Monday, August 31, 2009

Just a little anecdote from my Hospital visit this morning

I have been suffering for a while now with very bad migraines and have to visit a kindly Doctor at the local Hospital. This Doctor is also a Psychiatrist and the waiting room is always full of some weird and strange characters who quite often want to engage in conversation with a foreigner , so I tend to keep my head down and try not to make eye contact with anyone until I am called into the surgery. Well today was just a little different as I had sat just one seat away from a very beautiful young Hindu mother and her small daughter. Eye contact was made but nothing said so I returned to my normal posture of I’m not here so don’t talk to me. Then I noticed in the corner of my eye a hand reaching out to touch my arm gently, I looked up and she stared straight into my eyes and said “what world do you come from” After I had stopped laughing, (which I think embarrassed her a little) and bearing in mind the section of the Hospital that I was in, I corrected her, saying that what she meant to say was “what part of the world do you come from” and telling her that I am from England. Her reply was on the lines of “Oh I do love the English”. Another little chuckle, as my mind worked overtime. Is that English people or the language I asked, she replied, realising what she had said and almost apologetically said “the language”. During our brief conversation she told me that she comes from a small village community and finds it very hard to learn English as she is not allowed access to English books and no one in her immediate surroundings speaks it at all. She was proud to tell me that her small daughter was a grade 1 student and English was part of her curriculum. I turned to the little girl and asked “how are you” and she replied in perfect English “ I am fine thank you” The look of sheer pride on her mothers face was a picture that I would have loved to have captured.
Another thing I discovered from this highly intellgent youg lady was that she was also suffering Migraine so there is two things we have in common

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