“Where you
from?” the bus driver asked. It was
almost midnight and our bus was stopped at some obscure spot along the desert
highway.
I gave a
curt reply as I continued to exercise the pent up kinks and knots out of my
weary arms and legs.
“Canada, huh…Do you
have buses like this with beds on them?” He asked as he almost lovingly patted
the beast of a vehicle in his care.
“Not that I
know of” I said “I’ve certainly never been on a sleeper bus in Canada”
At this
point you could almost see the wheels in his head spinning and turning and
contriving a plan.
“Are there
roads longer than 500km in Canada?”
“Of course,
land wise it is the second largest country in the world” The second I said it I regretted my hasty
words. I could tell they had only fueled
his wild dreams. He was in full on scheming
mode, making plans faster than the old plodding bus he drove could every dream
of travelling.
“Someday,
if Allah wills, I will open my own sleeper bus company in Canada and be rich” This village man declared with resolve.
I translated
from my travel companions as we climbed on the bus. “Ugh” we all struggled to
keep a straight face and not scrunch up our noses in distant at the strong stench
that greeted us upon embarking. The
smell came from to many people, stuffed in too small of a space, for way too
many hours. “There is a few things he should improve before introducing this
transportation to the west, like ventelation”. The group
had been joking for the last few hours that the only thing worse than B.O is
ten people’s B.O. and the only thing worse than ten peoples B.O. was the twenty
smelling feet that came with them.
We ran into
our next forward thinker a few days later at the museum. The older security guard guy who was
responsible for unlocking the doors and turning on and off the lights quickly
learned I could speak his language. He followed
me around from one display to another peppering me with questions and
distracting me form admiring the old coins, cloth and tools. His line of questioning felt very familiar. “Where are you from?” Is that a rich country?
Is it easy to get there? Are there lots of jobs” He started pointing to traditional
Uyghur elements around the museum. “Do you
have this or that in Canada?”
He was literally
taken aback when he learned that we didn’t have nan in Canada. It seemed impossible for him to believe that
a society could survive much less advance without a nan stand on every second
street corner selling hot fresh bread.
That’s when he made his declaration “If Allah wills, I will open a nan
stand in Canada and become rich!”
Later that
day we stopped outside the bazaar for a refreshing cup of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice. The man operating the booth stood
proudly beside his juicer. Drops of the
bright red liquid liberally sprinkled all over his face and clothes, the whole
effect made him look like he had been in a fight with blood stains on his
clothes. We all picked up our sticky
glasses to toast our great day, when the mad started the familiar line of questioning. He seemed pleased to learn
that his particular line of work was unique in the west. Before he could declare his intention of
moving and getting rich I slammed the empty cup on the table and motioned for
my guest to keep moving. Turning around
slightly I watched hi straighten up our used cups on the table and pour fresh juice
into them, never even pausing to wash or rinse them between uses. “No wonder they were so sticky” I thought to
myself trying hard not to guess how many people had likely drank out of it
before me. Instead I laughed to
myself “If Allah wills he should move to
Canada and learn how to wash dishes.”
1 comment:
You can drink that without getting sick?!
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