Afghani

I had a little conversation with a cab driver last night and it really pulled me down to earth - I thought I'd share it.

On the way from my hotel to a night out I got in a cab with a driver from Afghanistan. He started by asking me where I'm from, what I do, etc, etc.. usual cab talk here. He spoke good Hindi and my Hindi isn't the greatest in the world, I think I am more shy to speak it than anything else, even though I understand it perfectly well. Anyway, he then said your Hindi isn't bad considering you have grown up in Southern India and then lived in the U.S. for some time.

I guess he had some things to get out of his system or something.. cos he then asked me "why when Indians go to the U.S. they forget their mother tongues? Russian is never forgotten, Chinese is never forgotten, Japanese is never forgotten etc, but the Indian always thinks his language is not 'cool' enough to remember". He said I was a good example though, cos I still remember my languages.

Then came the sad part.. he asked me if I'd ever heard of Afghanistan.. I said of course and that I wanted to visit it someday because I heard it is very beautiful, but am almost scared to go there. He then started to talk about his children who are still in Afghanistan (somewhere near Kabul) because he can't afford to bring them to Dubai. He has 2 sons, one 10 and one 7 and he is trying to get them both through school. Apparently the 7 year old has been telling him that he doesn't want to study anymore, but wants to train in arms so that some day he can join 'a famous militia'. A 7 year old kid wanting to give up his books and toys for guns. The cab driver got a little teary eyed and said "what kind of society do we live in where little children are encouraged by their peers to take up guns instead of studies?"

The cab driver said he saves as much money as he can so that he can put his sons through school - a school that costs him AED 150 per month ($41) per child. He also said that there is a school that costs AED 2,500 per month ($680!!) per child. He would really like to put his children in that school, but can't afford it.

Hearing his story made me realize how lucky some of us are and how we more than often take it for granted.