I think one of the reasons that it has taken me so long to get to this part of my trip is that I have been anxious (in the sense of having some anxiety) about writing the next installment. Not because I can’t remember it or because it was so terrible I don’t want to remember it, but because I am worried about not being good enough to describe my next driver. I don’t know how many drivers I have had in the past 12 or so years, but John may have been the most amazing one of them all.
I have noticed these past few years that there is a certain rhythm to my travels. There are a handful of spots that no matter how well the rides are coming or how far each ride takes me, I usually end up standing at each year. The last stoplight on the east end of Medicine Hat is one of those spots. It is a busy location with two streams of traffic. There are those cars who appear to be passing straight through town and those that are turning onto the highway, coming out of the shopping malls. I have noted in other years that while it looks as if there are lots of cars heading east, in fact most of them are only going a few miles to the suburbs and therefore are not going to stop. There is a lot of room to stand on the side of the road. If I get bored I can watch the hundreds of grasshoppers play in the grass verge that separates the highway from the Holiday Inn and one of the many malls. If it gets dark, there is lots of room to sleep. I like being there but this time I don’t think I waited very long.
John’s car was a reasonably new car that was surprisingly clean inside considering how much time he spent in it. He was a good driver, not as fast as some I have travelled with, but consistent in his speed. I certainly felt safe with him. Ah but I am stalling again because I don’t know where to begin.
Some of John’s story I didn’t quite get. His English was not always clear, but I think he was coming back from a few days working with heavy machinery somewhere west of Medicine Hat. He was going as far as Brandon and that was just fine to me. I am also not too sure how old John was. I would guess he was somewhere in his early 30s. He had been in Canada for just over five years (I think) having immigrated from Kenya. But John had been born in the Sudan.
When he was around nine, some soldiers had come into his village and taken away his father and killed him. John joined the opposing army to fight those who had done this terrible and un-understandable deed. While he recognized that it had been terribly wrong to be have been recruited to kill others, I don’t think he felt bad or abused about having been a child solider. As he said, “what would you have done if someone had taken your father away and killed him?” John clearly didn’t want to talk about those experiences and I while I was desperately curious, I couldn’t ask him to relive those days. After spending what remained of his limited childhood in this army he moved to Kenya. I think it was some time later that his mother along with his two brothers and a sister followed him. I can’t imagine the courage it would take to start off life as a nine year old in some ragged guerilla army and then as an adolescent to wander to the next country and start life all over again without family or friends. I can’t imagine the moral fiber it would take to not be angry all of the time. But John wasn’t angry, as he told his story he smiled and laughed and was excited about his new life.
While in Kenya he started a business selling mango juice. Somehow he got a small press and a few cups and started to sell fresh mango juice to the people on the streets. One of the people who bought his juice was a little white girl, who with her friends, passed his little stall to and from the embassy school. But she frequently did not have any money so he kept a running tab. And this, if there can every be just one defining characteristic, was John’s. He is trusting and giving. He believes that people are good. Eventually the young girl’s father came by to find out why his daughter said she owed this stranger so much money. I suspect he assumed there was some sort of scam going on. When he heard the story he paid the bill.
Sometime later the father who was a Canadian working at the embassy suggested that he might want to think about immigrating to Canada. With his help, John made the application and was accepted as a refugee. If John had done nothing else in his life that was remarkable it would have been enough, but there is more.
John was presently working for a company in Medicine Hat working on large machines. He was supporting his mother and his youngest brother who was still in school in Kenya. He was also sending money to two other siblings who had somehow managed to get to Australia. He was also going to school so that he could get his grade 12. He needed high school diploma so that he could become an apprentice mechanic. I don’t know where he found the time, the energy or the commitment to do all of it. On top of the responsibilities he had assumed for his family he also acted as some sort of informal community facilitator for recent immigrants from the Sudan.
When we were approaching Regina he asked if I minded if he stopped and saw a friend “just for a few minutes”. Of course I said no. I appreciated the courtesy but after all it was his car. We stopped at an apartment where his two friends were living. They were gracious gentlemen who offered me a seat and something to drink. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life to sit there for 20 minutes listening to John and his friends talk in a language completely foreign to my ears. I was clearly the outsider. I was uncomfortable but I don’t think they were. In fact they ignored me completely. John told me that he dropped in on them whenever he could to make sure that they were doing all right and that they had both enough money and access to the services that they needed.
As we got back into the car he told me that he also wanted to see his cousin while he was in town. When I tried to find out how they were related, I got the sense that his definition of a cousin was much broader than mine would be. His cousin and her five year old daughter were as charming as the first two guys; offering me a comfortable seat and something to drink and then ignoring me. As they talked the little girl was getting her hair done in corn rows, ready for her first day at school. It was an interesting process to watch. I can’t imagine either of my kids or grandkids ever sitting down long enough for it to get done. I think the mother said that it would take four days to complete the whole process. Again virtually all of the conversation was in their native language and again I felt like the outsider. We stayed for about 20 minutes. As we were leaving the little girl reached up to touch my beard. I don’t think she had ever seen one before.
It is not often that people of my age, my colour, my sex and my height feel like an outsider. I am a tall white educated male. I am part of the elite. The people John visited that day did not intentionally isolate me or push me away. I certainly was not offended in any way. But it was a remarkable feeling to be in a room and know that not only did I not belong there, I was in almost every conceivable way superfluous to the situation.
As we were walking back to the car, John said he was hungry. We talked about food and diet. I would have loved to try some of his ethnic food. There was a restaurant that had good food from the Sudan but it would take hours for them to prepare a meal. So we went to a Chinese buffet instead. I was happy mainly because it felt as if I had not eaten for days, but also because I wanted to buy John supper. It wasn’t a great restaurant but it did the trick. My belly was full again. But John would not let me pay for supper. He insisted that he do it. The man was just one of those folks who feel compulsed to give.
For the rest of the trip our conversation ranged over all of the standard things. School (how hard it was to juggle work life and school work), finding bosses (he had a good one who he liked), and relationships (he had wife who did not live with him but did call him on his cell phone as we were driving). But we also talked about the languages he spoke, his dreams for the future and the pressures of being responsible for all of these people. It was a lovely journey across the Prairies. As we got close to Brandon I was sad that it was going to end. He offered me a bed in his motel room where he stayed but it was a warm night and I wanted to sleep outside. There is a great spot to sleep at the edge of town, and I wanted to be outside one more night. So we said good bye in the dark.
My life is enriched by all of my drivers. Almost without exception they share part of themselves with me through their stories and through their generosity. But John gave something else. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words how much I admire him, how much I respect his courage, his humanity, his sense of responsibility for others, his capacity to find joy and perhaps most of all his capacity to forgive and to move forward. He could teach us all a few lessons about how to live.
