I met a gentleman named Emma (Emmanuel) who is from Uganda. He had just arrived in the USA to continue his college education and is staying with some friends. He is 29 years old, very intelligent and very interesting to talk with.
As you can imagine, his perspective is very different than ours. We are truly a blessed country and live with an embarrassing excess of nearly everything. We simply expect that electricity will be available all day, every day. We have some crazy luxuries like refrigeration. The concept of a freezer and having ice cream at home BLEW HIM AWAY! He loves ice cream and it is a very rare and expensive treat for him. Another “delicacy” is fried foods!
A friend and I took him for a short cross country (to breakfast) in a general aviation airplane. He flew in a Cessna 170 and was amazed. He had flown on the airlines once (coming to the USA) but had never experienced anything like this. He loved it and had a smile as wide as you can imagine.
One of the many interesting things we talked about is that we (Americans) do not come across as being very friendly. Emma shared that in Uganda, there is always someone to talk to. Walking down the street or standing in line, people just talk to one another. Here, he said; everyone looks so serious, angry, keeps their head down to avoid eye contact, and doesn’t say anything. I found this very sad but, I must admit, true. Alone in a crowd – I’ve been there many, many times.
After getting to know him a little bit, I actually felt bad. I’m afraid that he will go home in a few years fat, less healthy, and a changed person.
Hopefully he won’t pick up any of our bad habits.
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