I love talking to cab drivers. It’s rare to find one who’s not an immigrant and they can all tell such incredible tales of triumph over adversity — fleeing wretched home countries without a cent in their pockets, coming to a strange, foreign land where they spoke not a word of the language, and hard work. Lots of hard work just to survive.
Today we had cab drivers from India, Ethiopia, and Turkey.
This is Ishmael, the Turkish driver. He told us he came alone to Australia “in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was President.” He spoke no English and knew no one when he arrived.
When he left Turkey there were 120 people in his village. When he last went home, its population had dwindled to just thirty and he knew not one of them. “My family left for Italy, London, Ankara, Australia, everywhere. But no one stayed in our village.”
As you might imagine, he loves Australia because of the opportunities it provided him.
“I’m a rich man when I go back to Turkey,” he laughed.
So where do the immigrant cab drivers come from in India, Ethiopia, and Turkey?
So much good about this post. I really love it. Imagine the courage of this fella with literally nothing in his pocket, taking the leap to move to a place where the language is foreign, much less every custom of the day. And then creates opportunity. Unimaginable to some of us, but so admirable.
That said, the treat of the post is my very favorite opening line of a novel. Well done, sir.
Praise from a master is indeed gratifying.