Acquaintences:

[from May 6th, 2008]

*Abubakar from Sierra Leone – we had a conversation in charades because we have no languages in common. That was really enjoyable. He lives 3 doors down. I think I see a blooming friendship on the horizon.
*William from Scotland – works for the WTO, interesting chap.
*The Crazy Moroccan Guy – he has a dog living with him. I struck up a conversation with him and his extremely broken English. He said he doesn’t like Americans. He followed to ask me what kinds of people I think are the best in world. I said that everything has something to offer. He asked who I was most familiar with, which I responded to with “the Jews and the Muslims,” because I’m studying them in University.

Should I continue this in dialogue form? Nah, I’ll continue with storybook style. “I don’t like the Jews,” he said promptly. “Yeah?” I responded, then calmly said, “well I’m a Jew.” “Oh, I don’t like Israelis.” “Why is that?” I asked him. “Because they are committing a Holocaust on the Palestinians. Gaza is a concentration camp.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “My grandfather was in Auschwitz.” “You should know then. Gaza is a gas chamber.” “Yeah, have you seen it?” From there I began to talk about irresponsible Hamas leadership, but since his English is far more broken than I make it out to look, I walked away.

The end of this story is I saw him walking around later. He was turned around, and I said “Masah Halcher” (a traditional Arabic greeting of good evening) to which he responded enthisiastically with a big smile. Is there a true friendship blooming here? To find out, you’ll have to tune in to next edition.




No, no true friendship…but I’m pretty sure that prevented me from being chopped up in my sleep.

By the way, i will supply you with pictures once i am able to get them off my camera. Got some good ones. I'll use topical ones in here and put the rest on facebook.