The 22 Project: NYC - episode 9

Last Tuesday (going into Wednesday) I was at the office until 1AM working on a project.  Worst day ever.  So at 1AM on a weekday, I felt pretty uncomfortable taking the hour-long train ride home, not to mention the half mile walk once I got there (which feels like 5 miles in the dark).  Then, a cab ride from the bottom of the island to the top of the island is no cheap thrill.  So I did something I wasn't supposed to... and I called for a company car.

Maybe I'd been watching too much Ugly Betty, where all the employees get to use a car if they're in the office past a certain hour, but I didn't expect too much trouble from it.  (I got in a little trouble, but that's not the point either.)

All this is to say, that's how I met Mohammed.  Try to contain your amusement at the happily fed stereotype here, but yes, Mohammed was the driver.  Really nice guy!  He moved here nearly 40 years ago from Bangladesh.  If you don't know, that's one of the little countries dividing India and China – I imagine there's some tension there – right on the edge of when Middle East becomes plain ole' East.  (Afghanistan is the "tan" on the very left edge of this photo, if that gives any more perspective at all.)

Mohammed my driver lives in Queens now, but he's been all over the world!  He was telling me about his time in Europe, and Africa, and how it gets surprisingly cold in some parts of Africa (which of course it does, but we Americans picture hot desert land, because that's what we've been shown).  And like so many other immigrants from the Middle East, he had a much higher status in his home.  He's an American citizen now, but that doesn't change the way his career went.  He came over to work in communications, but that was pretty short lived.

Much of his family is still in Bangladesh.  Sometimes his mother visits for a few months, and sometimes he takes the family he's raised and they visit Bangladesh.

It's impossible for me to capture everything we talked about here, mainly because I didn't take any notes, but I do know that he and all the people like him have had an incredible impact on the way I see the world.  It's so easy to forget that it's round, if you know what I mean.  No place is ultimately more important than another – Africa is enormous, and the United States is actually quite modest in size.  (There's a joke here.  Think, think... aha!  "The size of the USA is a lot like the average white guy's junk: nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing to brag about either."  And draw some parallels between America and average white guys, etc.  Perfect.  Back to Mohammed.)

People from other countries both inspire and frighten me.  On one hand, it's so great to think that you can up and move to another place in the world, and you'll be okay.  You'll make it.  It's scary, though, to think that you may never live up to the potential that you would have in your home.  Which do you choose?