Monday, May 21, 2007

Day 92: The World on one table

First of all, a big sorry to Vic and Vlad for missing their comments. I've checked an option /without knowing/ preventing comments to be published on the blog immediately. I removed it and expect your new remarks.

No images today, just an interesting story.

A new colleague arrived. He is from Uruguay, South America. He is going to work over some HTML stuff and study the coding practices at Tam Tam. Bosses asked me if he could stay at home ... "because I live very close to the office and I can help him get into the company more quickly". I said "Ok, why not see a man coming from so far away"and told them he could stay for a few days until my mom comes.

Diego came on Sunday evening and I took him to the center of Delft to feel the town and eat something. There are not many places opened late on Sunday and we had to try donners/дюнери/. While waiting for the meal I examined the collection of bank-notes hanging on the wall. Most of them were from The Middle East and /since you know my interest in the Orient/ I couldn't resist to ask the "barman" "where are you from". He answered Syria. Oh, really. There was another young boy helping the old one who happened to be from Morroco. As far as I could understand from him, his grandfather had come in Holland after World War II. Then Europe needed a lot of lowly paid workers and many people immigrated from Turkey and Morocco. The boy was born in Holland and smiled at my question "Do you study or work here?".

You can see that on the table sit 4 men from 4 different continents: one from Syria/Asia, the other from Morocco/Africa, Diego from Uruguay/South America and me from Bulgaria/Europe.

In a minute an interesting conversation began between me and the Syrian. Let's call him Abu Kir :)) like that character, the shoe maker, in Scheherazade's stories:

Lubo: "Do you know, I have a friend in Syria?"

Abu Kir: "Oh? Where is he from?"

Lubo: "From the northeast part, from Kamishly"

Abu Kir: "Hahaha. I'm from Kamishly. What's his name?" - he asked as if he knew all the people there.

Lubo: "Lazgin Halil Djamil"

Abu Kir: "Ah. He's not Arab, he is Kurd."

Lubo: "Yes, he is." - I said trying to look in a way that I understood the difference between Arabs and Kurds.

Lazgin was a friend of my aunt. They studied in Sofia and I remember him from The Students' Town but I haven't seen him for 17 years.

Lubo: "Lazgin learned me to count to ten in Kurdish: Ek, do, se, char, pench, shash, haf, hash, nah, dah."

Abu Kir: "Ye, Ye, this is my language. Wait. I'll ask for him."

He took out his GSM and called a woman who "knew everyone who had studied in Bulgaria". /... and why I'm making all these databases :)), people don't need them/
After a five minutes talk /djubala, djabala :))/ Abu Kir said:

Abu Kir: "He studied for an architect!"

Lubo: "Yes!" - Lazgin really studied with my aunt in VIAS. Then I understood that Abu Kir was talking seriously and he knew my friend :))

"Low"
. I couldn't believe that in this forgotten from the world town of Delft, I would see a man coming from 4000 kilometers and he would know Lazgin.

No comment.

...

As a friend of mine said: "The World is already small. It's time to carry up/да се изнасяме/ to the Moon!"

:-)

5 comments:

Victoria Williams said...

Amazing story. Is a GSM a cell/mobile phone? How did Diego like the Netherlands?

Lubo van Plovdiv said...

Hello Kim&Victoria :) Yes, we call GSM a mobile phone. I think Diego doesn't like Holland, he constantly says "Hm, this is a kind of weird" :) while looking at people-less cities and closed shops :) I'll ask him.

Victoria Williams said...

So what does GSM stand for? We're considering visiting Holland a couple years from now. I can't imagine not liking it. See if Diego will be more specific for these possible travelers from Idaho!

Lubo van Plovdiv said...

Ok Vic, I see you are quite interested in mobile technologies, here is a link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM

Anonymous said...

awesome blog, do you have twitter or facebook? i will bookmark this page thanks. jasmin holzbauer