Sometime ago I met an English man on South African airways. His
well terraced grey hair and pruned beards looked impressive. And he also looked
remarkably familiar. I didn’t know him anyway but he looked like…
“Sir, you look like Wolf Blitzer!” I observed.
The man burst into laughter and asked,
“Who is Wolf Blitzer?”
“You don’t know him?”
“I don’t know him.” In my mind I was like, “then why are you
laughing? How come you find humour in something you don’t know? Or is it the
way I said it?
“He is a journalist for CNN.”
“I don’t watch CNN.”
“Why?”
“I am British.”
“Oh! So only BBC right?”
“Yes.” I wondered if it’s anti-Americanism or nationalist
feelings as he went away.
Still on South African, I met someone I couldn’t quite guess
where he was from. When I looked at his passport, I saw “The Republic of
Mauritius” there. So I said,
“Sir you look more like a person from Sri Lanka.”
“My ancestors come from India!”
“Okay, so how beautiful is Mauritius” (for I know about their
oceans). The man took a deep breath and gave me his punch line,
“Mark Twain said Mauritius was
created first, then paradise.” I laughed.
So one advantage of my job is that I meet people from all
over the world. I made a Jordanian friend, Hamzeh N Alkour, a
Cameroonian/French/Lebanese girl Maha Lamo, Polish friend Kinga Stukowlska. Met
Australians, Argentines, Costa Rican family (one of the kids identified himself
as American), Vietnamese, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankan, Eritrean, Mexicans, Cape
Verdeans, Mozambicans, Tanzanians, Angolans and many of the “regular” countries
in the world like USA, France, Germany, Canada, China, India etc.
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