Those People...

There are those people you meet and a freight train couldn't have stopped your conversation (only if it ran one of you over). I went out with Amira, the belly dancer whose class I had taken earlier in the year for a drink after her one of her classes that I popped into... We traveled the world with our love of things Middle Eastern; our travels, our understand of how we're really all the same in the world - we want our children to succeed and someone to take care of our parents; we talked about how people living on a rich island have similiar problems to people other places; we chatted of belly dance, samba, speaking different languages, writing plays, the new Sergio Mendes/Black Eye Peas CD and how incredible it is, art, working for government, nonprofits and politics.

We talked about Dahab where my friends and I had visit on our way home from Peace Corps. (Pygmy called me when it the bombing had occurred and we talked about what a tragedy, not that they all aren’t, that is was. Dahab with the Greek families we met; Adam and Habib who worked at the hostel we stayed at – Dahab the place of dirty hippies and backpackers – oh just leave them alone! (I guess there’s a five star Hilton there now but there wasn’t then)). We were sad for Dahab. We talked about creating community; we talked about Bouake in the Ivory Coast where she had visited her cousins years before I was there in the Peace Corps. We talked about the market; we talked about how every place in the world there is something you are giving to compensate for the fact that the vender doesn't have change - in Bouake they gave you a 5 cent piece of candy. In the Ukrane it was gum, in Togo it's extra peanutbutter. We talked about how being a brunette worked better in some instances than being a blond (she’s a blond but has gradually become a brunette and how things have changed.) We talked of civilizations and really, what the hell happened.

How things have changed – how they’ve stayed the same.

It was wonderful. She said it was like meeting someone made of the same fabric, sharing similar experiences and you had been split in two – having so many things in common and sharing them at such different times. It was one of those evenings you go home celebrating.

And she’s a Seattleite to boot.