Can You Hear Me Now?

I am going to end up marrying a Muslim Access cab driver. I am quite sure of this, as they seem to be the only men I meet and they ALL LOVE ME.

My mind has been spinning for the past 24 hours, so you’ll have to bear with me during this long entry. If you want. You don’t have to. But I hope you do.

Fascinating evening I had last night. I went to see Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire speak up at the University. He is a highly decorated war hero who served in Rwanda in 1993 as a UN Force Commander (apparently Nick Nolte’s character in Hotel Rwanda was loosely based on him). He has written a best-selling book, which is also a documentary, and in 2007 is being made into a feature film - “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda“. I bought the book when I arrived, hoping to meet him at the book signing afterwards, and it’s almost 600 friggin’ pages. Perhaps I will wait for the movie…

Anyway, I also had interesting Access drivers last night so I’ll talk about that first before I get into the Romeo stuff. The driver that took me to the university was a driver I have had a couple times before. He loveslovesloves me, especially my one dimple, and does not hesitate to tell me how beautiful, pretty, sweet etc. I am. He asked how I have been (I haven’t seen him for probably 6 months) and I said I was quite stressed these days with work. He said “pretty girls like you should never be stressed”. Heh. He asked if anyone was yet the proud keeper of my dimple, and I said no, I’m still single, and he siiiiiiighhhhed. Then he started talking about attraction and the “vibe” and what he likes in a woman, and I got a little uncomfortable (the feeling is far from mutual), so I tried to change the subject to talk about who I was going to see. Somehow religion came into it and upon learning he was Muslim (as 90% of the drivers are, it seems), I mentioned that I have a friend who is Muslim (AH) and have been learning bits and pieces about Islam and the culture, and how interesting it is (even if I don’t agree with it all and am not an organized-religion kind of person). He asked me, “has he given you a copy of the Qur’an?”. Hmmm. No, that had never even crossed my mind!

On the way home, I was driven by another Muslim. There was also a young developmentally disabled girl in the back seat he was driving home, and she was very restless and noisy. He told me he had been quoting from the Qur’an to her earlier and it seemed to calm her down, as he pointed to a book. I said “is that the Qur’an?” and he said yes, so I asked to look at it, but he said it is in Arabic. “Do you want to see an English one?” I said “sure, if you’ve got one” and he said “of course, I will give you one when I get you home”. I said “Give? As in GIVE? To keep?” and he said of course. I told him it was funny that I was getting one from him tonight, because I had mentioned to my driver earlier that I have a Muslim friend and he had asked if he has given me a copy of the Qur’an, and now here I am getting one. He said “oh, you have a Muslim friend? Does he pray? Because if he prays, he is an honest man and you can trust him”. I said as far as I know, he told me he attends prayer “when he has time” (which I bet isn’t very often, he’s not the most practicing of Muslims. Obviously, I have certainly been privy to some non-Muslim behaviour coming from him!) He shook his head in a “tsk, tsk” fashion and said “if he only prays when he has time, then he is only honest when he has time”. And I laughed my ass off, because, I tell you, that is probably the most perfect description of AH I have ever heard.

True to his word, when he dropped me off he gave me a copy of an English translated Qur’an and he made sure to put his name and phone number in the front of it as well. So now my reading list is really filling up, as is my list of Access drivers that like me. Not that I actually keep one, but if I did, it would be quite long. If only they all looked like AH!

Anyway, back to Romeo Dallaire. When I arrived at the theatre the line up was a mile long, up the stairs and through the student food court (so I was told… I didn’t actually go up the stairs to look). The lecture was sold out and the theatre accommodates over 1,000 people so you can imagine. And here I was expecting a couple hundred or something! Anyway, I went right to the front of the line and asked if I could sit at one of the spare chairs at the ticket-taking table by the door. No one argues with you when you have a cane and trouble walking, so I was seated right by the doors when they opened and snagged myself an awesome seat inside. Hee.

A nice man that was also alone (he was married, don’t think I didn’t get details!) asked to take the one empty seat beside me. He was really nice and chatty and asked me if I was also going to see Stephen Lewis when he is in town, or so and so, or if I had seen so and so or so and so. I told him I hadn’t really thought about it, because even attending this lecture was “out of my box”. I don’t attend a lot of these sorts of things, a few in my life maybe, although I would like to attend more. He asked me what my “box” is, and I said “live music!!”. That’s my box and I like it there, but expanding my horizons a little and learning and growing is important to me too. As long as it doesn’t interfere with a Polyjesters gig.

I had booked my Access ride to pick me up at 10:00 p.m. According to the organizer, doors opened at 7:30, Romeo started at 8:00, talked for an hour, then a book signing until 9:45. I figured 10:00 would give me plenty of time. HA! Over 1,000 people? I pretty much knew there was no chance in hell that I’d get my book signed, especially since it was already after 8:30 and he hadn’t started yet. The guy seated next to me saw Romeo over by the stage and said “give me your book! Do you have a pen?” Duh! Everyone knows I always carry a Sharpie in my purse for autograph opportunities. So he raced up and got my book signed for me just before Romeo hit the stage. How super cool! Good thing, too, because he talked until 9:55 p.m. and I had to race out just as they were opening the floor to the Q&A period, never mind whenever the book signing would start. I wish I could have stayed

The lecture was very interesting and thought provoking. He talked about the politics of war and genocide… what it is like to be in charge of protecting thousands of people, but having your hands tied because of the government and politics, and not being able to do anything about it. How 8 year old boys who have nothing and no hope for their future are being given guns and a few bucks and drugs and told “here, you want to make a difference in the world? Here is how you can be something…” and told to kill. They are so drugged up, and just children, that they don’t know what they are doing anyway. What do you do, when you are that General? There you are, in charge of protecting thousands of people, and all of a sudden gunfire starts coming at you and the people you are trying to protect. You look up and see a row of small children firing these rifles. What do you do? Do you kill children who kill? Do you kill children who don’t understand what they are doing??

He spoke about the human race in general. We are ALL human, and no human is more human than any other human. That the look in the eyes of the 4 year old boy in the middle of the road in Rwanda, put there so the convoys full of food, water and medical supplies would stop and then could be ambushed (and if the children didn’t stay in the middle of the road they would be killed, they were just used as tools), was the same look he saw in the eyes of his young son when he left for Rwanda. The look of a young human. That 3,000 people die in New York on 9/11 and the whole world freezes, but 900,000 people died in Rwanda (and over 2 million displaced) and no one cared. Why is it that some lives are considered more valuable than others? Why are the lives of the US soldiers fighting in Iraq more important than the thousands of innocent Iraqis dying by military intervention?

We are all a part of the human race. Whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, white, yellow, brown, green, whatever. We are made up of the same basic ingredients. Wouldn’t it be great if, for even ONE DAY, everyone minded their own business. If suicide bombers stayed home and politicians stayed home and everyone on the planet just minded their own business and didn’t worry about anyone else or what they are up to. What would that be like? (That was not something Romeo brought up… that was my chirporactor this morning).

Food for thought.

My mind is still spinning.