So this post is just to help me recall a few memorable interactions that occurred in transit from Nepal to Palestine. There’s nothing interesting to see historically or architecturally or whatever. These days I guess I’m more interested in hearing stories about people. So this might only be interesting to me.
(Oh, also Merry Christmas from Bethlehem, where I’m sitting at the moment. Pretty surreal.)
I had an 11 hour layover in Delhi, where I met a Syrian guy at a coffee shop. He’s the founder/owner of an LED factory in China, (which is brilliant considering the growing demand for LEDs everywhere.) He met a Chinese woman, married her, and now they have 2 kids. She runs the factory, and he travels all over doing business. He has customers in Australia, Dubai, Greece- all over the world. He’s thinking about moving the factory to India because the labor is actually cheaper in India than China, and it’s a better location for shipping his products. We talked some about the crisis in Syria. His family is fortunate- most of them are in Athens, where they’ve been settled since the 1970’s. It sounds like he’s not going to back to Syria any time soon. His future revolves around making the best choices for his kids. Another reason he’s thinking about moving to India is there might be better english education for his kids there. Really nice guy- we started talking cause he needed to borrow my charger after Delhi airport security and staff screwed him over and made him miss his flights. Kind of the same shit that happened to Stover.
I flew from Delhi to Tashkent on Uzbekistan Airways… on a flight that was delayed over 2 hours…after we had boarded… at midnight. It was not a good experience. Truthfully, it’s probably the single worst travel experience I’ve ever had. I do not recommend taking the Delhi to Tashkent flight on Uzbekistan Airways. Lesson learned about cheap connections.
Thankfully, I was able to catch my connection from Tashkent to Tel Aviv, with only a few minutes to spare.
On the flight from Tashkent to Tel Aviv, I met a Filipino girl who spontaneously decided to travel to the Holy Land. Super religious, devout Catholic. She’s from a poor family; her father is a mechanic, and her mom takes care of the home. She’s the only one to finish high school and college, and is now the primary source of income for her family, including her parents, 6 brothers and 1 sister and a sister-in-law. And she’s only 21. She finished a degree in computer science with essentially no support, financially or otherwise from her family, (they didn’t attend any of her graduations even though she graduated with honors and near the top of her class in both high school and college.) Following college, she almost immediately got a job teaching english and c.sci at an international school in Thailand. This was her 3rd time on a plane. The first was her flight to Thailand for work. The second was Thailand to Uzbekistan. The third was Uzbekistan to Israel. She was incredibly excited about everything… just the experience of flying was something to be savored; meanwhile, I couldn’t wait to get the hell off the plane.
She believes that God will provide for her in every way. She literally had no plans on what to do when she got to Israel because she just believed- I suppose you could say she had faith- that God would provide or direct her plans. At least that’s how she explains it. In some ways I guess God does provide. The long story short is she had no transportation to the city from the airport, so I offered her a ride into Tel Aviv with Marianne and I, (’cause I knew Marianne would be cool with it.) The place she had booked to stay ended up canceling on her for some reason, so I ended up getting her an Airbnb place for a few nights. NBD. For me the cost is pretty negligible, I’ve spent more on food and booze in one night. When I wouldn’t take her money, she freaked out a little. She couldn’t stop thanking and praising the Lord, and sort of backed-up into a corner wouldn’t move for a while. Meanwhile Marianne and I were just sitting on the couch surfing. It was cute- she started calling us angels… (Later, Marianne joked that she might actually think we’re real angels)
From my perspective on angels and theology and all that stuff, I think her beliefs are pretty… fragile and problematic. However, that being said, she’s also just an incredibly joyful, thankful, and courageous person. More full of life than so many other “smart successful” people. So I guess maybe it can’t be all that bad? That kind of resilience, joy and optimism seems to be pretty rare and pretty special… I hope she had a good time in Israel.
Be First to Comment