I had just
sat down in the local ice cream shop to enjoy a treat and answer any question
that the group I had just taken on a culture walk might have, when the guy who
works at the ice cream parlor interrupted me.
“There is someone waiting outside to talk to you” he said. I looked towards the window where customers
can place orders as they walk by on the street and sure enough a Uyghur women
stood there craning her head to see me.
I excused
myself and step out to see what she needed.
She smiled warmly and greeted me by name, which sadly I could do in
return. I didn’t even recognize her, and
yet it was obvious that I was suppose to know.
She noticed my confusion and graciously said “You don’t remember me, do
you? You taught my daughter English a
few years ago.” That didn’t narrow it
down to much, but I faked a smile of understanding and said “Oh right, right”
She
continued “I never paid you for the last few weeks of teaching and it has
bothered me ever since, so how much do I owe you?” She had already pulled out her wallet and was
ruffling through the bills.
I still had
no memory of this women, or her daughter, or being owed any money. I stalled.
“How is your daughter? How old is
she now a days?” Her answers to my question slowly started to draw the memory
of who she was to mind. I remember
teacher for this family… I had only said ‘yes’ as a favor to another
friend. After one or two months of
teaching I had cancelled on them with the lame excuse that my classes and work
load were just getting too busy to keep
teaching.
“So, how
much?” she asked again.
“Don’t
worry about it” I had always felt kind
of bad for the way I had dropped their daughters class so suddenly. “That was a long time ago you don’t need to
pay me”
“No,” she
said very insistently. “It has bugged me
for four years. I must pay what I
owe. I lost my phone and didn’t have
your phone number or else I would have called you a long time ago. I was so glad when I saw you out walking this
afternoon. I tried to call you name, but
you didn’t hear me. So I followed you
for the last few blocks and chased you down to this ice cream shop.”
“Oh let me
give you my number now,” In truth I was
still stalling over the whole money issue.
I felt weird that this woman I barely remembered had her wallet open
under my nose and was asking me how much I wanted. I recited my number and she immediately
called it back so that I could save her number.
But I didn’t need to the second my phone ranger this woman’s name popped
up on the screen. I still had her number
saved in my phone from 4 years ago. I
try to clean out unknown number ever year or so, since my phone log quickly
gets filled up with the names and numbers of random people I meet on the street
once and never hear from again. But
despite regular discards of unused numbers, this women’s name was still saved
in speed dial. She laughed when she saw
it and said “Oh, you still have my number.
You should have just called me and asked for your money”
“I had
totally forgotten about it. Please don’t
feel like you have to pay me now”
“No,” she insisted, “It was like 250 ($40)”
As she
handed me the ‘outstanding debt’ we chatted a little more and realized that we
were practically neighbors living only a couple of blocks away. Getting paid lead to making plans to be in touch and hang out
some time.
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