that the narrator might actually turn out to be a con man ... it would almost have made the "icing on the cake" for the foreigners experience and might have made for a curious twist in the tale.

There were a few places where I got a bit confused about who was who in the action and dialogue. I think you may need to touch-up a few of those. Some of the dialogue felt a bit stiff and inconsistent, but the situation of the characters goes some way to explaining that.

What I will say is that this seemed much cleaner and clearer writing than the previous story. I found it much easier to get along with. Again some issues with punctuation - remember this is not an email where you *emphasis* like this, instead you probably should use italics.